O’Neal Gets in a Few New Digs

The Lakers and Miami Heat play for the second and final time this season Thursday in Miami, giving Shaquille O’Neal another opportunity to muse about things Laker-related, past and present.

O’Neal, averaging 22.5 points and 10.3 rebounds as Miami fights for the league’s best record, turned a judgmental eye Monday toward Laker teams of the recent past and talked about how his relationship with second-year Heat guard Dwyane Wade has differed than those with Kobe Bryant and, earlier in his career, Penny Hardaway.

O’Neal said he felt different with the Heat than he did his last few seasons with the Lakers.

“I enjoy the fact that I’m playing with a bunch of guys that play the game the way it’s supposed to be played,” O’Neal told reporters. “This is like the first time ... where I could say I’ve been on a good team where everybody was on the same page.”

O’Neal also said he and Wade were on the same page, if not paragraph.

“He’s taught me a lot and I learned a lot from all my children that I’ve tutored,” O’Neal said. “I’ve made a couple of mistakes with my first two, so I’m the type that can sit back and say, ‘OK, I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have done it this way. I should have done it the other way.’ But me and him don’t have that problem because of what I learned with my first two. It’s such a good relationship because I know that I can’t handle him like I handled the other two.”

O’Neal said the current status of the Lakers hasn’t occupied much of his time.

“I’ve got five beautiful children, wife, I’m living a great life, I live on the water,” he said. “When you have that view [from home], nothing to complain about.”

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Vlade Divac tilted back in a chair as he spoke before Monday’s game, something he couldn’t do last week, when his back flared up for a day and made him reconsider his longevity in the game he has played for 16 years.

Divac, on the injured list since undergoing back surgery in December, said the recent flare-up made him consider retirement for a day or two, but he said Monday he felt good enough to play “three more years.”

He is still on schedule for a return in early April, but he laments how his season has unfolded.

“So far, for me personally, it’s frustrating,” he said. “Being with the team, but not being able to help the team, it feels bad.”

Divac, 37, has a year left on his contract at $5.4 million, although the Lakers could buy him out for $2 million.

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Bryant said he hadn’t heard Magic Johnson’s recent prediction on TNT that it would be almost impossible for the Lakers to make the playoffs. “Oh, really?” Bryant said. “I just take it as him trying to motivate us.”

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TONIGHT

at Philadelphia, 4 (Ch. 9, 5:30, delayed)

Site -- Wachovia Center.

Radio -- 570, 1330.

Records -- Lakers 32-30; 76ers 30-33.

Record vs. 76ers (2003-04) -- 1-1.

Update -- The 76ers, the only team the Lakers have yet to play this season, are 4-5 with Chris Webber in the lineup.