“It Ain’t Over Till the Fat Lady Sings.. And I Don’t Know No Fat Ladies”: Billionaire Mark Cuban Once Offended Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade Into Winning an NBA Ring

Shaquille O?Neal and Kobe Bryant won the three-peat with the Los Angeles Lakers from the years 2000-2002. They became one of the best duos of all time, right up there with the likes of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and so on. They brought the Lakers back on top after a decade-long dominance of the Chicago Bulls. Shaq and Kobe were formidable together.

An unbreakable partnership whose only undoing turned out to be the professional differences between two friends and a rift that resulted in Shaq leaving. Shaq then joined the Miami Heat, where he formed another classic duo with Dwyane Wade.

After Shaq won his fourth NBA championship, he made an appearance on Stephen A. Smith?s show Quite Frankly on ESPN. He emphasized how important that fourth ring was to him. He said at the time, ? I’m blessed, I’m lucky, I’m happy. And you know I said when I first came in last year that I wanted my legacy to be about winning championships. So by the grace of God, I have four. ? When we went down two games, they were a little bit too happy.?

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Shaq continued, ?Mark Cuban after they won Game 2 printed in the paper the next day the parade right which was a mistake. Pat came down and put it on his xerox machine and printed it, just put it up on the boards. Put it in FedEx envelopes and send it to our house. When we got home the next morning, we opened it up, said we’re not even practicing today. We know we got to do right before game three.”

“So we came out and we got three, and we got four, then we got five. Our method was to just take one game at a time, you ain’t over until the fat lady sings and I don’t know no fat ladies.? Shaq concluded, telling the motivation which came from criticism by Mark Cuban in a hilarious manner.

Shaquille O?Neal and Dwyane Wade – The Heated Duo

Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade worked in tandem. While at the Lakers, Shaq was the dominant force in terms of points, at the Miami Heat he had Wade to dominate performances. Only 24 years old at the time, Wade had shown the league how good he was in his prime. That is why Shaq and Wade won the NBA championship in just their second season together.

In their title-winning run, in the regular season, Shaq averaged 20 points while Wade averaged 27.2. In the playoffs, Shaq had 18.4 points per game. Wade once again led with 28.4 points per game in 23 games. The Miami Heat had never won the NBA title in their history. But the partnership of Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade guided them to a historic first title.

The duo was in form practically all season. That’s why even after going 2-0 down in the Finals against the Dallas Mavericks, people had hope that Shaq and Wade would turn this around. And that’s exactly what they did. They won four games in a row to clinch the NBA title 4-2 and Dwyane Wade won the Finals MVP.

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Shaquille O?Neal is undoubtedly one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA. He is certainly one of the top 10 players of all time. His achievements and dominance during his playing time were absolutely stupendous. He won four NBA championships in his career. Three in a row with the Los Angeles Lakers and one with the Miami Heat. Shaq always chased greatness and in that pursuit, he ended up playing with two other legends of the game in Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade.