Why can't we be friends?

This is the kind of thing that makes me hate Shaquille O'Neal all over again.

Everyone knows the Magic drafted O'Neal with the first pick of the 1992 NBA Draft. Everyone knows he led the team to its first playoff berth and to the 1995 NBA Finals. And everyone knows he left in a very controversial, and somewhat shady, deal to Los Angeles in the summer of 1996.

He won his titles with the Lakers and then moved on to the Heat, leaving a wake of destruction and depression behind him.

You can understand if he has a little bit of an ego. He has four titles and has redefined his position -- by pushing big men to the outside rather than the inside.

In the twilight of his career, it seemed like he was finally going to be a likeable person and someone who realized his mistakes. He was doing so well.

I remember growing up and hating everything aobut the man. His departure was partly Orlando's fault, but everyone got the sense that he was going to leave the Magic from the moment they drafted him. So it was partly his ego too.

I could not stand the sight of O'Neal for most of my childhood.

And then I started to come around. I started to believe that the big kid had grown up and realized how great his career and how many teams he really disrupted -- he was at fault as much as Kobe Bryant was.

Then I read these comments about Dwight Howard, the guy most like him in the NBA. It brought out all those feeling of hate and disgust toward him.

He has not changed.

Howard says that he has asked for and gotten advice from all the great centers still around -- from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Bill Russell to David Robinson. He asked Shaq, who was his teammate at the All Star game two years ago and the clear next in line for the baton of big men, and had not received it.

Look, Howard is going to be better than Shaq in one sense. Shaq did not keep himself in shape and it hurt his overall legacy. Elliot Kalb listed him as the best player in basketball history ahead of Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain in his book Who's Better, Who's Best in Basketball. And he really could have been that good. He never cared enough to keep himself in shape.

Howard will do that and could be a much better player for it -- titles notwithstanding.

It is sad Shaq still has the ego that he cannot respect the future. Don't parents want to see their children become better?

If he built the Amway Arena -- which the sell outs in the first three seasons before O'Neal's arrival prove otherwise -- then he could at least help the guy who is building the new arena.