The Shaq Trade: Four Years Later

I like to think that Mitch Kupchak, in the year following the Shaq trade, woke up in a cold sweat more than a few times. I mean, here you have a guy charged with meeting the trade demands of potentially the most iconic LA athlete since Magic Johnson. How he dealt with this impossible situation would not only define his legacy as a GM, but would also shape the sports landscape of an entire city for the next decade.

After the Lakers fell to the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals, the team was at a crossroads unlike any it had seen since at least the summer it acquired Shaquille O'Neal - and there was no clear road to salvation. That was because the Lakers had a multitude of issues at hand. Foremost among them was the ongoing feud between Shaq and Kobe. Kobe had ruffled feathers in the organization by announcing before the season that he intended to opt out of his contract the following summer and test free agency. This, plus his ongoing rape trial in Colorado (as well as the fact that he "ratted out" Shaq for sleeping with NBA groupies), cast a shadow over the whole organization.

That would be bad enough if Shaq hadn't brought issues of his own to the table. During a pre-season game, Shaq threw down a thunderous dunk and, following the play, turned toward owner Jerry Buss, who was sitting on the sideline. "Show me the money!" Shaq yelled, referring to his desire for a contract extension in excess of $100 million. Dr. Buss was irked that Shaq put him on the spot like this in a public situation.

And, of course, we can't forget the ongoing issues between Kobe and Phil Jackson, culminating in Jackson deeming Kobe "uncoachable" and angrily demanding he be traded during the season. Clearly, this was a situation with no easy resolution. In the war for control of the Lakers, there were going to be casualties.

The first domino fell almost immediately after the Lakers lost the decisive Game 5 in Detroit, with Jackson all but admitting that he would not be back to coach the Lakers. Soon after, Shaq publicly demanded a trade. Plus, Kobe was now holding the organization hostage with his impending free agency. It was a perfect storm of crap, and one that, as we'll see, not even the league's best GM could have come out of unscathed.

But let's digress for a moment and take a look at what was going on in Miami. The Heat, which had been an Eastern Conference powerhouse for the last half of the 90s, had fallen on hard times around the turn of the century. In a way, the late 90s Heat were like the late 80s Hawks, a supremely talented team that just couldn't get over the hump. Coach/GM Pat Riley decided he had had enough in 2000 and opened the team checkbook, signing forward Briant Grant from Portland and trading P.J. Brown and Jamal Mashburn to the Hornets for Eddie Jones. These players, along with Alonzo Mourning and the other veterans, made the Heat a trendy pick to reach the Finals and challenge the Lakers.

Nothing went according to Riley's plan. Seemingly moments after making these acquisitions, Mourning discovered that he had a kidney disorder and would need a transplant. He ended up missing 69 games in the 2000-01 season, and the burden fell to Grant and Eddie Jones, along with aging players like Tim Hardaway and Dan Majerle, to shoulder the load. While the Heat made the playoffs, they were swept in the first round, ironically by the Hornets. The next couple seasons saw the Heat tumble into the lottery and select Caron Butler, sign the undrafted Udonis Haslem and free agent Lamar Odom and, of course, draft Dwyane Wade.

For a team, coach, and fanbase so accustomed to success, this sudden decline was disheartening, to say the least. So much so, in fact, that Riley decided just before the 2003-04 season that he no longer felt like coaching and handed the team over to assistant Stan Van Gundy. The Heat, at this point, were widely expected to be one of the league's worst teams, especially after getting off to a woeful start and dealing with injuries.

Then a funny thing happened - the young team gelled and ended up making the playoffs as a number 6 seed, knocking out the Hornets in round one, and taking the number 1 seed Pacers to 6 games in round two before falling. The team suddenly had a bright future, especially considering Butler had missed much of the season with injuries. The core of Butler, Odom and Wade, along with role players like Haslem and vets like Grant and Jones, had the Heat poised to grow and contend for a long time.

Anyway, back to the Lakers. With Jackson gone, the Lakers had a few major objectives. First, they had to solve the Shaq-Kobe standoff. Would they keep Shaq and sign him to an extension, thereby hoping Kobe would come around and stay as well? Or would they trade Shaq and then hope Kobe re-signed? We all know what they decided, but for the sake of argument, let's take a look at the possible scenarios that could have developed.

Scenario 1: Shaq and Kobe realize they need each other, kiss and make up, and stay with the Lakers. Shaq signs an extension that pays him nearly $30 million a year and Kobe re-signs for the maximum allowable (over $20 million per season).

