<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">MIAMI ? Pat Riley fired the first shot Tuesday in the Battle of Shaq's Bulge. The Heat coach wants Shaquille O'Neal to lose weight to aid his recovery from knee surgery. "Right now I hope his thought process is that he tries to almost reinvent himself physically," Riley said. "Because this is the first time that he's really had something wrong with his knee to the extent that there's been surgery on it." Riley said it's extremely important that O'Neal "come back a lot lighter, a lot leaner." O'Neal, speaking Tuesday for the first time since having surgery Nov. 19 to repair cartilage in his left knee, promised he would be in "good enough shape to help the team out, help win games. ... "Once I'm cleared to start running I'll get back into shape," he said. Asked if that meant he'll be lighter than his reported playing weight last season of 325 pounds, O'Neal said: "I don't know; it doesn't matter to me." O'Neal has not stepped on a court since the operation but immediately began weight lifting and general therapy. He said his post-operation recovery time remains four to six weeks, which would put him in uniform some time between Dec. 17 and Dec. 31. But Riley plans to ask for more than doctors' clearance. When the Heat obtained O'Neal from the Los Angeles Lakers in July 2004, Riley set a weight requirement for O'Neal, who met it without objection. Riley was asked Tuesday if he has made new demands of O'Neal. "You don't demand anything from anybody," Riley said. "You say this is in the best interest of your career and also the best interest of the team. "Our guys that rehab, conditioning is a priority in making sure they're really ready when they come back. There's a lot of things you can do to get to that state without having to deal with the knee. That's been explained to him." O'Neal said he won't baby himself upon his return. "I'm not a cautious type of guy," he said. "Once I'm cleared to run and jump and do all that stuff I'll go out and be me and hopefully (the knee) can withstand the impact I bring upon it." The injury that necessitated surgery came Nov. 12, when O'Neal collided with Houston forward Chuck Hayes. O'Neal had injured the same knee in a collision with New Jersey's Bostjan Nachbar nine days before, forcing him to miss two games.</div> Source
Shaq will never shape up and will never be the same player he was when he dominated the league with the Lakers. The Lakers organization saw this coming from him this is why we traded him.
