<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">He has called Erick Dampier "soft" more than once. He has compared his own poor playoff performances to the Dallas center's customary production. He has suggested Dampier could be dominant ... in the WNBA. Yet this week, before facing Dampier for the first time in an NBA Finals, Shaquille O'Neal said something truly shocking: "He's done a lot to help his team get to this point." What? Has O'Neal gone soft? "This ain't an Erick Dampier vs. Shaq thing," O'Neal said. "I said some things, that's what I do. I'm a jokester, but we're not going to base this series on that. This is going to be a nice, classy series." O'Neal even gave credit to Dampier's backup, DeSagana Diop (pronounced Jop), observing that "the Diop-ster has been playing pretty good." Dwyane Wade and Gary Payton skipped Monday's practice with the flu and a migraine, respectively. Someone ought to take O'Neal's temperature. The Big Needler has been oddly kind since putting Nets forward Jason Collins in the "flopternity" of cowardly big men a couple of weeks ago. O'Neal expressed only respect for the Pistons. Wade handled mocking honors, calling out Richard Hamilton for "junior high" defensive tactics. Now O'Neal is laying off Dampier, who got his attention during the 2004-05 season by declaring himself the second greatest center to O'Neal. (Imagine if he'd put himself first ...) The love is unlikely to last. O'Neal has saved his prime mocking material for NBA Finals podiums. In 2001, he challenged flopping 76ers center Dikembe Mutombo: "Treat me like a game of checkers and play me. Just treat me like a Sega, and play me." After Dampier's first flop, hard foul or foolish boast, expect an O'Neal barb. How will Dampier respond? During last postseason, O'Neal described his struggle with a bruised thigh this way: "I felt like Erick Dampier, and that stinks." This October, Dampier joked O'Neal must be "jealous," saying he couldn't understand why a "a player as good as he is" would focus on a center in the opposite conference during the playoffs. Players acknowledge a code against criticizing competitors. Even Payton, a legendary trashtalker, is reluctant to create such friction: "I might do it on the court, but talking about them in the paper doesn't do anything for me. Because I know I am going to see them in the street, and they're going to say, `Hey, Gary, how ya doin?' And I'll be like, `Why did I say that about you?'" O'Neal has long been exempt from any code, and unconcerned about consequence.</div> Source
