Shaq Welcomes Wake-Up Call

PHOENIX

Shaquille O'Neal had heard all the bad stuff over the previous 48 hours, in the time since he'd been traded, stunningly, from Miami to Phoenix. Too fat, too old, too slow, too often injured, too unmotivated, too incompatible with the Suns' run-and-shoot, high-wire act to ever fit in here.

"I have no reaction," Shaq said initially, a moment before launching into a reaction, one that makes the Suns' coaches and players grin like little schoolboys who know the big grizzly bear has been awakened and isn't happy about it.

"You all are going to be surprised," Shaq said Thursday morning. "I look forward to making people eat their words. I do. I really do. When I'm very upset I'm known to do certain things, like win championships."

It was 15 1/2 years ago that the late Cotton Fitzsimmons walked a newly acquired Charles Barkley into an empty arena and told him the Suns had a shiny new arena and a building full of patrons every night, and it was his job to put a championship banner in the rafters. Barkley got close, taking the Suns to the NBA Finals in 1993, but the franchise hasn't been that far since. And Shaq's first official appearance was compared with Barkley's, though nobody took Shaq into the arena and pointed to the ceiling.

Shaq charmed folks Thursday as Barkley did when he arrived.

"I'm coming to a fabulous team with a lot of great shooters," Shaq said. "I was telling Steve [Kerr, the Suns' general manager], 'Thanks for bringing me to the land of shooters.' "

Professional basketball is the No. 1 sporting passion here in the desert because the Suns have been around a lot longer than the NFL Cardinals, MLB Diamondbacks and NHL Coyotes. And people have been in a dark basketball mood since, according to them, NBA Commissioner David Stern stole the title from them last May by wrongly suspending Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw in that now infamous dust-up with the Spurs. Shaq's arrival brought essentially the first smile to their faces since then.

Kerr, long on common sense and impossible not to root for, played with Shaq once upon a time in Orlando, and he's the person whose stock will rise or crash depending on how this turns out. He hadn't had any sleep and had lost weight over the past few days, but his face was brightened just by Shaq's presence. "I don't think there's been a person in the history of the league who could so quickly change the mood of the room," Kerr said. "Already, we have a better spirit about us."

In other words, Shaq lifted a civic funk and he hasn't even played yet.

"Our emotional well-being as a team," Kerr said, "had grown a little stale."