IN MY OPINION

After some say he helped force his trade, Shaquille O'Neal says he is happier and done trashing the Heat.

BY ISRAEL GUTIERREZ

[email protected]

NATHANIEL S. BUTLER / NBAE-GETTY IMAGES

Shaquille O'Neal, right, and Heat coach Pat Riley last year during a 99-93 loss to the Knicks.

• Heat's Marion out for the season

The television cameras do him no justice.

Shaquille O'Neal is at one of the free-throw lines on the Phoenix Suns' practice court looking 20-pounds thinner than he did when he last wore a Miami Heat uniform.

He appears five years younger, no signs of personal or professional stress on his clean-shaven face.

''Right now I'm feeling loose, feeling pretty good,'' O'Neal said.

He should feel good. As O'Neal predicted in February, his Suns are rising. There was a time when it appeared Phoenix had made an enormous mistake, but those concerns have been suppressed, in large part because this leaner version of O'Neal is keeping pace with his teammates without demanding the basketball on every possession.

His new apprentice, Amare Stoudemire, is putting up MVP numbers since O'Neal's arrival. His new coach is finding O'Neal agreeable and coachable. And O'Neal's teammates are not only thrilled to be playing with such a force but tickled to be sharing a locker room with such a captivating presence.

It's essentially the exact opposite of the experience he left behind. By the time O'Neal was traded to the Suns on Feb. 7, the Heat had become the home of pure misery. It was a losing team with a superstar center doing his best to cut ties with the franchise, a locker room full of players negatively influenced by a severe change of fortune and a coach who had little control over any of it.

Now, just two seasons after winning an NBA title in Miami, O'Neal is not only thrilled to be somewhere else, but he's tossing grenades back in the direction from which he came, leaving a trail of torched bridges and scarred former allies. [More...]