VIDEO Shaquille O’Neal announces retirement on Twitter

After a stellar 18-year NBA career that included four NBA championships and a league MVP award in 2000, Shaquille O’Neal is retiring from basketball. The 7ft 1in goliath went out 21st Century style with a tweet and video link. Here’s his rather succinct tweet followed by the matching fanfareless clip:

im retiring Video: http://bit.ly/kvLtE3 #ShaqRetires

Here’s the transcript of the announcement:

We did it. 19 years, baby! I wanna thank you very much. That’s why I’m telling you first – I’m about to retire. Love ya. Talk to ya soon.

That was followed in typical Shaq style with some more humorous clips from the big man asking for a new post-retirement nickname. He claims to have received over 50,000 suggestions with the best so far being “The Big 401k.”

To offer up your nickname suggestions just tweet ’em with the hash tag #shaqname

And just in case you thought Shaquille was just a pretty good rap star who once had a feud with Kobe Bryant, here are some of his amazing Hall of Fame worthy accomplishments:

• 4 NBA championships
• 1999–00 MVP award
• 1992–93 NBA Rookie of the Year award
• 15 All-Star game selections
• 3 All-Star Game MVP awards
• 3 Finals MVP awards
• 2 scoring titles
• 14 All-NBA team selections
• 3 NBA All-Defensive Team selections
• One of only three players to win NBA MVP, All-Star game MVP and Finals MVP awards in the same year (2000)