LISTEN: Why Did Shaq Leave The Magic and Join Lakers?
ORLANDO - It's been over 25 years since Shaquille O'Neal left the Orlando Magic in free agency and traded Disney World for Disneyland out in California with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Stories from the past have a tendency to return to the surface, and every time the story is retold, there are details that pop up that may not have been discovered before.
On a recent episode of the Icons Club podcast, longtime NBA insider Jackie MacMullan shares a reason why O'Neal left the Magic to join the Lakers.
The Orlando Sentinel newspaper set up a poll in which callers weighed in on a single question. Is Shaquille O’Neal worth $150 million? More than 5,000 people called in, and over 91% said no. Shaq, who was training with Team USA at the time, was mercilessly teased by his teammates over the results. Back in Orlando, his mother, Lucille, was subjected to a bird’s-eye view of the results plastered on a billboard, which she could see from her office.
After just four seasons in Orlando, O'Neal averaged 27.2 points per game to go with 12.5 rebounds.
O'Neal's dominance, which began in Orlando, helped land him at No. 9 on Nick Wright's Top 50 NBA Players list of the last 50 seasons.
O'Neal sits behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Larry Bird and Hakeem Olajuwon on the list.
By 1995, O'Neal's third season in the league, the Magic advanced all the way to the NBA Finals, where it lost to the Houston Rockets in four games.
The next season, O'Neal and the Magic returned to the Eastern Conference Finals, but were swept by the 72-10 Chicago Bulls, who went on to win the championship that year.
Game 4 of that Conference Finals was O'Neal's last in a Magic uniform as he signed a record-breaking contract with the Los Angeles Lakers that summer ... possibly as a result of that billboard.
He went on to win three championships with the Lakers from 2000-02 and another ring with the Miami Heat in 2006.
