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O'Neal goes to Heat
In what is surely one of the biggest trades in the National Basketball Association in nearly 30 years, the Los Angeles Lakers sent Shaquille O'Neal to the Miami Heat today for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant and a future first-round draft choice.
The move ends the adversarial, yet successful, tandem of O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, who led the Lakers to three championships in the last five seasons despite a powerful dislike for each other that captivated the league and its fans. It also sends O'Neal to the Eastern Conference, lending competitive balance to a league that has been strongly tilted toward the West since Michael Jordan retired from the Chicago Bulls six seasons ago — the Detroit Pistons' surprising title run last season notwithstanding. "It's a huge trade," Washington General Manager Ernie Grunfeld said. "Any time a player of his magnitude gets traded, it sends shock waves around the league because it doesn't happen very often." While great players are often traded — Orlando sent Tracy McGrady to Houston last month — no one of O'Neal's stature has been moved near his prime since Milwaukee dealt Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the Lakers in 1975. In the 1980's, Abdul-Jabbar teamed with Magic Johnson to lead the Lakers to five championships earning them their "Showtime" nickname and status as the league's glamour team.
Like Abdul-Jabbar before him, O'Neal will team up with a dazzling young point guard in Miami, Dwyane Wade. Eddie Jones, O'Neal's former teammate in Los Angeles and the Heat's leading scorer the past four seasons, will start at shooting guard, giving Miami a threesome that should enable it to compete with Detroit, Indiana and New Jersey for the Eastern crown. Miami is thin elsewhere and has little money to offer free agents, but O'Neal's presence could entice free agents to play for the Heat for less money. There has been speculation that Karl Malone and Derek Fisher, O'Neal's former teammates in Los Angeles, could follow O'Neal to Miami. The architect of the Lakers' "Showtime" era was Pat Riley, who coached them to four titles. The acquisition of O'Neal puts Riley, now the Heat president, in position to win his first championship since leaving Los Angeles in 1990. "Today the Miami Heat took a giant step forward in our continued pursuit of an N.B.A. championship for the city of Miami and this franchise," Riley said. "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 N.B.A." O'Neal is 32 years old and coming off the lowest-scoring season of his career, 21.5 points per game. But the drop was due largely to the addition of Malone and Gary Payton, former superstars whose presence limited O'Neal's shot attempts to just 14.1 per game, more than four below his career average. While the move should rejuvenate the Heat, which has seen ticket sales increase since news of the impending trade broke last week, it remains to be seen what will come of the Lakers. What was once one of the most star-studded and accomplished rosters of all-time has been pared down to Bryant, the fading star Payton and a group of players without one all-star appearance among them. And that, of course, is assuming that Bryant re-signs with the Lakers. A free agent, Bryant is considering accepting a six-year offer worth roughly $100 million from the Los Angeles Clippers. The Lakers have offered him $136 million over seven years. Bryant's status is clouded by his legal future; he will stand trial on charges of sexual assault beginning Aug. 27. If convicted, he could face four years to life in prison. While Bryant's silence about his future increases the suspense, the Lakers appear to believe he will be in their lineup next season. They have granted his every wish — letting Phil Jackson go as coach, pursuing Mike Krzyzewski as Jackson's replacement, trading O'Neal K— in attempting to appease him, yet Bryant has yet to commit to returning. Even if Bryant is a Laker next season, it could be difficult for the team to make the Western Conference playoffs as presently constituted. Odom and Butler are both small forwards, and Butler figures to come off the bench. Grant, 32, is an undersized, aging, injury-prone power forward/center whose better days are behind him. Without O'Neal and Malone, the Lakers probably do not have the size to contend in the West, where most of the league's top big men play. For O'Neal, it is a return to Florida, where he began his career with the Orlando Magic. O'Neal left Orlando after four seasons, signing a free-agent contract with the Lakers. But he has remained fond of the area, maintaining an off-season home in Orlando. |
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