2004 Summer changes - Shaq joins Miami - continued

"This is the Diesel," said the voice at the other end, "and I'm coming down to cross you over on the first day of training camp."

Wade got a good laugh out of that one. "He's mad," Wade said. "I'm glad about that. Nobody wants to feel an angry Shaq. I'm glad I'm on his team. If he knows the way I play, he'll know I'll get him the ball."

"I wanted him to know all the stuff he read wasn't true," O'Neal says. "I told him it had nothing to do with me, and you'll see. This is stuff that happened between me and the other guy. And it can't ever happen between you and me."

"He's not a spoiled kid," O'Neal says, "and I'm not a spoiled kid."

Dwyane Wade point of view:
"He was hurt by what happened in L.A. I told him, 'We aren't going to have any problems. I never had had any problems with my teammates, that's not the kind of person I am.' I said, 'I'm all about winning championships. If we're going to reach our goal, if I'm going to have the ball in my hand a lot and I'm going to be your sidekick, we've got to click.' "

The instant he got to town, O'Neal declared Wade "a superstar," said the Heat were Wade's team and nicknamed him "Flash." Then he sat down with Wade for an hour to talk about the problems he'd had with Bryant.

They've been on the same page ever since:

Riley's take on the situation: "Dwyane respects the fact that Shaq respects and embraces him," Riley says. "That's where Dwyane is so different: A lot of young players come into the league and have no respect for greatness or for great players who have done it. Their relationship has flourished because of both of them cooperating, to be part of each other's games and to look out for one another. It's become a very dynamic duo."

My point of view I love the fact that Dwyane Wade is clearly the best player on the Heat. I love that fact because that perception - Shaquille O'Neal as sidekick - is exactly what Kobe Bryant spent 8 years trying to create in L.A., costing his team a championship and tearing apart a franchise in the process.

Just as he did in Orlando with Penny Hardaway and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles (before eventually turning on both), Shaq immediately deferred to Miami's resident star by calling the Heat "Dwyane's team." Wade laughed about that as well.

NEXT - Dwyane Wade at the Olympic games in Athens