If you were taken aback when you found out earlier this year that the Miami Heat were planning to retire the No. 32 that Shaquille O’Neal wore for them for three and a half seasons in the mid-to-late 2000s, you weren’t alone.
“This was definitely unexpected,” O’Neal told his “Inside the NBA” colleagues on Thursday night, prior to the TNT-televised tilt between the Heat and Los Angeles Lakers — another of Shaq’s former teams, who retired his No. 34 at Staples Center back in 2013 — at which the retirement would be taking place.