Don't worry this one is not long as I first had to explain the context. The other parts will be longer and focused on the What If story itself. Like and Follow for more and comment your opinion!!! This website saves cookies to your browser in order to improve your online experience and show you personalized content. Read our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy to get more information and learn how to set up your preferences. Likes Comments 0. Like Read Below.
Featured post Better Player This Season? Featured post Hardwood QnA. With Wade leading the charge, the Heat made it to the NBA Finals as O'Neal once more dispatched the Pistons in what had become arguably as tense of a personal rivalry as the ones he shared with the Spurs and Lakers.
The Heat unceremoniously dipped out in a disappointing first round series loss to the Bulls while LeBron James made his first trip to the Finals where he was in turn schooled by Duncan's Spurs.
After two seasons in retirement, Hardaway is convinced by O'Neal to join him in South Beach for one more ride. Reluctantly, he agrees, though it doesn't last long as Hardaway re-retires after 16 games.
The final game that Shaquille O'Neal and Penny Hardaway played together came on the road in Utah in the same building where they won their first championship back in Too rosy?
But after rolling through the weeds it's fun to zoom out and think about what actually could have changed beyond simply their time together in Orlando.
Is Michael Jordan's legacy different with five rings instead of six? Though still in the Finals in this parallel universe, gone would be the prevailing aura of invincibility that is omnipresent in any big picture debate. In turn, does that change the GOAT discussion? This all played out before LeBron James ever steps foot in the league but in , how different is the LeBron discourse without the double MJ 3-peat?
No Kobe and Shaq. No Lakers 3-peat. Let's face it, had the Lakers not scored O'Neal in the summer of , they still would have made a big splash. Could they have chased Alonzo Mourning? Dirk Nowitzki? Kevin Garnett? Would Phil Jackson have ever gone there? The Lakers are the Lakers, so again… they would have done something. But it's fascinating to think what exactly that might have been. No Lakers dynasty means a wide open West. What about the Phoenix Suns? Or perhaps Tim Duncan and the Spurs would have just rattled off an even more obscene tally of Finals appearances?
Speaking of the Spurs… let's head back to the summer of Duncan seriously considered leaving for Orlando. Would he have instead considered bouncing for the Lakers and the chance to team up with Bryant? How many titles would a Bryant-Duncan partnership have netted? And if that happened, the Spurs… well, they don't become the Spurs.
Shaq's legacy probably doesn't change much. As the fulcrum of a dynasty in either Los Angeles or Orlando, we likely wouldn't think of him much differently assuming there's still a healthy stack of rings and Finals MVPs.
What happens to Dwight Howard? Look, it's impossible to play what if on every single draft pick and that's a slippery slope even more ridiculous than literally making up 20 years of NBA history. Lowballed him. Questioned his game. In a sense, Orlando positioned itself as an antagonist to Shaq rather than an organization that was entirely in his corner, even saying on that initial call that they needed to maintain financial flexibility for Penny Hardaway's free agency a couple of years down the road, signaling to our representation team that Shaq wasn't the full priority we expected him to be.
It was about this time that we really started to consider alternatives as something other than backup plans. Finding these potential Shaq suitors and seeking out CBA loopholes to play to O'Neal's financial advantage were my primary responsibilities.
Also, if he left Orlando, his preference was to go to a big market. There weren't many teams that fit all these requirements. This is the list we came up with:. So Orlando was dragging its feet. Most other options were falling off our list. Only one team remained a true threat to lure O'Neal away from the Magic. It would take a perfect storm of circumstances to pull it off, but a perfect storm was indeed brewing.
The first move the Lakers made in an effort to position themselves for Shaq was arguably the most significant draft-day trade since the St. Louis Hawks sent the draft rights to Bill Russell to the Celtics. In hindsight, this has to be one of the biggest steals in NBA history.
The Lakers had actually saved money by trading for a guy who will probably go down as one of the 10 best players in history. In doing so, the Lakers had now become a real threat, maybe the biggest threat, to secure Shaq, who was clearly interested in joining such a storied franchise. The Lakers had an interest in getting the deal done quickly so they could then re-sign Elden Campbell. Having Campbell's Bird rights meant the Lakers could go over the cap to sign him, but they couldn't do that for Shaq, so they needed to get Shaq under the cap first and then add Campbell's salary.
It was the best deal that was on the table, but still below Mourning's deal and thus not enough. At this point, West said he was willing to trade George Lynch for a draft pick to be able to further sweeten Shaq's deal, and all the while, he was really pitching the Lakers as a franchise, stressing their history with dominant big men George Mikan, Wilt and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , their winning tradition and his own ability to build championship teams.
At this point, the Magic were more or less doing what we just saw the Miami Heat do to Dwyane Wade this summer -- offering not what Shaq deserved, not what would be commensurate with his value to the franchise, but rather only reacting to what other teams were willing to pay. At this point in his career, Wade is clearly not the player that Shaq was in , but the way the negotiations were handled were very similar.
The Heat's passive approach wound up costing them Wade. From our side, you could feel the same thing starting to happen to Orlando with Shaq. After all, instead of immediately upping their offer after the Jordan, Howard and Mourning signings, it was only when the Lakers dealt Lynch and Anthony Peeler to the Vancouver now Memphis Grizzlies, thus freeing up even more cap space to pay Shaq, that the Magic revised their position.
It was bewildering, to be honest. We were all scratching our heads to think that still, at this point, with its franchise player potentially slipping away, Orlando was haggling over an opt-out year. Shaq wasn't Michael Jordan, nobody was, but he was definitely perceived as the next great superstar. The way we saw it, after the Lakers made their offer, the Magic could've just jumped in and blown everyone out of the water, just as they could've done from the start.
This thing would've been over. But again, they didn't. They were nitpicking the opt-out year. They were trying to effectively offer dummy money in the way of not-likely-to-be-earned incentives, such as Shaq, a historically horrible free throw shooter, shooting 60 percent from the line, which, incidentally, he only did one time in his NBA career.
In essence, they were sealing their own fate with their stubbornness. To be fair to the Magic, it's not like the kind of money Shaq was asking for was peanuts. That's a lot. Remember, too, that at the time there was sort of a prevailing sentiment among fans that players were being paid way too much money. There had been a brief lockout in , souring some of the public relations, and there was definitely a disconnect between the common fan and superstars that has softened over time, to the point that nowadays I would say more people support the money these superstars are making, or at least are indifferent to it, because they know how much revenue they're producing.
But in , a hundred million bucks to play basketball had an outlandish ring to it. At that time, you could've asked that question about any player in the NBA, probably including Jordan, and fans would've said no, and sure enough, over 90 percent of the some 5, people who responded didn't feel Shaq was worth the money. Not only did the team basically tell him he wasn't worth the money that lesser players were getting, now the fans were were telling him the same thing.
This is the human part of these negotiations that sometimes gets lost in all the big money talk. Athletes, just like regular people, want to feel valued. From the outset, the Magic had done virtually nothing to make Shaq feel that way.
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