July 14, 200422 yr HEAT Signs O?Neal MIAMI, July 14 ? The Miami HEAT announced today that they have acquired 11-time All-Star center Shaquille O?Neal from the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Caron Butler, Brian Grant, Lamar Odom and a future first-round draft pick. ?Today the Miami HEAT took a giant step forward in our continued pursuit of an NBA championship for the city of Miami and this franchise,? said HEAT President Pat Riley. ?It has always been about winning for us and trying to win championships. We feel that we have traded for the best player in the NBA. I feel tremendous sadness and a debt of gratitude to Brian, Lamar and Caron because these were men who really bought into our team and our organization and the city of Miami. It disheartens me to see them leave and I thank them for their many contributions to the HEAT and wish them nothing but the best. However you don?t get many chances to acquire the best player in the league and this was a trade I felt we had to make.? O?Neal, a three-time NBA Champion, has averaged 27.1 points, 12.1 rebounds, 2.9 assists and 2.6 blocks per game over the course of his 12-year NBA career. He is a two-time regular season scoring champion and has led the league in field goal percentage seven times, including last season when he connected on 58.4 percent of his attempts. He ranks first among active NBA players in field goal percentage (.577) and scoring average (27.1 ppg), and third and fourth, respectively, on the NBA?s all-time list. He is also second among active players in blocked shots (2,102). He is tied with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and Wilt Chamberlain for the most seasons of averaging 20+ points and 10+ rebounds. The group has each done it 12 times, with O?Neal being the only one to do it in every season in which he has played. In the playoffs, O?Neal has averaged 27.2 points, 12.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.4 blocks in 158 games. O?Neal was named one of the league?s 50 Greatest Players in NBA History and has been an All-NBA Team selection for the past 11 seasons, including being named to the All-NBA First Team for the last five years. In his twelve NBA seasons, he was named the league?s Most Valuable Player once, the NBA Finals MVP on three occasions and the NBA All-Star Game MVP twice. He is one of only three players in NBA history to win MVP honors in the regular season, All-Star Game and the Finals in the same year. He is a two-time NBA All-Defensive Second Team selection and was also given the IBM Award for all-around contribution to a team?s success twice. He has garnered NBA Player of the Week honors 18 times and NBA Player of the Month honors 11 times. O?Neal spent the last eight seasons as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, where he helped lead the club to four NBA Finals appearances and three NBA Championships. As a Laker, O?Neal averaged 24.2 points, 10.4 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 2.2 blocks in 514 regular season games. He also averaged 29.1 points, 13.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 2.5 blocks in 100 playoff games with the Lakers. Originally drafted by the Orlando Magic with the first pick in the 1992 NBA Draft, O?Neal spent four seasons with the Magic. As a member of the club, he averaged 27.2 points, 12.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 2.8 blocks in 295 games. He was named NBA Rookie of the Year after averaging 23.4 points, 13.9 rebounds and 3.5 blocks per game during his inaugural season and was also named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. O?Neal has also found success while representing his country. He was a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. Olympic team in 1996 as well as a member of the gold-medal winning U.S. World Championship team in 1994. Caron Butler was selected by the HEAT with the 10th pick in the 2002 NBA Draft. In his two seasons with the club, he has averaged 12.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals in 33.5 minutes per game. Brian Grant, who spent the previous four seasons with Miami, was acquired by the club as part of a three-way sign-and-trade deal with Portland and Cleveland on August 30, 2000. Grant has averaged 11.4 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 30.1 minutes per game over the span of his 10-year career. As a member of the HEAT, he averaged 11.0 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 312 games. Lamar Odom signed with the HEAT as a free agent on August 27, 2003, after spending the previous four seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers. He averaged 17.1 points, 9.7 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.1 steals in a team-high 37.5 minutes per game last season. In his 310 career games, he has averaged 16.2 points, 8.0 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.0 steals in 36.4 minutes per game. HEAT broadcast partner Sunshine Network will televise O?Neal?s inaugural Miami press conference live statewide. At this point details are not yet finalized.
July 14, 200422 yr Wow, very nice move here. Yea, the Heat are going to have the big man! 458066[/snapback] We still need to add another piece PF is big.. any names/thoughts 458070[/snapback] yes ,malone is a name being thrown around as wanting to come with shaq.kukoc is another. a possible sign and trade could happen. personally stromile swift could happen. the grizzlies are bluffing to match a swift offer since hes restricted but they are way over the cap and cant sign him back.riley could and would go after him and just barely go over the cap and pay a small luxury tax. arison has said he would not mind paying it if it would help the team 458093[/snapback] The problem is : there not much the Heat can offer.
