The ground trembled beneath the NBA once more as Shaquille O'Neal was traded . . . .. as it always does when Shaq joins another team, and this makes five.
Now 37 and a shadow of the Diesel who left the Lakers at 32, O'Neal still reconfigures the league whenever he moves.
Of course, Thursday may be remembered in the NBA as the Feast of the Configuration, with Vince Carter going to Orlando in another deal, amid reports Phoenix has agreed to a deal sending Amare Stoudemire to Golden State.
Oh, the NBA also held its draft, which was important for a lot of teams who haven't been heard from in years.
(For the rest of our draft analysis, please see the bottom of this story.)
We'd better take a closer look at the impact of this memorable day, disaster site, er, team by team:
Cleveland -- Why not?
Shaq is hardly guaranteed to put them over the top and keep LeBron James in Cleveland in what could be a last hurrah for both, but it was a no-brainer.
LeBron wanted Shaq. For the Cavaliers, who must win a title next season or face the possibility James will leave as a free agent, nothing else matters.
Shaq ended a way of life for the running, gunning Suns but fits with the grind-it-out Cavaliers. From the moment the news broke, Boston General Manager Danny Ainge and everyone else in the East all thought the same thing:
Where can I find someone who weighs 280, who can push this monster one inch off the block?
Shaq will be on a mission, in better shape than he has been in years, thanks to the Phoenix medical staff, determined to get a deal for two more years.
In the past, he made half-hearted, at best, attempts to come out on pick-and-rolls. With the defense-oriented Cavaliers, I'd look for him to go all-out.
Of course, glamour notwithstanding -- here comes the wildest season the so-called Mistake by the Lake ever had -- the Cavaliers still have a problem or two:
Will Shaq complement LeBron as he did Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade?
James has always had the middle open, so he can drive to the hoop, or pitch it back to his shooters. The middle will have a large tenant next season.
Worse, the Cavaliers have little more now than LeBron, Shaq, Mo Williams and Delonte West.
Their only athletic big man, Anderson Varejao, is a free agent, with agent Dan Fegan determined to find a big deal to show Varejao's 2007 holdout wasn't idiotic.