Pro: The league's two best players (at the time) stay together. The Lakers still have enough juice to make a run at a title. Kobe's good name remains untainted (despite the fact that he, um, probably raped someone. But people didn't really get down on him until he "ran Shaq out of town." Oh sports fans).

Con: Yeah RIGHT. Beyond the fact that there was never a chance of this happening for logistical reasons (you couldn't put these two in the same room by the end of the season), the financial ramifications would have been staggering. One of the biggest reasons Shaq got traded wasn't because he and Kobe didn't get along, but because he wanted such a massive contract extension. Shaq was adamant that he wanted in excess of $20 million a year, and Kobe also wanted a max deal (and at the time, both deserved it). Had the Lakers done this, they would have been paying 2 players over $50 million a year! For those keeping score at home, in the 2004-05 season, the salary cap was around $55 million, while the luxury tax threshold was a little over $60 million. That means that in order to fill out their roster, the Lakers would have had to pay the luxury tax. For those unaware, when a team passes the luxury tax threshold, it has to pay a dollar for every dollar it goes over. So a $10 million contract actually costs the team $20 million, and so on. As we saw during the Lakers' mismanaged title run offseasons, Buss would rather eat his own children than pay the luxury tax. Put simply, there was absolutely, positively no way this was happening unless Shaq was asked to take a substantial pay cut. And that would have only pissed him off more.

Scenario 2: The Lakers keep Shaq and let Kobe walk away.

Pro: Shaq stays to anchor the team he led to 3 titles and continues to strike fear into the hearts of Western Conference opponents. The Lakers use the cap room gained from Kobe's departure to upgrade various aspects of the team in a way they never could during the title years. Plus, the drama comes to an end (well, maybe).

Con: Of all the scenarios listed here, this could have potentially been the most disastrous for the Lakers. Sure, Shaq would still be in LA, but things wouldn't have been rosy by any means. For one, Shaq would have gotten his fat contract, likely $25-30 million per. That's fine until you remember that big men often age rapidly in their 30s, especially when they have infamously awful offseason conditioning habits. The cap room would have been a boon for the team's flexibility, but knowing the Lakers (and the NBA, really) much of this probably would have been taken up by "panic signings." In other words, we probably would have seen guys like Larry Hughes and Kenyon Martin in Laker jerseys had this gone down. Even if they had gotten it right, though, and signed guys like Gilbert Arenas or Carlos Boozer, they would still have had Shaq taking up a massive chunk of payroll and not getting any younger. To be even more blunt, the Lakers would be in the same position Miami is in now (which we'll discuss later), only arguably worse off. And this is before you remember Kobe likely would have signed with the Clippers. This would have been a marketing NIGHTMARE, especially considering the Lakers make a whole lot more money off Kobe than they ever made off Shaq.

Scenario 3: Lakers say to hell with it, trade Shaq and let Kobe walk away.

Pro: Mountains of delicious cap room. No more drama. Um...

Con: It doesn't matter if the Lakers had signed Arenas AND Boozer to replace them - the fans would have rioted and burned down Staples Center. On the flip side, this is an intriguing combination of ballsy and stupid that I would like to see any NBA team try.

Oh wait. The Bulls did this in 1998. Oops.

Scenario 4: The Lakers trade Shaq and re-sign Kobe.

Pro: Lakers get deeper, Kobe stays.

Con: Lots of them, which we know very well since this is what actually went down. But here's a run-down in case you don't know or have forgotten:

-The only teams that ever had a realistic shot at trading for Shaq were Indiana, Dallas and Miami. Of these three teams, Indiana was the least interested because trading for Shaq would have involved giving up Jermaine O'Neal, who was 8 years younger and cheaper. Dallas would have had to give up Dirk but likely still would have let Nash walk because of Shaq's salary. Considering how they disintegrated the next year, would the Pacers have made this trade if they were able to see into the future? Yeah, if it involved tossing Ron Artest to the Lakers.

-Since Indiana was never serious and the Mavs refused to trade Dirk, Kupchack's hands were tied. Trying to get anything he could, he traded Shaq to Miami for Lamar Odom, Brian Grant, Caron Butler, and a 2006 first rounder. He was skewered for the deal, which analysts and sportswriters like ESPN's Bill Simmons referred to as "the Shaquille O'Neal pupu platter."

-The Lakers rounded this out by drafting Sasha Vujacic, signing Vlade Divac to play center, trading Gary Payton to the Celtics for Chris Mihm, Jumaine Jones and Chucky Atkins, and luring Rudy Tomjanovich out of retirement to coach. On paper, this team wasn't awful. It was extremely young and athletic with a reasonable amount of upside. Plus it still had the game's best overall player...but no Big Fella.