July 14, 200422 yr Wow, very nice move here. Yea, the Heat are going to have the big man! 458066[/snapback] We still need to add another piece PF is big.. any names/thoughts 458070[/snapback] yes ,malone is a name being thrown around as wanting to come with shaq.kukoc is another. a possible sign and trade could happen. personally stromile swift could happen. the grizzlies are bluffing to match a swift offer since hes restricted but they are way over the cap and cant sign him back.riley could and would go after him and just barely go over the cap and pay a small luxury tax. arison has said he would not mind paying it if it would help the team 458093[/snapback] The problem is : there not much the Heat can offer. 458187[/snapback] they dont need to offer anything. hes a restricted FA. just sign him to an offer sheet and wait and see
July 14, 200422 yr Wow, very nice move here. Yea, the Heat are going to have the big man! 458066[/snapback] We still need to add another piece PF is big.. any names/thoughts 458070[/snapback] yes ,malone is a name being thrown around as wanting to come with shaq.kukoc is another. a possible sign and trade could happen. personally stromile swift could happen. the grizzlies are bluffing to match a swift offer since hes restricted but they are way over the cap and cant sign him back.riley could and would go after him and just barely go over the cap and pay a small luxury tax. arison has said he would not mind paying it if it would help the team 458093[/snapback] The problem is : there not much the Heat can offer. 458187[/snapback] they dont need to offer anything. hes a restricted FA. just sign him to an offer sheet and wait and see 458204[/snapback] Can the Heat really sign him for 2.7 mil per year.I don't see how Jerry West will let him go for that amount.
July 14, 200422 yr Wow, very nice move here. Yea, the Heat are going to have the big man! 458066[/snapback] We still need to add another piece PF is big.. any names/thoughts 458070[/snapback] yes ,malone is a name being thrown around as wanting to come with shaq.kukoc is another. a possible sign and trade could happen. personally stromile swift could happen. the grizzlies are bluffing to match a swift offer since hes restricted but they are way over the cap and cant sign him back.riley could and would go after him and just barely go over the cap and pay a small luxury tax. arison has said he would not mind paying it if it would help the team 458093[/snapback] The problem is : there not much the Heat can offer. 458187[/snapback] they dont need to offer anything. hes a restricted FA. just sign him to an offer sheet and wait and see 458204[/snapback] Can the Heat really sign him for 2.7 mil per year.I don't see how Jerry West will let him go for that amount. 458219[/snapback] 2.7?? i said in my earlier post that the heat would be willing to go over the cap by a few mill and pay the luxury tax like 13 other teams are doing.its a small fee to pay for gettin an impact player. arison has said he would allow riley to get help and go over if he wanted to.
July 14, 200422 yr this is some good s***. maybe some of you dont want to read the whole thing but just look through it. some real good points in there. By Bill Simmons Page 2 Posted 3:40 p.m., ET, July 14 As the old saying goes, those who ignore history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Or something like that. The Lakers just gave away one of the 10 best players of all-time. He has two Hall of Fame years left in him, maybe three, maybe four. It all depends on where he ranks on the Vengeance Scale. We'll get to that in a second. They're getting a borderline All-Star (Lamar Odom) in return, as well as an up-and-coming role player (Caron Butler) and an overpaid rebounder (Brian Grant) with one of the worst contracts of the past 10 years. Oh, and they're getting a No. 1, which gives them the inside track on the 27th best rookie in next year's draft. "What? You traded me for who?" That's the whole trade. That's it. That's what Shaq was worth. We've been here before. In 1992, Philly made the EXACT SAME MISTAKE with a disgruntled Barkley, swapping him for 40 cents on the dollar (Jeff Hornacek, Andrew Lang and Tim Perry). In 1982, Houston traded Moses to Philly for Caldwell Jones and a piddling No. 1. In 1975, Milwaukee traded Kareem for Brian Winters, Junior Bridgeman, Laverne and Shirley. In the 1960's, even Wilt was freaking traded . . . twice. Every one of those guys ended up playing in the Finals within two years of said trade. You can look it up. During that time frame, only one franchise held strong with an unhappy superstar: the Rockets with Hakeem. They shopped him around, couldn't secure equal value, worked everything out with him and ended up winning consecutive titles in '94 and '95. (And yes, there's a reason I only used first names for the guys in the preceding paragraph. They earned the right to be mentioned on a first-name basis. And that's a good rule of