After spending 8 years and winning 3 championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, Shaquille O’Neal took his talents to the Miami Heat through a trade. It happened after the relationship between him and Kobe Bryant had been damaged beyond repair. As he moved to South Beach, he had one thing in mind — winning a ring before Kobe. Already having Dwyane Wade there to help him achieve it, Shaq also recruited legendary point guard Gary Payton.
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A 15-year veteran at the time, GP took a significantly smaller role in order to get himself his first championship. The 9x All-Star was playing under 30 minutes per game for the first time since his rookie season, and yet he made sure he was available for all but one game in the season. And the Big Diesel is still thankful to Payton for his game-winner in Game 3 of the Finals. That’s something you can take a look at from the 3;49 mark on in the YouTube clip below.
Shaq is grateful to Gary Payton for his 4th title
In a recent sit down with Gary Payton on The Big Podcast, O’Neal thanked the greatest two-way point guard of all time for hitting a game-winning shot in Game 3 of the 2006 Finals.
“He came to Miami, and he hit the most single biggest shot in my career, not his career, my career. You helped me win my 4th championship,” O’Neal said.
Watch it in the following clip by NBA on TNT for the whole exchange.
He further went on to explain how difficult and probably impossible it would have been for them to come back from a 0-3 deficit in the Finals if Payton didn’t get the go-ahead shot with just 9 seconds remaining in the game clock.
Back in 2005, Payton tried and failed to get the ring with the Celtics, much like he did in ’04-05 with the Lakers, in Shaq’s last year. He got another opportunity in the ’05 off-season when O’Neal summoned him, Jason ‘White Chocolate’ Williams, and Antoine Walker for the hunt.
All 3 of them played a crucial part in winning the 2006 championship with O’Neal and Wade leading them from the front. And according to Shaq, it was the beginning of the Heat Culture.
Shaquille O’Neal claims to have started the Heat Culture
O’Neal’s co-host on the Big Podcast, Nischelle Turner, brought up the ‘Heat Culture’ while Shaq was in the middle of telling a story and asked GP about it.
The Diesel responded to it hilariously by saying he and Payton started “that sh*t”.
“Nananana! That’s me and Gary’s sh*t. There ain’t no Heat Culture. Me and Garry did that,” said Shaq. “Me, Gary, Alonzo, DWade, and Jason Williams, that’s our sh*t.”
Payton, who first had his iconic laugh about it, did agree to it.
