{"id":80568,"date":"2024-06-06T15:40:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T19:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=80568"},"modified":"2024-06-06T15:40:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T19:40:06","slug":"shaq-reveals-legend-he-wanted-to-team-up-with-in-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/06\/shaq-reveals-legend-he-wanted-to-team-up-with-in-2004\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaq Reveals Legend He Wanted To Team Up With In 2004"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NBA and sports in general are always filled with hypotheticals. How would a player\u2019s career have ended up if not for injuries? What if a particular trade was actually consummated? What if a team drafted this player instead of that player? Add <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/o\/onealsh01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shaquille O\u2019Neal\u2019s<\/a> name to the endless list of hypotheticals.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Neal is widely known as one of the most dominant players in NBA history. No one was quite able to match up with his size, and that allowed him to own the paint. The 19-year veteran played with some wonderful teammates throughout his career. While he was still dominating, he shared the court with Hall of Famers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bryanko01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kobe Bryant<\/a> and later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wadedw01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dwyane Wade<\/a>. In the twilight of his career, O\u2019Neal was teammates with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/allenra02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ray Allen<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/garneke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Garnett<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/p\/piercpa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul Pierce<\/a>.\u00a0What if the 7-1&#8221; big man teamed up with a legend from Germany?<\/p>\n<h2>Shaq Reveals He Wanted To Team Up With Dirk Nowitzki In 2004<\/h2>\n<h3>Shaq Wanted To Go To Dallas<\/h3>\n<p>On his podcast,\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tntdrama.com\/thebigpodcast\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Big Podcast With Shaq<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>O\u2019Neal recently had <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/03\/who-need-to-win-the-nba-finals-more-boston-celtics-or-dallas-mavericks\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Mavericks<\/a> all-timer<a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nowitdi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Dirk Nowitzki<\/a> as a guest. O\u2019Neal asked the 2023 Hall of Famer to name three players that he wished he played with. Nowitzki named Shaq as one of his three. That\u2019s when O\u2019Neal revealed that he was trying to get traded from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/06\/05\/lakers-anthony-davis-preference-head-coach-revealed\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> to the Mavericks.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cI tried to get to Dallas many times. Me and Mark Cuban were working behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Shaq on trying to get traded to the Mavs \ud83d\ude33<\/p>\n<p>Ep. 23 is live now on YouTube here: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VE3HdI7uyV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/VE3HdI7uyV<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Watch the UNCENSORED &amp; AD-FREE version by subscribing to our Passes account\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/AHGpse5buG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/AHGpse5buG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Big Podcast (@bigpodwithshaq) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bigpodwithshaq\/status\/1798438210575470656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It can\u2019t be seen as surprising that the Lakers front office did not want to team these two together as they are in the same conference. This reportedly happened in 2004, fresh after Los Angeles was upset by the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Shaq was traded to the Miami Heat in the 2004 offseason. As Nowitzki mentioned, it was the Heat led by O\u2019Neal and Wade that defeated his Mavericks in the 2006 NBA Finals. That was Shaq\u2019s fourth and final championship. Nowitzki did eventually get his ring in 2011 with Dallas.<\/p>\n<h3>Two Of The All-Time Greats<\/h3>\n<p>O\u2019Neal\u2019s most famous partnership in the NBA was of course with Bryant. While it\u2019s well known that the two didn\u2019t always see eye-to-eye, they won three straight titles from 2000 to 2002. While Bryant sits fourth on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/history\/leaders\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NBA\u2019s all-time scoring list<\/a>, Nowitzki isn\u2019t far behind. His 31,560 career points place him sixth all-time. Shaq is ninth with 28,596 career points.<\/p>\n<p>O\u2019Neal was 32 years old in 2004 when he wasn\u2019t traded to Dallas, but instead to Miami. In his first season with the Heat, he was runner-up for MVP behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nashst01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steve Nash<\/a>. Nowitzki was just 26 years old back in 2004. He has many more impactful seasons left in his career, winning MVP in 2006-07 and Finals MVP in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>While O\u2019Neal and Nowitzki never did get to team up, it\u2019s fun to imagine the possibilities of what they could have done together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The NBA and sports in general are always filled with hypotheticals. How would a player\u2019s career have ended up if not for injuries? What if a particular trade was actually consummated? What if a team drafted this player instead of that player? Add Shaquille O\u2019Neal\u2019s name to the endless list of hypotheticals. O\u2019Neal is widely [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":80607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,1608,26,62,3],"tags":[161,261],"class_list":["post-80568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mavericks","category-basketball","category-lakers","category-nba","category-news","tag-dirk-nowitzki","tag-shaquille-oneal"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}