No Love Lost for Shaq, Orlando

Shaq and Orlando, the merry divorce continues.

Shaquille O’Neal didn’t want or get an official ceremony Sunday to receive a crystal memento from the Orlando Magic commemorating everyone who played for the franchise in its first 10 seasons, even a franchise center who decided to sign a free-agent deal with the Lakers more than three years ago.

But the Magic did pass along the piece, plus a personal note from owner Richard DeVos, who reportedly wrote that he knew O’Neal loved Orlando and the Magic so please stop criticizing both.

“I didn’t get nothing,” O’Neal said Monday, although a Laker official said the package was put in O’Neal’s locker, dumped, apparently by O’Neal, then returned to his locker. “I don’t want to see it.”

O’Neal did take it easy on Orlando immediately after the victory, and he said there was no reason to pile on.

“Let me tell you why, because I’ve got class,” O’Neal said Monday. “You know, I could’ve ripped that whole town apart. . . . I’m done with it.”

Besides, O’Neal said with a smile, the way he figures it, they shouldn’t boo him, but thank him.

“I brought Penny [Hardaway] there, I brought Darrell Armstrong, I brought Horace [Grant],” O’Neal said. “And I was the one that told them to bring [Coach] Chuck Daly and Dr. J [Julius Erving serves as a team executive]. You can quote me on that--I’m the general manager of that team.”