Done Deal, The Big Diesel has gone coast to coast

truthteller · Jul 14, 2004

The Lakers and Heat finalized a trade Wednesday sending Shaquille O'Neal to Miami, with Los Angeles getting Caron Butler, Lamar Odom, Brian Grant and a first-round draft pick in return.

The deal, ending O'Neal's eight-year tenure in Los Angeles, had been on the verge of completion since Saturday, when O'Neal met in Orlando with Heat president Pat Riley and agreed to the trade. NBA attorneys approved it on the same day the league's two-week moratorium on player movement ended.

Acquiring O'Neal is literally a big deal for the Heat, who will count on the 7-foot-1, 340-pound center to transform them into a championship contender.

"I never imagined that we would acquire Shaquille O'Neal," guard Eddie Jones said. "It's once-in-a-lifetime trying to get a player like this guy. It's an unbelievable, unbelievable move."

At 32, O'Neal is coming off a season when he averaged a career-low 21.5 points, and he has missed 15 games each of the past three seasons with foot and leg injuries. But he's an 11-time All-Star with career averages of 27.1 points, 12.1 rebounds and 2.6 blocks, and he changes the balance of power in the Eastern Conference, where there's a dearth of dominating centers.

The trade marks a return to Florida for O'Neal, who began his NBA career in 1992 with Orlando and still has a home there. He led the Magic to the finals in 1995, signed with the Lakers as a free agent in 1996 and helped them win three NBA titles.

Days after the Lakers lost this year's championship series to Detroit, O'Neal demanded to be traded, weary of feuding with Kobe Bryant and feeling disrespected by owner Jerry Buss. He's under contract for $27.7 million this coming season and $30.6 million in 2005-06.

O'Neal joins a Heat team that has reached the conference finals only once in its 16-year history and went 42-40 last season, instantly becoming South Florida's most high-profile athlete.

With the departure of three starters, Riley will build his team around O'Neal, Olympian Dwyane Wade and Jones, Miami's leading scorer each of the last four seasons. The Heat will now shop for help at both forward positions and backup point guard, and free agents will likely consider Miami a more appealing option with the addition of O'Neal.

"Everybody wants to be here now," said Jones, who played with O'Neal in Los Angeles from 1996 to 1998.

Each player involved in the trade must pass a physical before joining his new team. O'Neal is not expected to speak publicly until at least Friday, the Heat said.

O'Neal has already made an impact in Miami, with the Heat's ticket sales brisk this week. He's moving from one city enthralled by celebrities to another, but there are a lot more of them in Los Angeles than in Miami, and O'Neal is likely to become the biggest thing on South Beach.

"There's a lot of excitement going around in the city," Heat guard Rasual Butler said. "They call Shaquille O'Neal 'Big Daddy' for a reason - because everything he does is big. And it's big news that he's coming here."

http://msn.foxsports.com/story/2576164?GT1=4161

OMNIVOROUS FROG · Jul 14, 2004

Great for FROG, kaboom for Fezzik...Oops Best Wishes...OF

wilheim · Jul 14, 2004

Good read from CBS Sportsline's Mike Kahn.

This was bound to happen. Everybody knew it was going to happen, but deep down, did you really, really believe the self-proclaimed Most Dominant Ever Player in the NBA would be traded?

To be honest, I didn't, but now that the biggest deal during the biggest time of the NBA dealing season is happening with the biggest player, what does it mean?

Yes, the Miami Heat are getting the best center of this generation from the Los Angeles Lakers in Shaquille O'Neal. And they're not even giving up an All-Star with the group of Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant and a No. 1 pick.

And yes, the Heat now have the best big man in the league -- albeit 32 years old, expanding at some 340 pounds and on the downside of his career -- and nobody in the Eastern Conference matches up with him.

What also is clear is the Lakers obviously are confident free-agent star Kobe Bryant will re-sign with them, thus giving them athleticism and youth.

But the trade hurts both teams, and neither will be as successful as they were this spring.

Here's why:

The Heat already have given up half of their mid-level of exception to reserve big man Michael Doleac, of all people, and have little else to offer on the trade market. So from last year's first six players that made them the Cinderella team in the East, they have given up four: Rafer Alston (to Toronto as a free agent), Odom, Butler and Grant.

In return, they have the domination of O'Neal and Doleac, a backup center. Indeed, they still have superb Dwyane Wade coming off a fabulous rookie season, but he missed 19 games with so many different injuries, you have to wonder about his staying power for an entire season now that he'll be the focal point of every perimeter defense.

Sure, they still have creampuff Eddie Jones, playing good defense and scoring when it doesn't count. Playing off of O'Neal will help, but, well, he's still Eddie the Sweetheart. What else? Rasual Butler? Malik Allen? High school kid Dorell Wright? And by the way, O'Neal has missed 15 games in each of the past three seasons as his body continues to break down. Then what? Wade is a great talent, but can he win games by himself with a band of nobodies?

Of course, this will get them more than the 42 victories just because O'Neal will dominate so many bad teams. But they would have won more games this season with the same group. Keep in mind, coach Stan Van Gundy didn't get this team until a week before the season started, with Caron Butler coming off knee surgery, Wade playing point guard for the first time and as a rookie, and Odom brand new. They were bound to be better. And come playoff time, the Heat will certainly not be anywhere near as good a team as the Lakers were a year ago, and the Detroit Pistons handled the Lakers in five games in what should have been a sweep in the Finals.

Don't you think the Heat regret not drafting point guard Jameer Nelson now?

As for the Lakers, it's hard to fathom giving up the tandem of Bryant and O'Neal, the best and most dramatic combination since Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

So now they have the undersized Grant to play center; he's a guy who plays hard all the time but would be borderline small as a power forward in the West, let alone a center. Butler has the knees of a 50-year-old, and despite his maturity and exceptional attitude, he's an injury waiting to happen.

The key component to the deal is Odom, who silenced detractors after the Heat signed him to a $64 million contract last summer. After a couple of years marred by injury and marijuana problems, he looked like a superstar in the making. The problem is, he now is headed back to Los Angeles, where so many issues were born when he was with the Clippers. Hopefully he's healed, but the ghosts of nightmares past are still there.

Regardless, that pushes the Lakers back in the pack, more likely fighting for sixth or seventh in the West than one of the top three spots.

We find the Heat no more likely to win 50 games than they would have had they stayed intact.

So who wins in this trade?

Neither team.

Both would have been better off standing pat.