Some of you might have seen the story last month about Shaq posing for pictures after riding in the Honda Prelude of an adoring fan. Well, AZGopherGirl passes along an item from AZCentral.com’s Dan Bickley, who tracked down Randon Dong — the lucky fan — for more about the experience. After reading this, how can you not love Shaq?

But if you want a truly random encounter, you have to go back about 24 hours.

That was the day Randon Dong, 21, and his girlfriend decided to do some shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square. Both a Suns fan and a car enthusiast, Dong had seen the humongous, tricked-out truck O’Neal had driven to his first game in Phoenix.

Now he was seeing it again, pulling into a parking spot ahead, and the couple eagerly followed in search of an autograph.

“We got out of our car first, but he sat in his car for a while,” said Dong, a senior at Arizona State University. “I thought maybe we blew it, that maybe he saw us and was waiting for us to leave.”

But then, O’Neal climbed down out of the truck. Dong asked to take a picture. O’Neal consented, but with a twist.

“He said, ‘Yeah, you can get a picture if I can have a ride in your car,’ ” Dong said. “I’m like, ‘What?’ ”

There is a perfectly logical explanation.

O’Neal: “What happened was, that big (expletive) truck of mine? I was going to meet my wife to eat, and I couldn’t park it (by the restaurant). It was too big. So I had to park it across the street. And it was hot. And the guy was like, ‘Hey, can I get an autograph?’

“I said, ‘Well, you get my autograph, you’re going to have to take me to the restaurant.’ “

Love it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.