The Big Man wanted to dominate the former two duos of Penny Hardaway and Kobe Bryant. It was a success for the purple and gold, but there is zero conjecture that Shaquille O’Neal left the Lakers on a sour note. His desire to win another championship did not go away with his next move. In fact, his move to the Miami Heat was a planned move to partner up with Dwyane Wade.

But he had to take the first step and break the ice with the young ‘Flash‘. “The first thing I did when I came to Miami I said, ‘look you heard a lot of sh** about me, that ain’t going to happen with me and you.'” Shaq said on the OGs podcast. “This your sh*t. I don’t want them to cause no Shaq-D Wade because it’s sh** already. I came here because of you. Cause I need a player like you to help me get one more. So me and him never had a problem.”

In his 3rd year, Dwyane Wade won his first championship. Plus, at the age of 24, he led the team in points, assists, and steals. Miami Heat were the underdogs for the Finals and lost the first two games. But were able to come back and win 4 straight games to achieve the title. After the game, Shaq even called D-Wade “best in the world.”

Dwyane Wade knew that the reason Shaq joined was to win another championship before Kobe Bryant. And with the conversation with O’Neal, the realization set in that the Big Man was counting on Wade. But D-Wade needed another motivation during the finals and O’Neal wasn’t afraid to give some while also admitting his personal troubles.

How Shaquille O’Neal played a pivotal role for the Dwyane Wade to achieve his first championship

While Shaq was clear that he wanted no problems with Dwyane Wade, eventually he had to teach the youngster an important lesson. “D-Wade and I had our first argument in the Finals. We got down 2-0, I’m declining. I am going through a divorce, I am not Shaq. I had my first game f**king terrible, awful. So I pulled D-Wade in the room: ‘The f**k you going to do, man? You want to be a man? What the f**k you going to do?'”

The words from the 4x NBA champion proved to be golden. Because Dwyane Wade would average 34.7 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists in 6 games in the 2006 NBA Finals. But in the first two games, he scored 28 points and 23 points respectively. The conversation with Shaq helped him unlock another gear as he would average 39.25 points in the next 4 games.

Ultimately, it was the tactic that O’Neal used against Kobe Bryant that was successful. It was his first meeting with Kobe and Shaq knew all about the abilities, and yet he went ahead and questioned it. Thus, lighting a fire in Bryant’s belly was very similar to his tactics with Wade. But the approaches were totally different, because of the previous experiences.