-Just like Riley's dream season in 2000, the Lakers' young season quickly imploded. Following a public falling out between Kobe and former teammate Karl Malone, the public began to turn on Kobe. This reached an apex when Laker fans cheered wildly for Shaq during a Christmas Day game between the Lakers and Heat (which the Lakers lost). Things got even worse when Tomjanovich abruptly resigned due to health concerns 38 games into the season (some speculate that the "health issues" were Kobe himself). At this point, the Lakers were 22-16 and playing reasonably well. Losing their coach, however, sent them into a tailspin as they finished the season 11-33 and lost Kobe to injury for a prolonged stretch.

-Meanwhile, Shaq instantly upgraded the Heat to the Eastern Conference elite, teaming with Wade to lead them within one game of the first NBA Finals in franchise history. The next year, the two would get over the hump and reach the Finals, winning a controversial series in which Wade was named MVP.

Now look, as a Laker fan, I have to admit this - there is absolutely no way in hell anyone can say with a straight face that the Lakers got the better of this trade. The second the clock ran down in Game 6, the Heat officially got the better of it - they won a title. The Lakers, meanwhile, made decent strides in their second year. But their youth became their own worst enemy when they blew a 3-1 series lead to number 2 seed Phoenix in the first round. The next year they took a step back and got blown out in round one by Phoenix, then endured a summer of Kobe Bryant trade speculation (due to Kobe's unhappiness with his "supporting cast").

After missing the playoffs in 2005 for the fourth time in franchise history (seriously), the Lakers got a rare lottery pick and drafted center Andrew Bynum. Deciding that Butler duplicated many of the skills Kobe and Odom possessed, the Lakers, in need of size, traded him to Washington for former number one pick (and frequent contender for the WORST PLAYER EVER AWARD) Kwame Brown. They also drafted Jordan Farmar with the Heat's draft pick and eventually brought back Derek Fisher and signed Vladimir Radmanovich.

A little over a quarter through the 2007-2008 season, the Lakers are one of the league's most interesting yet enigmatic teams. They possess a surprising amount of young talent in Bynum, Farmar, Trevor Ariza and second-round steals Luke Walton and Ronny Turiaf. As I type this, I'm watching the Lakers beat the Sixers with Bynum having a career scoring night and 3 players with 20 points apiece...and Kobe isn't one of them. While they aren't inspiring fear in San Antonio, Phoenix, or Dallas at this point, the Lakers are as promising as any up-and-coming team in the league...which is a whole lot more than I could have said for them as recently as this summer.

And then there's the Heat. After winning their title in 2006, just about nothing has gone according to plan for Shaq and D-Wade's team. First they stood pat with the team that won the championship, forgetting that the team had a myriad of issues and rode a wave of momentum (and dispatched an uninterested Pistons team) on the way to a title. The Heat got off to a slow start and had to play every game like a playoff game just to make the postseason, sneaking in as a sixth seed before getting swept in the first round by Chicago.

During this struggle to make the playoffs, Wade hurt his shoulder and missed the beginning of this season. The Heat responded to his absence by shipping out two of Riley's doghouse players (James Posey and Antoine Walker) and getting Mark Blount and Ricky Davis in return. Despite this, the team missed Wade and Shaq started to do what Dr. Buss always feared he would: He got old. Real old. Averaging 14 points and 8 rebounds, Shaq is a shell of his former self and has even been called out by Riley and Wade for not pulling his weight (literally) on the team. Arguably, Shaq is being outperformed by young Bynum, the guy replacing him in LA.

Miami's problems run deeper, however, than being 7-19 and dead last in the Southeast Division. See, Shaq got his contract with the Heat, albeit for less money than he wanted from the Lakers (probably as some sort of "screw you" gesture), but still a hefty $20 million a season all the way until 2010. In the 2006 offseason, Wade signed an extension that will keep him in a Heat uniform 5 additional years after his rookie deal expires, except that he has an opt-out clause after 3 years. Scarier than this, however, is the fact that the NBA tacitly encourages Wade's "fall down seven times, get up eight" style of play. He constantly throws himself around and risks injury and is helped out by favorable whistles. Worse, having to pull the team out of these early season holes while Shaq works himself into shape is putting more wear and tear on the youngster's body than he should be having to deal with at this point. Truthfully, at this point you're going to call Wade the next anything, it may just be "The next T-Mac" due to these sudden injury concerns.

Far from the young team that nearly shocked the Pacers in the 2004 playoffs, this Heat team is old. Real old. The Heat do have younger players like Wade, Dorell Wright, Haslem and rookie Daequen Cook, but these guys are off-set by older and/or ineffective players like Jason Williams, Mark Blount, Ricky Davis and O'Neal. And sadly, the Heat's best older player, Alonzo Mourning himself, likely had his career end the other night when he tore a knee ligament. So help isn't exactly on the way. The Heat are going to have a hard time filling holes the next few years, largely because of Shaq's mammoth contract and the raises due to Wade in that stretch. The best Riley can hope for, at the moment, is a favorable draft pick and/or a shrewd trade or two...though that whole Ricky Davis experiment hasn't exactly worked out. While I'm not going to guarantee the Heat will be trapped in lottery hell the next few years, they have a better chance of this happening than the Lakers...and they play in the weaker East.

The bottom line, four years later, is this: in every sport, up-and-coming teams are constantly faced with a dilemma: do we mortgage our future to win now? The Heat took this chance and were rewarded with a title. However, it's looking like as a result of this decision, they may have given up their chance to win another title, or perhaps more. And that's before remembering that Wade has an opt-out clause three years into his new deal. If he isn't happy with the direction of the team, he could easily walk out the door to greener pastures.

It's unreasonable to speculate what would have happened to the Heat had they not traded for Shaq, but it's reasonable to assume that they could have kept improving and contended in the East for years. Now, they're facing a rebuilding process earlier than they would have otherwise. It's very possible that, by the time his opt-out appears, Wade could find himself in a very similar situation to the one Kobe is in right now - a team that isn't a lottery team but isn't elite either (on a different note, it frustrates me to no end that GMs are unable to surround talented players like Wade and LeBron with decent players. Sigh).

While the Heat took the plunge and were rewarded with a championship, there are two other cautionary tales for a team faced with the same dilemma the Heat found themselves in 4 years ago - the question of whether to win now or continue building.

The first comes in Chicago, which went through multiple rebuilding processes after Michael Jordan retired. As the team floundered year after year it compiled an impressive war chest of young talent, including players like Kirk Hinrich, Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Tyrus Thomas, Joakim Noah, Tyson Chandler and Thabo Sefolosha. When the team began to improve and make the playoffs many felt that the Bulls' Achilles' Heel was the fact that they didn't have a reliable low-post scorer and, further, a legitimate go-to guy at the end of games. For a few years, they were the only team with enough young talent and cap space to land players like Pau Gasol and Kevin Garnett. They continually turned down chances to acquire marquee players in order to keep stockpiling young players, their lone acquisition of a big-time veteran coming in the form of Ben Wallace...who isn't exactly Garnett or Gasol in the low-post. Now, the team is in a tailspin and continues to lack a go-to guy. Not only that, but the luster has worn off many of the Bulls' blue chip players. Gordon is seen as a glorified sixth man, some doubt if Deng can be a marquee player, Thomas appears to be a rich man's Stromile Swift, and Noah can't shoot worth a damn. All of that trade leverage is suddenly gone. Unfortunately, when the eggs went bad, the Bulls were the one left holding the carton with no KG or Gasol to show for it.

On the flipside is the San Antonio Spurs, the most consistently successful team since Jordan retired. After winning one title in the lockout season, the Spurs watched the Lakers win three straight championships. After drafting Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, the Spurs had a duo of promising young players to go with their veterans and finally broke through to win another title in the 2002-03 season. After this, however, they were faced with a dilemma. Jason Kidd was suddenly available, and the Spurs thought long and hard about trading Parker to the Nets to acquire the veteran point guard. Despite the fact that Kidd was the league's best point guard and could likely have made the Spurs one of the all-time greatest teams, the Spurs stuck with Tony Parker. Two more titles later, with more potentially on the way, the decision looks genius. Parker is still only 25 and was named Finals MVP last year. Further, the stability this has given the Spurs has allowed them to win consistently without any huge shake-ups.

As you can see, the decision to mortgage the future can pay dividends, and it can also lead to even more suffering. On the flipside, knowing when to roll the dice is an inexact science and a team can easily end up like the Bulls. Or they can be like the Spurs, stick with their guys, and hit the jackpot.

Ironically, the Lakers were in the same position last year, also involving Kidd. The Lakers chose not to trade for him, as New Jersey wanted Bynum in the deal. Now, Bynum is averaging a double-double and Kidd is still unhappy in Jersey.

In the end, as a basketball fan, it makes sense to ask yourself: would you rather your team won a title now and rebuilt for years, or take the chance that the current group of guys will find a way to win?

There's no easy answer. Especially if you're John Paxson.

Or Mitch Kupchak.