O'Neal Is Set To Be Best Since Jordan

When the rumor first gained genuine steam some two weeks ago, Kobe Bryant's championship night was nearly upstaged. When the trade officially went through Thursday, Blake Griffin's big moment was shoved to the back burner.

The Orlando Magic, meanwhile, heard footsteps ominous enough to make the defending Eastern Conference champions go out and procure Vince Carter later that day.

And now, two days later, the reverberations of Shaquille O'Neal pairing with LeBron James in Cleveland are still being felt, with Shaq undeniably gaining an upper hand on Kobe and Tim Duncan in the race for a fifth NBA championship ring.

All of which begs the question: More than 10 years after Michael Jordan announced his second retirement, who is the most accomplished player of the post-Jordan generation: Shaq, Kobe or Duncan?

When I broached that question two weeks ago, before Game 5 of the NBA Finals, to some pretty decent basketball minds -- Jack Ramsay, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson -- Duncan was almost a unanimous choice.

While all three players have four rings, the thinking went that Duncan was the No. 1 player on all four of San Antonio's title teams; Shaq rode Dwyane Wade to his fourth in Miami and Kobe rode Shaq for his first three in Los Angeles.

"I think I might go for Kobe," Dr. Jack said, dissenting. "Because of the way down the stretch in big games he almost always comes up with the necessary play. There's a killer instinct about him that I don't see in the other three guys as much."

But no one considered Shaq, who, like Duncan, has three Finals MVP awards, and unlike anyone since Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, has been to six NBA Finals and won four.

Maybe because, at age 37, they figured O'Neal was physically done, despite playing more games last season (75) than he did the previous eight years. Maybe because his name has superseded his game, and all the juvenile sideshow antics have prejudiced too many ultra-serious hoopheads.

But a year from now, if O'Neal becomes a big reason why LeBron earns his first NBA title next season, he will have played with the three most breathtaking players since Jordan re-retired from the Bulls in 1998 after six titles. Remarkably, Shaq will have been to the NBA Finals one more time than Jordan, and with four -- count them, four -- different teams.

How would that not make the Diesel the most important player of his generation?

Look, the moment this trade was made Shaq was back, in the thick of it again after the Suns inexplicably missed the playoffs.