One of the biggest moments in Miami Heat history was when the organization acquired Shaquille O’Neal from the Lakers in 2004. The arrival of the Diesel signified a new powerhouse in the Eastern Conference — and also gave the NBA one of its most uncommon duos: Shaq and Dwyane Wade. Pat Riley loved having the Shaq Fu master on his squad. In fact, he spoke about how important Shaq was to his franchise ahead of the big man’s Hall of Fame induction in 2016.
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By the end of the 2003 season, tensions were high between O’Neal and the Lakers. The Diesel’s head coach, Phil Jackson, was gone. He was constantly butting heads with Kobe Bryant and was unhappy with Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak for making alarming comments about his future with the team.
Shaq also wanted to get paid, and LA wasn’t going to give him the money he wanted. Fortunately for the Hall of Famer, Miami showed interest, and the two teams agreed on a trade.
How did Riley feel about the trade at the time? Tremendous. He even told the Sun Sentinel in 2016 that Shaq made a bigger impact than fellow Heat Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning. “Zo was big, but getting Shaquille changed everything for our franchise.”
That wasn’t the only major comparison that Riley made regarding big Heat acquisitions, either. He told the same outlet that the Diesel even transcended LeBron James and Chris Bosh coming to the Heat.
“I’ll say this, and I mean this. Shaq’s acquisition was bigger than any acquisition that we ever made, including the Big Three,” said the nine-time NBA Champion. That’s a crazy good endorsement considering the impact the “Big Three” had on the league at the time.
The LeBron, Wade, and Bosh-led Heat went to four straight NBA Finals, winning two. It was also the first time in NBA history that players seemed to be in the driver’s seat in terms of where they wanted to go.
It would be easy to say that Riley is way off on that assessment. That said, Shaq’s impact in Miami cannot be overlooked. He took the team to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2005 and, along with Wade, led them to a championship in the 2006 season, which would mark O’Neal’s fourth and final championship win. Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, Riley clearly adored having Shaq in Miami. Unfortunately, it didn’t end as great as it began.
Shaq partly blamed Riley for his decision to leave the Heat
Shaq may have brought the Heat a title with Pat Riley as his coach, but by 2008, the two were not on good terms. Riley once accused O’Neal and faking his injuries, ones that had him scoring career lows and forced him to miss games. The two later got into an argument after Riley made Jayson Williams leave a practice early. Eventually, the big man had enough.
O’Neal was traded to the Phoenix Suns in the middle of the season, the beginning of his eventual exit from basketball. However, his relationship with Riley had gotten so fractured that he wrote about it in his autobiography: “Shaq Uncut: My Story,”
“Pat gave a lot of motivational speeches. After a while, when he launched into one of them, my eyes kind of glazed over, to be honest. I can’t tell you one speech he ever gave, because I knew it was all BS,” he wrote. This was a hand grenade thrown at Riley, who gained a reputation for delivering incredible speeches to motivate his team.
So it was nice to hear Riley, years later, rectify his mishandling of the O’Neal situation right around the time he went into the Hall of Fame. It goes to show you that not all feuds need to last forever.
