This morning both Shaunie O'Neal, the wife of Miami Heat Superstar C Shaquille O'Neal, and Vanessa Bryant, the wife of Los Angeles Superstar G Kobe Bryant, gave birth to little girls. Is it just chance that the two players most often linked to each other (yes, even more than the struggling trinity of LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dwayne Wade) both became fathers to new daughters on the same morning?

Making the situation even freakier, Mearah Sanaa O'Neal was born a mere six minutes before Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant. This can't be a coincidence, can it?

Is Kobe so caught up in this anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better rivalry that he is trying to out-populate his former teammate and current adversary? Did he have spies providing him information about the exact time of Shaunie's pregnancy? Or have the O'Neals just been popping out kids at such an incredible Mormon-like rate that something along these lines was bound to happen? Shawn Kemp may have had seventeen (last time I checked) kids, but to my knowledge he never had six with one woman. At this rate Shaq may be able to have his own starting five (both NBA and WNBA) when the impregnating is all said and done.

I think he should give himself a new nickname--the Big Fertile.

The best thing about Shaq's fatherhood is the creative names that he has been giving his children. The O'Neal children are named Amirah, Mearah, Myles, Shaqir, Shareef and Taahirah. When Myles (check the spelling) is your most traditionally named child, you are getting creative. He may not be getting Coco (the child of actors Courtney Cox-Arquette and David Arquette) or Apple (the child of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin) creative, but what he lacks in substance he makes up with in spelling.

Kobe may have him beat on the basketball court right now, but the babymaking (and naming) contest is currently being dominated by Shaq.