Before Rejecting Magic’s $54 Million Offer, Shaquille O’Neal’s Private Conversation With Ex-Agent Revealed (Exclusive)
It’s a story in Shaq-lore with many sides. There was the Orlando Magic side, the Lakers side, the media side, the cities’ side, and of course Shaquille O’Neal’s side. Different perspectives made up O’Neal’s bitter departure from Orlando, moving cross country to play on the West Coast. Shaq has maintained since 1992 that he had no intention of leaving. But what changed his mind? Leonard Armato, Shaq’s agent-turned-friend, was there through it all. He’s even blamed for the Shaq-Orlando divorce. While speaking to EssentiallySports’ Vishal Kolar, the Shaq brand architect revealed the side no one saw.
If Shaq, via Armato, had his way, he would’ve ended his NBA career where it began. However, as history goes, O’Neal took the $121 million offer to play for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996 and became a household name throughout the globe, winning accolade after accolade in his legendary career. Armato gave a brief timeline that showed O’Neal wasn’t even considering other offers at first.
Armato: “Shaq’s contract was up with the Magic and we started talking with them and he told me very clearly, ‘I want to stay with the Magic,’ and I said, ‘Okay, let’s do a deal with the Magic.’ So I went to the Magic and I said, ‘Okay let’s make a deal.'”
Magic had O’Neal’s Bird rights with the ability to pay him more than the $24.3 million salary cap to re-sign him. To Armato’s surprise, Orlando was not offering the maximum contract under the collective bargaining agreement. Reports have claimed that they weren’t going higher than $54 million, which Shaq took as a big insult as other big men like Alonzo Mourning and Juwan Howard signed seven-year, $105 million deals earlier.
At that time, O’Neal had grown from a monster rookie to the star who led the Magic to its first NBA Finals and even beat Michael Jordan in the Playoffs (To date, that team remains the only one to beat MJ’s rampaging Bulls in the 90s). He was wanted all over the league and he knew his worth. As much as he wanted to stay in Orlando, he wasn’t going to undersell himself. So he tasked Armato with establishing his worth.
Armato: “When that happened, Shaq said to me, ‘Look, go see if there’s anything else out there.'”
Shaq became a free agent and was on a lot of teams’ radar. As soon as he gave his agent the green light, the Lakers made a move.
Shaquille O’Neal proved his worth
Kolar spoke about the media side of things in 1996, and it was wild, to say the least. More than the lack of max contract, it was the Orlando Sentinel poll that established that 91% of its readers responded O’Neal isn’t worth $150 million that scarred Shaq. Armato was also painted as a Hollywood broker who wanted to get Shaq more entertainment gigs. But other teams didn’t think the same.
The then-Lakers GM, Jerry West, had known Armato since the time he managed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He called Shaq’s agent with an initial $96 million offer. Armato said his client won’t consider any offer less than the $100 million Alonzo Mourning was getting. So West traded Vlade Divac and his $8.5 million salary to get the draft pick he used to select Kobe Bryant and he upped his offer to Shaq to $121 million for seven years.
Shaquille O’Neal accepted it and West met both Shaq and Armato in Atlanta to sign him. His love for Orlando remained though, and he still wishes he could’ve won a championship for them.
The post Before Rejecting Magic’s $54 Million Offer, Shaquille O’Neal’s Private Conversation With Ex-Agent Revealed (Exclusive) appeared first on EssentiallySports.
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