Cavs Get Shaq
As anticipated, the Cleveland Cavaliers – hoping to rebound next season from an embarrassing, early exit from the NBA playoffs – have signed the aging, ailing Shaquille O’Neal, ESPN reports. The network first reported the Cavs interest in the seven-footer four months ago. Many experts picked Cleveland, behind the engine known as LeBron James, to win the NBA championship this year. But Cleveland offered little resistance to Orlando’s Dwight Howard in the middle. Shaq, 37, showed that he still has something left in the tank, finishing the most recent season averaging 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds in 75 games with the Suns. He hadn’t played in that many games since the 1999-2000 season.
Holyfield’s Huge Home About to Go on the Block
Former Heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield’s sprawling Georgia estate is back under foreclosure, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday. Unless Holyfield is able to come up with enough to pay off what he owes on the original $10 million loan by July 7, he will lose the 109-room Fairburn mansion. That’s when an auction is scheduled on the steps of the Fayette County Courthouse. Holyfield, 46, has earned more than $248 million in the ring, “but two divorces, several failed business ventures and child support payments believed to total $500,000 annually have taken a toll on his financial well-being,” writes the Journal-Constitution. A father of 11, Holyfield hasn’t stepped in the ring since December, when he was pummeled by WBA champion Nikolai Valuev in Switzerland. The last time he got a real payday was six years ago, when he got $5 million to fight James Toney. He told reporters a year ago that “I’m not broke. I’m just not liquid.” The estate, which has its own bowling alley and movie theater, is worth an estimated $20 million, and according to Holyfield it costs more than $1 million annually just to maintain. “To attack that house in any way, or suggest he get rid of it … that’s just not going to fly with him,” Holyfield’s former accountant Sam Gainer said last June. “That’s his trophy, his symbol of success.”