thumb, for any team in any sport -- you probably don't want to lose someone who can carry off a single name. Call it the One-Name Litmus Test.) Unless you're getting two legitimate All-Stars in return, you can't trade a dominant player with something left in the tank. You just can't. If you're sending them from a bad situation to a good one, that's even dumber. And if you're sending them away with a chip on their shoulder, you just clinched the gold medal in the Dumb Olympics. A few weeks ago, I compared Shaq's recent ordeal to the time when Red Sox GM Dan Duquette decided that Roger Clemens was in the "twilight of his career." Clemens reacted like a spurned girlfriend, getting himself into impeccable shape and winning two straight Cy Youngs in Toronto. When I was considerably more bitter about this turn of events, I compared the experience to dumping your girlfriend, then watching her hire a personal trainer, shed 20 pounds, get breast implants and join the cast of "Baywatch." Now it makes more sense. Clearly, Clemens wasn't properly motivated during those last few years in Boston, despite being the highest-paid pitcher in the sport. For whatever reason, that dense hick needed an extra kick in the butt. Something Duquette unknowingly provided. You could say the same about Shaq. He did everything he ever wanted: Made tons of money, won three straight titles, cemented his status as one of the dominant players in history. What else was left? He hated playing with Kobe, hated the constant punishment underneath, hated how referees called the game differently for him (simply because they had no other choice). He suffered an endless array of nagging health problems, many of them directly related to his poor conditioning. Somewhere along the line, Shaq decided to take summers off and play himself into shape during the season. You can get away with that in your 20s. Not in your 30s. In fact, if you watch the 1993 All-Star Game on Classic some time, you'll see someone who looks like Shaq's younger, skinnier brother playing center for the East: a 7-foot-1, 308-pound monster with eight-percent body fat. Bigger Fatter Shaq still dominated games, but not consistently, as he grew tired of fighting Kobe for control of the team. His last hurrah occured in Game 4 of the Finals, when Shaq threw up a heroic 36-20 against the Pistons, a remarkable effort against a superior team. After the game, Phil Jackson sounded like a coach discussing a legendary player past his prime, bemoaning how the Lakers wasted such a singular performance by their star center. Reading between the lines, Jackson was insinuating that it couldn't happen twice in the same week. And he was right. ***** So that's where we were with Shaq: Banged-up, exhausted, satisfied. A superstar ready for the next phase of his career. And if Kobe didn't turn the last 36 months into an extended season of "The Real World: Hollywood," Shaq would have settled into the old "David Robinson after Duncan came aboard" role -- happy to step aside, happy to contribute his 19-11 every night, happy to collect his eight-figure paycheck, always ready to step out of the phone booth with the Superman cape on for emergency duty. Kobe had other ideas. Just like Johnny Sack, he wanted to run his own family. He wanted to step out of the shadows of Shaq and Jackson. He didn't want to share the credit anymore. So he organized a palace coup. (Big mistake, by the way. When they produce a "Behind the Music" special about him years from now, they will re-hash everything you just read, and the narrator will say, "What Kobe didn't know was that it would all come crashing down." You think Magic would have won titles in '85, '87 and '88 if he pushed an aging Kareem out of town? Please. Unless your initials are "MJ," you need the big guy. You ALWAYS need the big guy. Kobe should have known this.) How could you not trade somebody like Dirk Nowitzki for Shaq? Hey, nobody wanted to see Shaq and Kobe part ways more than me -- partly because they were so dysfunctional to watch, partly because it makes the league roughly 432.5 percent more fun to follow with them on separate teams -- but I always thought the Lakers would secure something close to equal value. Instead, Dallas held strong -- they wouldn't give up Nowitzki, the German Bob McAdoo. Sacramento wouldn't include Peja Stojakovic in any potential deal, and you can't blame them -- he's been a crucial part of those Kings teams that choke every spring. Indiana refused to dangle Jermaine O'Neal, who's a full notch below KG and Duncan (the Kilmer to their Cruise & Hanks). This was absolute madness. What were these teams thinking? This was Shaq! Still in his prime! A potentially ticked-off, ready-to-destroy-everybody Shaq!!!! I mean, isn't the point of having an NBA team to win the title? Why lock into winning 55 games a year and losing every May? Why even have a team then? If I were a Dallas fan right now, and the Mavs allowed Nash to leave after