{"id":476845,"date":"2026-01-02T17:54:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T16:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=476845"},"modified":"2026-01-02T17:54:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T16:54:26","slug":"pat-riley-recalls-shaquille-oneals-transformation-in-miami-i-knew-he-had-one-more-in-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/pat-riley-recalls-shaquille-oneals-transformation-in-miami-i-knew-he-had-one-more-in-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Riley Recalls Shaquille O\u2019Neal\u2019s Transformation in Miami: \u201cI Knew He Had One More in Him\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"269\" data-end=\"487\"><strong data-start=\"269\" data-end=\"310\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Pat Riley<\/span><\/span><\/strong> looked back on <strong data-start=\"326\" data-end=\"367\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u2019s arrival in Miami and the commitment that defined his first season with the <strong data-start=\"445\" data-end=\"486\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Miami Heat<\/span><\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"489\" data-end=\"710\">\u201cWhen Shaq came, he wanted to come here,\u201d Riley said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll never forget that the first thing I did was weigh him,\u201d he added with a laugh. \u201cHe was fine. He was open to everything. And I knew Shaq had one more in him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"489\" data-end=\"710\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OyjqpuaXRKg?si=w_WTgFVn-zyFX8Zg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"712\" data-end=\"899\">At the time, O\u2019Neal weighed <strong data-start=\"740\" data-end=\"769\">383 pounds (about 174 kg)<\/strong> with roughly <strong data-start=\"783\" data-end=\"807\">14% body fat or more<\/strong>. Riley stressed that Shaq was never grossly out of shape \u2014 he was simply built differently.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"901\" data-end=\"1106\">\u201cShaq is a big man. He\u2019s a 380-pound guy,\u201d Riley explained. \u201cBut by the end of the year, he was down to <strong data-start=\"1005\" data-end=\"1034\">323 pounds (about 147 kg)<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"1039\" data-end=\"1055\">12% body fat<\/strong>. That\u2019s <strong data-start=\"1064\" data-end=\"1104\">60 pounds lost \u2014 around 27 kilograms<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1108\" data-end=\"1221\">According to Riley, that transformation was the result of a real commitment rather than a need to fix bad habits.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1223\" data-end=\"1327\">\u201cHe could still play big, but he played great,\u201d Riley said. \u201cHe actually played better that first year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1329\" data-end=\"1563\">O\u2019Neal\u2019s impact helped Miami reach the <strong data-start=\"1368\" data-end=\"1397\">Eastern Conference Finals<\/strong>, where the Heat were eliminated in a hard-fought seven-game series against the <strong data-start=\"1477\" data-end=\"1518\"><span class=\"hover:entity-accent entity-underline inline cursor-pointer align-baseline\"><span class=\"whitespace-normal\">Detroit Pistons<\/span><\/span><\/strong> during Shaq\u2019s first season in South Florida.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pat Riley looked back on Shaquille O\u2019Neal\u2019s arrival in Miami and the commitment that defined his first season with the Miami Heat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":296992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-476845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/10\/Shaquille_ONeal_October_2017_cropped-scaled.jpeg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476845"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=476845"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=476845"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=476845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}