The Heat's big, naked goofball champion

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In July 2004, Pat Riley made what was at the time unquestionably the biggest trade in the history of the Miami Heat, for Shaquille O'Neal. O'Neal arrived saying "I'm going to bring a championship to Miami. I promise." Thus began one of the most maddening, egotistical, fun and victorious periods in team history.

For the first half of this three-and-a-half years in Miami it seemed the Shaq experiment might have been a failure, until the team kept O'Neal's promise by winning the 2005-06 title over the Mavericks. Even after that, things were never smooth, and eventually in February 2008 O'Neal was traded away to Phoenix after an argument with Riley.

In the words of those who were there, this is the behind-the-scenes story of O'Neal's time in Miami.

Heat president Pat Riley
You're talking about one of the most dominant players in the history of the game. Even though we made some very good deals before that, but until then we never really had the opportunity to acquire a player of his stature. Global, domestic, league superstar, who is in his prime.

So 10 years after I got here, I had the opportunity to trade for him and I wasn't going to pass it up. I felt that what you need is impactful superstars. In order to win championships, you got to have impact stars and there wasn't a bigger one on the planet than Shaquille O'Neal. He was probably the most important acquisition that we've ever made. The biggest trade that we've ever made since I've been here is Shaquille O'Neal.

Thank God we did.