After four years of duking it out with Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors in June, LeBron James decided that he'll just have to face the Warriors earlier — in the Western Conference finals — as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. His move was expected by many, but one person who was taken by surprise is Hall of Famer Shaquille O'Neal.

A Laker great himself, O'Neal spoke with Brody Miller of NOLA.com and discussed his initial expectation out of James in free agency.

“I would have thought because — see, we all have egos. When I had my three rings, I wanted to get four before Kobe (Bryant) did. Now, we got four, then Kobe got five. I didn't want Tim Duncan to get five.”

“So, I thought LeBron's process was going to be, ‘I got three, Steph Curry's got three. I'm going to stay here, bring some people or go to a team I can get four before (Curry) got four.'”

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With how the Lakers are constructed as of this writing, James' chances of upending the Warriors remains bleak. In fact, despite having a young and talented core, Los Angeles would still have to go through a Golden State team that would have a spry core of stars three years from now, granted that they remain intact.

As it stands, Curry is poised to add more hardware to his trophy case while James would have to content himself with pages off the NBA record books. For O'Neal, the four-time MVP's landscape-altering decision boiled down to one thing — family.