With pro basketball in the rearview mirror for the former NBA stars, CNBC asked about America’s hottest new sport: pickleball. “I think we’ll stick with the basketball court,” Mourning said with a laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, but it is more designed for an older generation.” O’Neal expressed more interest: “I’m actually looking at investing in a team. I’m still thinking about it,” he said. O’Neal said his son came to him recently with the investment idea. Pickleball has seen explosive growth in both participants and investment money, including from basketball stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant and team owners Mark Cuban and Wes Edens. “I had a chance to play it a couple of times, you know, so it’s pretty entertaining. You can get an incredible workout and you know, so I like it. I really do,” said Mourning.
Alonzo Mourning Rumors
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Alonzo Mourning
Position: -
Born: 02/08/70
Height: 6-10 / 2.08
Weight:261 lbs. / 118.4 kg.
Earnings: $143,906,333 ($249,354,324*)
Born: 02/08/70
Height: 6-10 / 2.08
Weight:261 lbs. / 118.4 kg.
Earnings: $143,906,333 ($249,354,324*)
NBA champions Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning are reuniting to give fans reason to cheer again in Miami. The former Heat centers, who brought Miami a 2006 NBA Championship, are teaming up to refurbish a basketball court as part of a $20 million renovation at a youth center in South Beach. The project is funded by the Shaquille O’Neal Foundation and its long-time partner Icy Hot, as part of their Comebaq Courts program that fixes up rundown courts.
O’Neal and Mourning also shared their thoughts on the state of the NBA. Mourning praised NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for doing “an incredible job,” and joked that he wished he were playing today, a nod to bigger contacts and endorsement money. “The pie is extremely big from these TV contracts and the players are reaping the benefits. So yeah, the game is in a good place,” Mourning said.
Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson: NBA practice altercations are common place. Kenyon Martin told me about the time he & Alonzo Mourning got into an argument. Mourning to Martin: “You can’t be a leader in the trainer’s room crying, ‘My ankle, my ankle.” Martin to Mourning: “My kidney, my kidney.”
Tim Hardaway will be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, validating a 15-year career highlighted by his stints with the Golden State Warriors as a member of the famed Run-TMC stable or the Miami Heat. The Heat retired Hardaway’s No. 10, where he did his best work as an NBA hooper, earning three All-NBA nods and two All-Star selections. Despite his personal and team success in South Beach, Hardaway decided not to ask former Coach Pat Riley or Alonzo Mourning to be his presenters at this Saturday’s Hall of Fame ceremony. That honor will instead go to the figures that fostered his love for the game from before his time in Miami teaming up with Mourning and Riley.
