The name Baby Shaq has probably been given to a lot of big men after Shaquille O’Neal, but it all started with Eddy Curry.
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The NBA had another Curry well before Dell Curry’s sons came into the league in and after 2009. This 6ft 11′ big man was one of the best high-school recruits of all time.
The Illinois native, Eddy Curry, led his high school team to a second-place finish in the 2001 state championship and became “Illinois Mr. Basketball” and also won the McDonald’s All-American MVP award.
That led the 19-year-old to declare himself for the NBA Draft, which might have been the worst mistake of his life. Coming in as the 4th pick in the draft behind 4 big men, Curry found himself picked up by the Chicago Bulls who had already drafted Tyson Chandler as their #2 pick.
Still, in his 4-years playing mostly behind Chandler, he averaged around 12 points, 5.5 rebounds, and a block a game. But then found himself in a trade to the New York Knicks, which started most of the problems in his basketball career and quite probably brought an end to it.
Eddy Curry a.k.a., “Baby Shaq” reveals the code Knicks players used to use to cheat on their wives/girl-friends
There were many other things going on within the Knicks organization or all the NBA franchises at the time which led to “Baby Shaq” seeing his career end way too earlier than it should have.
His averages of 15.2 points, 5.8 rebounds and 0.6 blocks were decent seeing his weight gain within a couple of years after coming to New York. Apart from partying all the time and living their life to the fullest like there is no tomorrow, Curry’s teammates even had set up a proper way to have extra-marital affairs.
“The stories in Chicago were funny, but they’re pretty harmless,” Curry said. “The stories in New York? That might break up somebody’s home. I can tell they had Philippe Chao and Mr. Chow’s. I’m thinking, it’s the same food and if you’re on this side of town, you go here. If you’re by the Financial District, you go to the other one.”
Eddy continued, “One night a teammate of mine was there,” Curry said. “He told me, ‘It’s cool tonight, but from now on, we bring our work to Philippe and your wife to Mr. Chow.’ I was at Philippe with my wife. He was like, ‘It’s cool now, but from now on, if you ever find yourself about to come here, you call people and let them know, so they don’t come here with their girlfriends.’ That was the craziest thing to me. It’s really like a code or a method to cheating.”
Many notable stars like Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire, Chauncey Billups, JR Smith, Jalen Rose, Matt Barnes and several others played for the Knicks in that period. Curry not taking any names might cause problems for those who still are with their partners from 10-15 years back.
