There's no way to know, but we do know what happened in the Eastern Conference finals without him: The Magic shot the lights out from beyond the arc, and the Cavs had no low-post answer for Dwight Howard. What kind of impact the behemoth would have had on the other phases of the Cavs' game is uncertain, but there's no denying the Cavs-Magic series would have had a different look. Howard is a beast, but doing his thing down low with Shaq in there would have been much, much harder.

O'Neal's potential impact on the Cavaliers seems even more interesting now that Cleveland and Phoenix are reportedly talking about the deal again. It's only one of a number of discussions Cavs general manager Danny Ferry has had with numerous teams -- nothing is imminent -- but Ferry must know that more than just minor tweaking could be necessary to get the team an NBA title next season before LeBron James has a chance to start fielding offers.

As much of a gamble as this is, I'd go for it. O'Neal isn't the old Shaq. He can slow down a team, and he will be 38 next year at playoff time. But he is coming off his best season in three years. He averaged 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds, and shot 60 percent for Phoenix in what was mostly a failed experiment. The Suns had been unable to win the title despite gaudy regular-season records, so they decided to try something else.

Sound familiar?

Unfortunately, this part of the discussion might also sound familiar: One reason the deal hung up the last time was that the Suns were intent on getting Cavs guard Delonte West in the return package, and the Cavs are even less likely to trade West now than they were then.

The Arizona Republic noted that an O'Neal trade to Cleveland for Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic has the potential to save the Suns nearly $10 million in salary and luxury-tax savings. Whether that's enough talent to make the deal attractive to the Suns is another matter. The New Orleans Hornets might offer either Tyson Chandler or Peja Stojakovic and the Dallas Mavericks might suggest Jerry Stackhouse and Erick Dampier, deals more attractive talent-wise but less so in terms of money and contract length.

The primary question in Cleveland is whether O'Neal would be the right fit. He supposedly wants to go there and, in retrospect, it's easy to say the Cavs should have somehow made the deal at the trade deadline.

Still, if Phoenix would take Pavlovic and Wallace for O'Neal now, I'd agree to it before Suns officials could hang up the phone. It's fun to imagine LeBron and even an old Shaq feeding off each other, and the move would show James once and for all that the Cavs are serious about winning the title. If the Suns demanded another one of Cleveland's core players to make it work, then I'd probably look elsewhere.

In part, it comes down to this: How close do Ferry, coach Mike Brown and their staffs believe the Cavs were to winning it all last season? Were they just a bad bounce here or a missed shot there away, or does the roster require some serious adjustment?

From here it looks as if they're still a notch below the best teams in the NBA, no matter what those regular-season and early-round playoff stats say.

Remember: The Magic didn't win the NBA championship Sunday. The streaky Magic team that eliminated the Cavaliers was beaten by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch.

bhunter@dispatch.com