If you were taken aback when you found out earlier this year that the Miami Heat were planning to retire the No. 32 that Shaquille O’Neal wore for them for three and a half seasons in the mid-to-late 2000s, you weren’t alone.
“This was definitely unexpected,” O’Neal told his “Inside the NBA” colleagues on Thursday night, prior to the TNT-televised tilt between the Heat and Los Angeles Lakers — another of Shaq’s former teams, who retired his No. 34 at Staples Center back in 2013 — at which the retirement would be taking place. “I was here for a short time.”
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In that short time, though, O’Neal made three All-Star appearances and earned two All-NBA First Team nods, and the Heat won three division titles, made two Eastern Conference finals trips — and, with young marvel Dwyane Wade leading the charge, beat the Dallas Mavericks in the 2006 NBA Finals to win the Heat’s first NBA championship, putting the franchise on the NBA map to a degree it had never been able to achieve during Riley’s previous run on the bench in the 1990s.
“We would not have won the championship in 2006 without the efforts of Shaquille O’Neal,” Heat team president Pat Riley, who coached O’Neal from ’06 through ’08, said during Thursday’s halftime jersey retirement ceremony. “Love the man. He simply is one of the greatest of all time.”
Shaquille O’Neal speaks at his number retirement ceremony on Dec. 22, 2016, at American Airlines Arena in Miami. (Joe Murphy/NBAE/Getty Images) O’Neal came to Miami after spending eight years in L.A., joining the Heat in a trade that sent Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Brian Grant, a future first-round pick and a future second-round pick to the Lakers. Taking advantage of the dissolution of O’Neal’s relationships with Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson, Riley explained Thursday, was just too good an opportunity to pass up.
“A great thing happened the first week of July” in 2004, Riley recalled in his speech introducing O’Neal on Thursday. “[Heat managing general partner] Micky Arison and Madeleine Arison were in France […] and I gave Micky a call, and I said, ‘We have an opportunity to acquire a once-in-a-lifetime player. A once-in-a-lifetime player. Now, in the history of the NBA, there’s always a lot of once-in-a-lifetime players. But there aren’t many like this man.’ And he said, ‘Well, who?’
“And I said, ‘He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast, he’s agile, he can score,'” Riley continued. “And he said, ‘Well, who?’ And I said, ‘He can run, he can dunk, he can laugh, he doesn’t have any hair.’ And I said, ‘He’s charismatic, he’s global, he’s iconic, he’ll make you laugh in a minute. And he said, ‘Well, why?’ And I said, ‘He wears a size 22 shoe.’ And he said, ‘SHAQ?!?’ And I said, ‘Yes, and we don’t have to give up Wade.’ And he screamed, and he yelled, and he was so happy.”
After beginning his career as the centerpiece of the Orlando Magic’s early-’90s rise to prominence, Shaq returned to Florida with one goal in mind: teaming with Wade, an ascendant young star, to continue vying for titles.
“I saw something in D-Wade when I was in L.A., and they were talking about trading me,” O’Neal said during his pre-game chat with Ernie, Kenny and Charles. “I knew that if I came here and played with him, that I would have a chance. Without a guy like D-Wade, I definitely wouldn’t have a chance.”
O’Neal led the NBA in shooting percentage in each of his first two seasons in Miami, averaging a shade under 22 points, 10 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game while blocking two shots a night. Stan Van Gundy’s Heat went 59-23 in his first season in South Florida, but fell to the Detroit Pistons in seven games in the 2005 Eastern Conference finals, which saw Shaq — who had finished second in MVP voting during the regular season, behind Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash, but who was suffering from a deep thigh bruise in the postseason — stifled somewhat on the interior by a Detroit group featuring Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace, Antonio McDyess and Elden Campbell.
An early-season ankle injury knocked O’Neal out for 18 games the following season. After Van Gundy stepped down “due to personal and family reasons,” Riley took over on the bench, O’Neal returned, and he said the vibe felt different.
“Pat came from downstairs, and he put an interesting team around me — Antoine [Walker], GP [Gary Payton], James Posey, Alonzo [Mouring] came late in the season,” he said. “We were able to get it done.”
Wade dominated that series, averaging 34.7 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.7 steals and one block in 43.5 minutes per game to earn MVP honors. Wade didn’t attend Thursday’s ceremony — he’s now a member of the Chicago Bulls, and his team’s got a date with the Charlotte Hornets in North Carolina on Friday night — but he shared his appreciation of, and congratulations to, O’Neal in an Instagram post earlier Thursday:
“[Ten] plus years ago we talked about taking a picture like this after we won a championship and we did just that,” Wade wrote in the caption of his Instagram post. “Thanks to @shaq for helping all of our dreams come true. Great teammate, Great leader and even better friend to me in our time wearing that heat uniform. I’m man enough to say that I owe a lot of my early success to this man! Congrats on number 32 going up in the rafters big fella. It’s definitely deserved x 10!”
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The good times wouldn’t last, though. O’Neal missed more than half the 2006-07 season due to injury for a Heat team whose title defense ended in a four-game sweep at the hands of the Chicago Bulls in the opening round of the 2007 playoffs. Things got even worse the following year, as an aging Shaq’s declining production, combined with team-wide struggles, led to a hellacious Miami losing streak, rising tempers and an alleged confrontation with Riley that reportedly proved to be the beginning of the end.
Before long, Shaq was on his way out to the desert to join Nash on the Suns in exchange for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks. He took shots at Riley and the Heat. Riley responded in kind.

The two legends later buried the hatchet, though. Shaq asked Riley to serve as one of his four presenters for his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this September. Riley called Shaq — not Alonzo Mourning, not Tim Hardaway, not LeBron James, not Chris Bosh, not Dwyane Wade — the single biggest acquisition in Heat history, the one who made all the championships to follow possible. Eventually, that led to O’Neal becoming the third Heat player to have his number hoisted to the rafters of AmericanAirlines Arena, joining Mourning and Hardaway.
The #32 Jersey of @SHAQ is raised to the rafters in Miami! #SHAQtacular #HEATisOn pic.twitter.com/xxaYT3xgoS
— NBA (@NBA) December 23, 2016
O’Neal thanked Mourning and Udonis Haslem — a young pup when O’Neal arrived in town, now a Heat institution — for their hard work, professionalism and contributions to the 2006 title. He shouted out Wade, saying he wished the former “Flash” could have been in attendance to see the ceremony and get his due recognition. (Given the way things have gone since Wade’s exit, that didn’t go over super great in the room.) He thanked the Arison family, the staffers and friends and others in the organization who helped make this night possible — including the Heat fans who cheered him a decade ago, and did so again on Thursday.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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