I'm slightly embarrassed to live in a country that was once represented by Jermaine O'Neal.

If you could ask only one question of Jermaine O’Neal, what would it be?

Would you ask him how his career fell apart so suddenly?  How it was that he transformed from an All-Star one minute to a bum the next?

Would you ask him, instead, what it was like to be a big part of the Palace Brawl?  To see a team with championship aspirations torn apart by suspensions and backlash?  What it felt like to land one of the flushest punches in recent history, to completely obliterate some poor schmo who looked like Entourage’s Turtle?

Would one of those questions be your choice? I hope not.

While those are all questions you’d have to seriously consider, there’s only one choice you can make:

“Uhh, Jermaine, bro, your last name is O’Neal. Are you Irish, bro?”

And his answer would go a little something like this: (South Florida Sun Sentinel)

“You know what, I get that question all the time,” he said. “I probably should do some research on that. Not that I know of. That’s a good question.

“I’ve gotten a lot of questions on that, in my 14 years in the league, whether I was Irish or not. I don’t know.”

The reporter who asked the genius question, Ira Winderman, then asked a follow-up question that should never be considered if you could only ask one.

So does he favor corned beef and cabbage?

“Uh, no I don’t.”

So, to recap: Jermaine O’Neal may or may not be Irish, but he most definitely does not eat corned beef and cabbage. Consider yourself enlightened.

But don’t consider yourself done deciding who’s Irish.  Next up for the most important question ever?  Patrick O’Bryant.