Nowitzki scored his 19 points on 8-for-11 shooting and also had five rebounds, three assists, two blocks and one steal. Kris Humphries, Drew Gooden and Rodrigue Beaubois were also in double figures for the Mavs.

The LeBron-less Cavs were led by Jamario Moon’s 18 points, ten rebounds and three assists. Jawad Williams had 13, Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 12 and Darnell Jackson had 10 for Cleveland. With the loss, the Cavs dropped to 3-3 in exhibition play.

While LeBron has recently been sick, that wasn’t the reason why he missed the game. Cleveland’s top three stars sat out due to this game being a back-to-back affair.

Dirk Nowitzki - Dallas Mavericks (Image: Zuma Press)

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Dirk Nowitzki Leads Mavs Over Cavs

Earlier in the offseason, the Hawks signed Joe Smith to add more size to their team. Collins is further insurance at the bigman positions.

After playing with the New Jersey Nets for the first six and a half years of his career, Collins has split the last one nd a half years with the Memphis Grizzlies and the Minnesota Timberwolves. Last season with the T’Wolves, the 7-footer out of Stanford averaged 1.8 points and 2.3 rebounds in 13.6 minutes per contest.

While Collins isn’t a very good scorer or a very good rebounder, he’s a fantastic post defender. When defending against the bigger and stronger players in the league, there are few defenders as effective as Collins. With the Hawks, Collins will be helpful in certain matchups — namely against Dwight Howard and Shaquille O’Neal.

Jason Collins signed by the Atlanta Hawks (Image: Zuma Press)

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Jason Collins Heading to Atlanta

Shaquille O'Neal - Image: JR Davis via Newscom

Below you can see Shaq boxing it up with Oscar De La Hoya for an episode that will air on ABC September 8th. The week after, he’ll try to outswim lazy pothead Michael Phelps and then after that: unknown. I guess ABC wants to make sure the show doesn’t tank before ordering more episodes.

Still, if the thing doesn’t end up immediately banished to whatever hell contains Shaq-Fu and Kazaam, there’s a very good chance Shaq will do something MMA related on there. He’s been dicking around with training for a while and my bet is that his recent ‘call out’ of Brock Lesnar was an attempt to rope him onto the show.

But until he finds someone in the UFC willing to take on one of his rigged challenges, we’ll just have to settle with UFC commentator Mike Goldberg being on the show. He’s the co-host of Shaq VS, and yes! He does repeat half the same lines from UFC shows. It’s kinda surreal.

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Shaq beats on Oscar de la Hoya

Shaquille O'Neal - Image: JR Davis / Newscom

Here’s what Dana White had to say on the subject during an segment on the Dan Le Batard show: “Shaq’s pretty serious, Shaq text messages me all the time and is twittering me all the time saying … he wants to fight Brock is what he says. And I said go win your next NBA championship because he’s gonna win one next year and then we’ll talk. You know he’s been training for 10 years.”

When asked about the potential weight problems – Shaq is 325 pounds while the heavyweight cutoff is 265 pounds – White responded that a fight at super heavyweight might be the way to go before reminding Dan that Brock used to be billed up around that weight before coming to the UFC and getting in hardcore fighter shape.

For those wondering if Shaq is ‘for real’, all I can tell you is he has indeed been training mixed martial arts for years and uses it during the off season to stay fit. Now we just have to wonder if his takedown defense is better than his three pointer skills.

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Shaq wants to fight in the UFC

In return for Shaq, the Phoenix Suns received Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, cash and a second round pick in next year’s draft. The Suns did the deal for financial reasons as Pavlovic has an unguaranteed contract and Wallace is said to be leaning toward retirement.

The 37-year-old O’Neal is coming off of a very good season. He averaged 17.8 points, 8.4 rebounds, 1.4 blocks and 1.7 assists per game. He shot 60.9% from the field and 59.5% from the line.

The Cavs need Shaq to give LeBron some help. In the Eastern Conference Finals against the Orlando Magic, the Cavs struggled to find offensive options. They also struggled to defend the rim. Shaq should help in both regards.

Marketing-wise, this is a dream for Cleveland and the NBA.

Shaq and Lebron (Image: Zuma Press)

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Shaquille O’Neal Traded to the Cavs

Does Kobe need to win an NBA Championship in order to get out of the ominous shadow that is Shaquille O’Neal?

Kobe has to win a championship with out Shaq in order to get the monkey off his back.

Kobe Bryant is sick of answering the question, sick of hearing it. He’s so fed up, in fact, that he got a little spiteful this time around when he was asked about his legacy without Shaq:

“People think Shaq would have won a championship without me on that team? They’re crazy.”

Oh, snap.

Unfortunately for Kobe (and every other major superstar in professional sports) the media likes to jump onto certain, contemplative bandwagon questions and drive them into the ground. And this is the latest one.

It doesn’t matter how Kobe chooses to answer it anymore. The only way he can make it go away is by winning an NBA Championship without Shaq.

Of course, after that he’ll have to answer another burning question. “Does Kobe have to win more the six championship rings in order to finally get out of Jordan’s shadow?”

One question at a time, please.

Photo: Zuma

Post from: EveryJoe

Shaq, The Monkey On Kobe’s Back

Personally, Twitter I think Twitter is pretty lame. It’s basically blogging for people who don’t like typing a lot. But that said, reading Shaq’s Twitter page is a must.

And as you can see in this story about Shaq meeting Twitter friends, reading his page can lead to hilarity. Thankfully, the Twitterers are also bloggers so we got a recap of the events.

Even though Shaq doesn’t come across as the most likely person in the world to be on the internet, he actually does a good job keeping his Twitter updated. Follow Shaq on Twitter and you too may be able to meet him and then blog about it.

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Twitterers Meet Shaq – Hilarious Story

In this Shaq video, you get to see Shaq dance with the JabbaWockeeZ. The Shaq and JabbaWockeeZ dance video can be seen below.

If it weren’t for his gargantuan size, it’d be tough to tell the difference between Shaq and a member of the JabbaWockeeZ. He pulled off his dance skit at the 2009 NBA All-Star Game rather well. He gave his home fans an All-Star introduction they won’t soon forget.

Here is the video of Shaq dancing with the JabbaWockeeZ.

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Shaq and JabbaWockeeZ Dance Video – All-Star

This guy has a lot of side jobs (rapper, jockey, actor, police officer). Maybe he needs to stick to just one. Check out the video below of Shaq’s freestyle rap at a club and new dis of the 2008 NBA MVP.

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VIDEO – Shaq disses Kobe in new rap song

During the Belmont Stakes, all eyes were on Big Brown as he was trying to complete the Triple Crown. However, Big Brown wasn’t so big after all as the horse finished in last place.

There is no truth to the rumor that the reason that Big Brown was so slow was due to Shaq being the replacement jockey. Although I’m don’t think even Shaq as a jockey could have done much worse than last place on the highly favored horse.

Here is the video of the Shaq AKA The Big Jockey:

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Shaq as a Jockey at the Belmont Stakes – Video