"Finally, on the day one of the greatest players of all-time retired, I got a chance to ask The Big Orlandoan why he really left the Magic all those years ago. Was it actually the Orlando Sentinel poll in which readers overwhelmingly voted that Shaq was not worth a $120 million contract? Was it the Magic's initial low-ball offer that insulted him? Or was it simply because he wanted to play for the Lakers and be a big star in a big city?

It was mainly the latter, although Shaq said the Sentinel poll and the Magic's indecision about whether to match the $121 million Lakers' offer were certainly factors.

"Fifty percent of it was that I was selfish. I had a lot of stuff going on … movies and albums … that I couldn't pass up," Shaq said following a packed retirement announcement at his palatial Isleworth home with the Magic-blue tile roof. "Forty percent of it was the Sentinel poll and the fact that I was very sensitive at a young age. Ten percent of it was that Bob (Magic president Bob Vander Weide) and the organization didn't move quickly enough (to match the Lakers' offer)."

I wasn't working in Orlando at the time, but from talking to Shaq and others on Friday, I believe he was going to L.A. no matter what.

In fact, Magic co-founder and team executive Pat Williams told me that on the day the Magic won the Shaq lottery back in 1992 that his L.A.-based agent Leonard Armato urged the Magic to trade the pick to the Lakers.

Recalls Williams: "Leonard was whispering in my ear the day we won the lottery, 'Why don't you make a deal with the Lakers?' "He (Armato) wouldn't even let Shaq come here for a visit until two days before the draft. There was always the pull for Shaq to end up in L.A."

It is a testament to Shaq's greatness that 15 years later - on the day he retired - he still remains The Big What-If in Orlando.

If he had stayed, former Magic teammate Nick Anderson says, "I think we would have had five or six championships.""