Robert Sarver, the banker who owns the Phoenix Suns, gets to save a boatload of money, and Mike Brown, coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, gets to save his job. And all across the country, people like me, purveyors of opinion, are counting their blessings to have just received such a windfall.

Every storyline is heightened, from New York to Los Angeles. Will this be enough for Cleveland to get past Orlando? How about Boston? Will it be enough for LeBron James to stay? Even as these questions are answered, the more hypothetic discussions promise to become even more vitriolic. There's still Shaq vs. Kobe, Shaq vs. Dwight Howard, Shaq vs. Stan Van Gundy, and most revealing but least remarked on, Shaq vs. Father Time.

He's the exception here. Ordinarily, the pressure would be on a guy like James, the young star in his prime. But O'Neal has been talking so loud for so long, he doesn't get to play with house money. The burden of proof is on him.

At the very top tier of NBA life, players seem to have forsaken the sillier forms of rivalry — salaries, cars, groupies — for the more meaningful ones. Guys like Kobe, LeBron and Shaq, just to name a few, are clearly playing for their legacies.

And O'Neal's, for all it is, is considerably less than it should be. He should've been the greatest center to play the game. But he's not, not by a long shot.

Remember, he proclaimed himself a savior upon his arrival in Phoenix. "I look forward to making people eat their words," he said at his inaugural press conference for the Suns.

Apparently, he was offended at those who had the temerity to doubt him. This was after got fat and quit on the Miami Heat with whom he had won a championship.

"I'm very upset," he said. "You just don't really want to get me upset. When I'm upset, I'm known to do certain things — like win championships."

As it happened, O'Neal had the good fortune to land on a team with Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Grant Hill. But in his first season with the Suns, they were eliminated in the first round. This past year, they didn't even make the playoffs.

So it's a good thing that Shaq never had to eat his words, as there were so many more of them than championships. It seems as if he's devoted most of his energies of late to rapping and Twittering. Too bad. I once considered him as the most charming player in the NBA. Who else could discuss the finer points of Kung Fu cinema? He was funny, this big man who needed to be liked. But the act, in all of its manifestations, has worn thin.

The need for love and acclaim is OK, but not when it conceals mean-spiritedness. You don't believe me? Ask Kobe, Dwight Howard or Stan Van Gundy. There was no need for any of that stuff. It diminishes his legacy.

Speaking of that legacy, O'Neal once proclaimed himself to be "the last in the line of Russells and Chamberlains."

Really?

Bill Russell won nine championships.

Wilt Chamberlain averaged — averaged! — 23 rebounds and 30 points over a 16-year career.

O'Neal turned 37 a few months ago, during what was widely and breathlessly described as a comeback season. He averaged 18 points and eight boards for a team that, again, didn't qualify for the postseason.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the game's all-time leading scorer, and another target of O'Neal's ire, averaged 22 and eight when he was 37. He also won a championship.

But Jabbar had Magic Johnson, you say.

So now Shaq has LeBron James.

And no excuses.