During his four-year stint with the Miami Heat, Shaquille O”Neal had a lot of good memories, including winning his fourth championship in 2006 and the epic speeches Pat Riley made for the team.
O'Neal recently recalled one of the most memorable talks the Heat's President made where he attempted a world record as well as discussing how the roster back then came together as a unit.
“It was different. We had a bunch of misfits on the team, I can say that. We had a bunch of guys that were respectively ‘the man' on their team once in their career. I think D-Wade [Dwyane Wade], Pat and myself, we had to keep everyone together. The best thing Pat did was have practice at 12 o'clock. Those guys used to go out every night on the beach. We just stuck together. I was actually very scared when we went down 0-2 to Dallas [Mavericks], but Pat gives those Hoosier-type motivational speeches.”
“He almost killed himself talking to us one time. He came in and came with a piece of paper and said something like, ‘the world's record holder for holding your breath is four minutes'. He did it for like eight minutes and I asked him if he was alright and he came up and almost died that day. It was a fun year. I finally watched the championship DVD and it brought back a lot of memories.”
More than 10 years after that speech, it has still left a mark on O'Neal as he can still clearly remember it. Riley is known to be one of the more outspoken front office executives in the NBA and he does not shy away from voicing out his thoughts.
Despite getting traded after four seasons, O'Neal and Riley still had a good relationship and just last week, proved that the decision to move the former MVP and 15-time All-Star eight years ago was purely business as the Heat retired his jersey and honored him for his contributions to the franchise.
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