"We did it. Nineteen years baby. I want to thank you very much. That's why I'm telling you first: I'm about to retire. Love you, talk to you soon."

-- Shaquille O'Neal's video message (via Twitter), Wednesday afternoon

Bill Russell. Wilt Chamberlain. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Shaquille O'Neal. The Mount Rushmore of NBA centers.

Before we take a look at Shaquille O'Neal from a historical perspective, let's get a couple of last links out of the way. Now that O'Neal has retired, zero active NBA players can claim to have set foot on the parquet floor at the Boston Garden. As a rookie he was teammates with Greg Kite. He played against Reggie Lewis. He played against his last coach and GM. Shaq was the final player from the 1992 draft still in the league (just beating Darren Morningstar, the Celtics second-round pick in 1992, by 16 years). An amazingly long career for a guy 6'2, 180 pounds, forget 7'1, and somewhere around 350 pounds. 

(If you'll allow, a favorite Shaq in Boston moment for me: On March 20, 1996 the Celtics hosted Orlando. Totally forgettable regular-season game-- Magic won by 22 -- except for this: Late in the fourth quarter Shaq blocked a Thomas Hamilton shot into the 15th row. I'm not kidding, easily the biggest blocked shot I've ever seen live. Poor Big Ham. If you don't remember Hamilton, well, he was big. Jason Whitlock big. Three seats on a plane big. Can't help but stare big. He looked legitimately horrified. Shaq's line for that night? 28-12-8.)

Look, it was never pretty. Unlike the other immortals of the last quarter-century, think Michael Jordan (who Shaq knocked out of the playoffs in 1995, putting up a 23-22-4 line with five blocks and two steals in the key Game 5 win), or Larry Bird (who lost a final to Shaq as a coach), Magic Johnson (who lost to Shaq as both a player or coach) or even Kobe Bryant (and did we ever get an answer to Shaq's question?), Shaq's game was always first about force. He wasn't one of those guys that needed a couple of years to figure out the nuances of the NBA game. He came in -- with unmatched hype -- put his head down, powered his way to the basket and didn't look back. As a rookie he averaged 23.4 points, 13.9 rebounds (second in the league), finished seventh in MVP voting and took the Magic from 21 wins the year before he showed up to 41, 50, 57 and 60 in his four seasons in Orlando.

If you were looking for Jordan switching hands in mid-air vs. the Lakers or Bird running behind the 3-point against the Rockets or Magic on the fast break hitting James Worthy with a no-look pass, you were left wanting when it came to Shaq's game. At his peak, he was the eighth grader at basketball camp dominating the fifth graders. 

And that peak was with the Lakers. There have been guys -- Bird in 1986, Magic in 1987, couple of Jordan seasons -- who can match what Shaq did in 1999-2000, but they can be counted on one hand. He won his only regular-season MVP (he finished in the top 10 thirteen times, top five eight times and only Jordan, Jabbar, Bird, Magic and Russell received more career votes) after leading the league in scoring (29.3 PPG), field-goal percentage (57.2 percent, he lead the league 10 times in FG percentage and is the all-time leader in the category) and rebounding (13.6). He was even better in the playoffs, averaging a 31-15 to carry the Lakers to the NBA title. In that six-game finals series win over the Pacers, Shaq scored 43, 40, 33, 36, 35 and 41 points. And two titles -- and two more Finals MVP's -- followed and any question about whether or not O'Neal (who frankly had a nasty habit of getting swept early in his career) deserved a seat at the all-time table were forever silenced. 

Yup, it could be ugly. Lots and lots of dunks and awkward jump hooks and three guys piling on him to stop another follow-up attempt and missed free throws and all that stuff. But we don't judge greatness by style points. If we did, the Basketball Hall of Fame would have waived the five-year waiting period and put Harold Miner in after his career ended. But if you were looking to win an NBA title from 1992-2002 Shaq was never worse than your second choice if you could pick any player in the league, and he was unquestionably The Man from 1999-2003.

If Act I was the chase for a title and Act II was the years of dominance, Act III was life minus the top billing. It just seemed Shaq had some trouble as the second or third guy. When the possibility of Shaq first coming to Boston was raised, I wrote:

"It seems that the pattern has been the same with Shaq over the last half-decade or so. He shows up in a new city and the goodwill is flowing. He's thrilled to be there, but really thrilled to be away from the last place, where he wasn't understood, loved, or appreciated. And the resident star of the new place -- Steve Nash or LeBron -- understands how important Shaq is and will do whatever it takes to make sure he is given his proper respect. And things are usually fine for about as long as it takes for New Team to understand that this isn't anything close to the Shaq that dominated the NBA for a decade. And once Shaq understands that they understand he starts to make some noise and the moving process is under way."

Well, that was true in Miami (where he did win a title), Phoenix and Cleveland, but it was never the case in Boston, where he was plenty happy to be the fifth or sixth wheel. It wasn't about money -- he was making $1.5 million after banking almost $300 million in the previous 18 years -- and it wasn't about stats. He just wanted another title. 

Of course, the signing has to be viewed as a failure. He was in a suit when the Celtics needed him most. But it was a risk worth taking for Danny Ainge, and I agree with the Celtics GM when he says that the team -- in the Pierce/Allen/Garnett era -- never looked better offensively than they did with Shaq on the floor during the 23-4 run to start the season.

But Shaq in Boston will be forgotten soon enough. In 20 years, it'll seemed like it never happened. This didn't turn out to be, as many had hoped, like Bill Walton in 1986. It was more like what many expected Bill Walton to be in 1986.

So Shaquille O'Neal's one year in Boston will have no impact historically. The same sure can't be said for his career.