I don't think they mentioned that deal specifically, but they did touch on the concept of dumping players to free up cap space becoming popular during that offseason.

Here's an interesting article I found detailing the crazy 1996 NBA Offseason

They only briefly touched on it, but adjusting for CA taxes vs FL taxes made the Lakers offer inferior--probably significantly so. Shaq probably had no idea, but his agent/attorney almost certainly did. It appeared that Shaq just really wanted to go to LA and when he got his feelings hurt by the newspaper poll, that was enough to over-ride almost anything else.

It really isn't surprising (at least to me) that the poll was as lopsided as it was. At that point in time, and probably even now, any player in any sport would probably garner similar numbers in a poll among the general population rather than rabid hometown fans--especially if the salary was given in isolation rather than in comparison with other athletes' salaries.

IMHO, this was one of the more ho-hum installments of this series.

guessing they knew that the extra endorsement money and such would more than make up the difference once he was a LOS ANGELES LAKER

Good point.

It's possible, but seemed like he was already killing it with endorsements. He was on tons of commercials, already filmed Blue Chips and Shazam, but it's LA, so I can't blame him.

I don't know a ton about Brian Hill, but I kinda get the feeling he was a historically bad coach. He won games in the regular season with Orlando, but who wouldn't with Shaq and Penny? His teams looked to be soft as **** and basically folded in the playoffs as soon as they faced any adversity at all (as evidenced by 3 straight eliminations by being swept). Then the team had to mutiny to get him out. After that he takes over a terrible Grizzlies team and somehow makes them worse.

Magic Moment was basically boring imo.

The ones that are basically a recap of a couple seasons without much insight are pretty boring, and unfortunately that's been most of them this season.

The people who thought this was boring - did you like Winning Time?

I liked Magic Moment and Winning Time, didn't really like Trojan War, Chasing Tyson, or the Buffalo one.

I liked Buffalo one a lot (although I was fairly drunk which always helps). Couldn't watch Chasing Tyson and Trojan War was ok. I will give Magic Moment a shot.

I totally forgot about Nick Anderson missing all those free throws. So sad.

Yep. I loved winning time. Didn't think much of this one.

I thought it was ok. Not unwatchable but not one of the best. It did get me a little more pumped for the NBA playoffs though. Anderson missing those FTs then being afraid to shoot them the rest of his career is pretty heartbreaking.

It's amazing how when a young team just getting good suffers a devastating loss like that, it almost seems to direct their entire run. The Chiefs had a heartbreaking playoff loss to Miami their first trip with Marty. That was the most crushing sports loss I ever felt, so I'm sure our young players didn't take it too well either. If the refs don't call holding on Dave Szott, or Lowery kicks the ball about 3 yards farther - maybe the Chiefs go on to win a few SBs. Who knows.

And the opposite is true too. What if the tuck rule never happened? What if the Royals never won that crazy WC game?

Huge NBA fan but pumping out documentaries about forgettable 90's teams and then selling it is as nostalgia and bigger than it was is a little weird to watch. Yes there is that element of "What could've been?" but really it was as simple as a generational star leaving for greener pastures. Shaq was a huge primadonna then and likely wasn't staying with Orlando unless Brian Hill was forced to kiss his feet and worship the ground he walked on.

Besides the run in '95 the Magic were a pretty forgettable team and Shaq obviously made the right decision. Kobe >>>> Penny even if Penny never gets hurt.

As far as the poll, I think fans are smarter now and most people just didn't really think athletes deserved that much $ back then (and a lot still don't)

Don't forget this is 1996, pretty much the 1st or 2nd inning of sports salaries starting to take off.

Another thing that wasn't really discussed much in the doc was how good of a situation the Lakers appeared to have at the time.

Van Exel and Jones was considered the best young backcourt in the league so it wasn't like Shaq was leaving Orlando to go to a bad team. They made the playoffs the year before and lost to Houston in rd 1. They were on the up and up. I forget exactly when the Ced for Horry deal happened, but obviously that ended up being a great deal as well.

He had so many commercial interests back then, probably wasn't staying with Orlando regardless.

Also I love how Shaq views himself as such a kingmaker in retrospect.

"I called the team and said this kid Penny Hardaway is pretty good"

"After we lost to Indiana, I was watching the playoffs and the Bulls had a disgruntled power forward in Horace Grant. We needed a power forward."

I thought Penny throwing Anderson under the bus for not stepping out of bounds was kind of lame.

Orlando-Houston Game 1

Here's the video of the play. Penny was in perfect position to defend Kenny Smith and just bit hard on a pump fake, so him blaming Nick Anderson for not taking a delay of game is BS.

yeah, that they were able to kind of give away Vlade, Lynch (12th overall pick) & Peeler (15th) for a gamble in Kobe + cap space speaks to how well they rebuilt after Showtime. Eddie Jones was there too, Elden Campbell as well. drafted Derek Fisher in '96. Jones was their highest pick too at 10th overall, Van Exel was a 2nd round steal. Jerry West, or whoever was advising him, did a helluva job.
(also with the Shaq/Kobe stuff ldo)

You can see Kenny got a head start running on him because Penny didn't think the play was about to go off though. I know he recovered and got position, but that type of frantic scrambling may have led him to be overzealous.

Tough to say. If Kenny The Jet Smith owned me in the NBA finals I'd probably have a few excuses handy as well.

re: the missed FTs. Anderson was such a sharpshooting SG that I actually was under the impression he was like 80-85% from FT but he was only 68-70% for his career. He got worse after that but for some reason I had it in my head he went from like 82% to 64% but the decline wasn't that drastic.

BTW, this wasn't mentioned in the film but another reason Shaq was so mad about the orlando sentinel poll is because the Olympic team was training in Orlando at that time. So all the other players knew of the poll and Shaq wasn't thrilled with that. Felt embarrassed. They didn't mention that in the doc.

It kind of felt like Shaq directed this, so that's not too shocking.

I sure as hell can't. I was at that game and still can't forget Penny just turning around at half court and walking the other way not being able to watch after he missed the first two.

I don't think this is true. I think Penny would have been a legit top 7 or 8 player of all time if he had stayed healthy.

I just watched the shorts with Moe Greenburg, the Honus Wagner card, and Mickey Sasser - highly recommend all 3.

Moe Greenburg coming this close to murdering Werner Von Heisenberg (of the uncertainty principle) is one of the craziest things I've learned in a long time.