Fans lined up more than an hour outside The Barley House in the downtown Warehouse District for a chance to see Cleveland's newest wonder: Shaq.

Before the guest of honor arrived, former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar, boxing champion Kelly Pavlik, Olympic gold medalist Dominique Moceanu and former Cavs star Austin Carr walked the red carpet.

Kosar joked that the Browns, who dropped to 0-3 on Sunday with a 34-3 loss in Baltimore, could use the 7-foot-1, 325-pound O'Neal.

"I know he'd been great in the scoring zone," Kosar said. "I'd love to lob it up to him."

Along with its fair share of sports heartache in the past few decades, Cleveland has been hard hit by the economy. Kosar said O'Neal's arrival is a boon to basketball and the region.

"The NBA has become the haves and the have-nots," Kosar said. "We've been lucky that Cavs owner Dan Gilbert has made Cleveland one of the league's top franchises and Shaq makes us even better."

As they waited on a long line outside to get in, Lenny Kehoe of Cleveland and his friend, Derek Withrow, were excited about the chance to see O'Neal - and what he can do on the court.

"We wanted to see Shaq," said Kehoe, who is convinced the pairing of O'Neal and James will end Cleveland's title drought. "This is the year. We came so close last year. Shaq is going to put us over the top."