Cuban overpaid everyone else on the roster by 50 percent, then they refused to trade Nowitzki and Walker for Angry Shaq, I'm not sure what I would do. Angry Shaq, Jamison, Nash, Finley, Daniels, Howard and Najera . . . that team wins the title! It wins the freaking title! There's no question about it! Isn't that the whole point of having a team?!?!?! Faced with a dwindling market, desperate to appease young Kobe before he skipped over to the Clips -- which could still happen -- the Lakers panicked and placed Shaq in virtual escrow. Now that the Miami deal has gone down, everybody wins. Shaq gets a fresh start. Kobe gets his own team. Indiana, Sacramento and Dallas keep their franchise players, plus their owners won't have to worry about splurging for championship rings. The NBA gets a marketable franchise in the Heat, a guaranteed sellout across the country. Miami gets a championship contender out of nowhere. And we get the 15-percent possibility of a Shaq-Kobe Finals, which would dwarf just about everything that's happened since Magic and Michael in '91. Best of all, the world gets to find out about Dwyane Wade, one of the rare guards of the past 25 years, someone prudent enough to appreciate Shaq in ways that Kobe and Penny simply couldn't stomach. Wade doesn't care about being The Man; the dude just wants to win. He will tailor his game for Shaq, involve him every step of the way, stroke his ego . . . and quietly take over for him at crunch-time. As one of the 19 remaining NBA diehards, I'm legitimately ecstatic about this. What a development. And then there's Angry Shaq. He needed this to happen. Honestly, he hasn't given a crap about basketball for four years, since they won that second title and crushed the Nets. After that happened, Satiated Shaq stuck around and kept playing, knowing that he could accomplish more on cruise control than just about every other player in the league. I don't think it was a malicious act on his part. It was his version of MJ scurrying off to hit baseballs for two years. Maybe we were insulted as basketball fans, but this was also the one quality that made him stand out over everyone else: This is a good guy. He takes care of his family, looks out for his friends, never stops having fun. He dabbles in movies, music, TV, even comedy roasts. He figured out how to handle the media early in his career -- mumble through your answers, use intimidation when necessary; and eventually, everyone will leave you alone. I think he's one of the smartest athletes in any sport. Seriously. Who leads a better life than him? What team athlete makes more money than him? Who balanced the characters of Public Superstar and Private Superstar more brilliantly than him? We don't know ANYTHING about him, yet we feel like we do. And he likes it that way. Which made it especially ironic that, for years and years, Shaq wore the "black hat" and Kobe wore the "white hat" on the Lakers. To the general public, Shaq was just a big mumbling monster, a physical freak with no discernible basketball skills, someone who couldn't even make a damn free throw. Casual fans (and Lakers fans, which is basically the same thing) gravitated towards Kobe, partly because he reminded them of a young MJ, partly because he seemed like such a decent guy. Nobody realized that Kobe was an impossible prima donna, a brooding loner consumed with basketball and nothing else, someone lacking the requisite social skills to get along with teammates on even a rudimentary level. Kobe wanted to be front and center -- he might just have done Shaq a favor. We reward these qualities because, from what we were seeing, Kobe played hard every night. Kobe seemed to care. Kobe answered questions. Kobe had a nice smile. Kobe came through in the clutch. Everything came too easy to Shaq, so we resented him the same way that parents resent one of those mutant 12-year-olds who seem too big for Little League. In retrospect, we were ignoring one of the dominant stretches by any athlete in the history of sports. Look up his stats some time. They're unbelievable. Respected basketball statistician Elliott Kalb even wrote a book last year arguing that Shaq is the greatest player ever, even better than Jordan and Wilt. But he still needed Kobe. As it turned out, Kobe was the best thing that ever happened to Shaq . . . twice. If Shaq has a weakness, it's that you can't feed him the ball exclusively at crunch-time, only because other teams will foul him and he might miss one or both free throws. Once Kobe matured, Shaq's one weakness became irrelevant. Kobe simply took over at crunch-time. Could Shaq have won three straight titles with any other teammate at the time? Probably not. That was Best Thing Ever No. 1. As for Best Thing No. 2, Kobe's petulance this summer (assuming he stays with the Lakers) could inadvertently salvage Shaq's career, the same way Magic's emergence invigorated Kareem in the early '80's, or Red Auerbach's decision to make Russell a player-coach breathed an extra three years of life into Russell's career. After a transcendent player rattles through the checklist of Transcendent Player Accomplishments -- MVPs, Titles, Alpha Dog Status, Richest Guy In the League, Most Endorsements, and so on -- there's only so many ways you can keep motivating yourself. This is where the Vengeance Scale comes in. ***** Now . . . Deep down, I think Shaq is much more competitive than he lets on. I think he still believes that he's the best player in basketball, better than Duncan, better than KG, and definitely, definitely, DEFINITELY better than Kobe. I think he's positively apoplectic that the Lakers chose Kobe over him. I think he's insulted that they couldn't do better than "Odom, Grant and Butler." I think he's forming a mental list of players and teams he wants to destroy on a basketball court, a list that includes the Mavericks, Kings, Clippers, Lakers and Pacers; Nowitzki, O'Neal and Brad Miller; and whatever team that gainfully employs Kobe next season, even if it's the Colorado Penal League's Cell Block C All-Stars. I think he keeps hearing this "Shaq's hitting an age where great centers start to decline" stuff and it makes him want to put a fist through a wall. For the first time in years, I think Shaq gets himself in ridiculous shape this summer. There's no other way. He has too much to prove, too many scores to settle. In fact, here's how the Vengeance Scale looks right now, with a "1.0" being Mike Piazza's reaction after Clemens threw the bat at him in the 2000 World Series. Watch Shaq rise again thanks to a new challenge. 5.0 -- Andre the Giant (after Killer Khan broke his leg) 5.5 -- MJ (against Drexler in the '92 Finals) 6.0 -- Roger Clemens (after the Red Sox gave up on him) 6.5 -- Marvin Hagler (in the Hearns fight) 7.0 -- Jimmy Snuka (after Roddy Piper rammed the coconuts in his head) 7.5 -- MJ (after Karl Malone won the '97 MVP Award) 8.0 -- Seagal in "Out For Justice" (during the "I'm gonna take you to the bank, Trent . . . the blood bank" scene) 8.5 -- Shaq (after finding out that the Lakers were trading him for Odom, Grant and Butler) 9.0 -- Ali and Frazier (in Manila) 9.5 -- Uma Thurman (in "Kill Bill" I and II) 10.0 -- John Rambo in "First Blood 2" (during the "Murdock? I'm coming for you!" scene) That looks about right. Remember, Shaq's favorite movie is "The Warriors," the '70's classic where the top gang leader in New York City (Cyrus) holds a gang summit and tries to organize the first-ever gang revolution. As Cyrus points out, the total number of gang members doubles the number of police officers in the city, which logically means that they can overpower them and take over everything. Apparently, he didn't know about the National Guard, the FBI, the Army and the Marines. Anyway, Cyrus gets assassinated at the gang summit -- one of the most devastating screen deaths ever, right up there with Sonny Corleone and Hooch -- and everyone incorrectly blames the Warriors, an unassuming gang from Coney Island. Now the Warriors have to fight their way back to Coney with every gang in the city gunning for them. Nobody believes they can make it back alive. It's only a matter of time. Well, they make it back to Coney. Alive. (Except for the guy who gets thrown on the subway tracks, as well as the guy who ended up playing Ganz on "48 Hours" and owning the hotel on "North Shore.") They even find the guys who killed Cyrus. At the end of the movie, the leader of the Riffs tells Swan (the Warriors warlord), "You guys are good . . . you guys are real good." Swan stares back at him. Hard. "The best." And he's right. Even if Swan did end up starring in "Xanadu" two years later. Here's the point: This is Shaq's favorite movie. He's probably seen it 600 times. And if you don't think he slipped that DVD in this summer and compared his situation to the Warriors every step of the way, you're crazy. For Shaquille O'Neal, getting back to the top of the mountain is like getting back to Coney. Nobody believes in him. He has to fight his way back. And he's pinning his hopes on that one moment when somebody hands him that NBA trophy next summer, and David Stern tells him, "You guys were good . . . real good," and he can come back with two words: "The best." And yes, I can dig it. Bill Simmons is a columnist
July 14, 200422 yr awesomeness, i can now sleep soundly knowing its official 458075[/snapback] It's just rent-a-Shaq, Shaq can opt out of his contract after next season or a max of 2 years otherwise. No new extension has been signed. 458084[/snapback] are you stupid?! he was going to opt out if he was traded to any team, he approved of a trade to miami so that he WONT opt out. read the reports and stop hatin on SHAQ! you lost him! dont hate!
July 14, 200422 yr 32 was his # in Orlando and he probably just wanted to wear it again. he was 34 in LA because 32 was magic's # and 33 was Kareem's number.
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