By JOHN DENTON
Florida Today

MIAMI - The welcome for Shaquille O'Neal resembled a scene usually reserved for returning gladiators, presidents or perhaps the Pope. Thousands of adoring fans lined the entrance and greeted his every step with cheers and showers of confetti.

But since it was Shaq marching through downtown Miami much the same way Godzilla did through New York, the moment necessitated something bigger than life and filled with levity. So when O'Neal finally squeezed his 7-foot-1, 340-pound frame out of the 18-wheeler that brought him down Biscayne Boulevard, he proceeded to playfully squirt sun-scorched fans with a water gun. And after wading through the fans - many of whom were wearing his newest No. 32 jersey - O'Neal boldly issued his first promise to Heat fans.

"I want ya'll to remember this day because we're going to do it again in June," O'Neal said as the cheers went up. "I'm going to bring a championship to Miami. I promise that."

NBA NOTES

Andy Montero, the senior director of retail operations for the Miami Heat, said Tuesday that sales of Shaquille O'Neal's jersey thus far have been even more surprising than he expected. "We're basically taking 10 orders a minute online and the requests are coming in from all over the world," Montero said Tuesday as Heat fans swarmed inside the team store at AmericanAirlines Arena. "We've already had 2,000 orders placed and we just expect that number to keep climbing." O'Neal will once again wear No. 32, as he did during his first four seasons in the NBA while playing for the Orlando Magic. He wore No. 34 the past eight seasons while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers have retired the numbers of Magic Johnson (32) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (33). WARRIORS-TRAIL BLAZERS: The Golden State Warriors traded point guard Nick Van Exel to the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday for forward Dale Davis and guard Dan Dickau. Van Exel was injured for much of his only season with the Warriors, who acquired him from Dallas last summer in a trade involving Antawn Jamison. He averaged 12.6 points while playing just 39 games, leaving the team for good shortly after the All-Star break with a recurring knee injury. Van Exel will make about $12 million next season - the last guaranteed year on his contract. The Blazers could use him at both guard positions alongside Damon Stoudamire and Derek Anderson. LAKERS: Vlade Divac has come full circle to rejoin the Los Angeles Lakers. "I'm really happy, for my family, too," Divac said Tuesday after signing a two-year contract. "This was my home when I came to America in '89." The 36-year-old center from Serbia, who played the past six seasons for Sacramento, will fill the spot left vacant when Shaquille O'Neal was traded to Miami last week. Brian Grant, acquired in that deal, will share duties at center. Divac was taken by the Lakers with the 26th pick in the 1989 NBA draft.

Six days after he was traded from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Miami Heat in the NBA's biggest blockbuster deal in years, O'Neal was officially introduced to South Florida Tuesday. In addition to having his likeness and the words "Diesel Power" splashed across the semi-rig, an airplane circled above AmericanAirlines Arena and pulled a banner that read, "Shaq: The world is yours."

Few certainly would have disputed that Tuesday, as O'Neal's jerseys sold at the rate of 10 per minute in the team store and Heat president Pat Riley repeatedly referred to him as "the game's greatest player."

O'Neal claimed to be recharged by the fresh start in Miami and was vowing that he would prove to the NBA this season that he's still a long way from being on the downside of his career. He took no direct shots at his former Lakers sparring partner, Kobe Bryant, but did continue to stress that his reason for asking out of Los Angeles was "to go to a place where they play team ball."

He did admit that he "lost a lot of that fire last season" because of the turmoil surrounding the Lakers, and said that he often "wanted to blow up and knock some people out."

"I was always going to be the scapegoat out there and I understood that. I'm the Millennium Goliath that nobody loves," O'Neal said. "My only wish was that if it was all going to fall on me, let things be done my way."

At 32, O'Neal said he's 340 pounds with 14 percent body fat. He joked Tuesday that he would be opening a chain of fitness gyms in South Florida, and because he just recently bought an oceanside home, he would be getting in top shape so he could stroll down the beach naked. Even with three championships, three Finals MVP awards and 11 all-star appearances to his credit, O'Neal said he'd be playing with something to prove this season.

"I do laugh at people who say, 'Aw, he's done,'" O'Neal said with a sly smile. "I read well. I see and hear everything that's said. But I can tell you I'm going to be coming in totally different this year."

For those still obsessing over his weight and insisting that he can no longer be the game's most awesome physical specimen, O'Neal had a simple request.

"I still say put a guy in front of me who eats salads, cucumbers and baked chicken all day and I will kill his (expletive) on the court," O'Neal said, only half jokingly.

Riley and head coach Stan Van Gundy agreed that size, specifically O'Neal's massive size, certainly matters.

Having played with Elvin Hayes and Wilt Chamberlain and coached Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning, Riley knew that the only way Miami could become a serious championship contender would be to land a dominant center. So when the opportunity arose to get O'Neal, Riley didn't think twice, even though it cost Miami Lamar Odom, Brian Grant and Caron Butler in the trade.

"The only teams I've ever really won big with had dominant centers on them," Riley said. "And the only teams that have ever beaten my teams have been teams with dominant centers. So I'll never change my philosophy of needing to get dominant centers."

Van Gundy scoffed at those obsessing over the additional weight that O'Neal has added during his career, calling it "a media creation." He said that O'Neal is able to carry more weight than most because of his enormous frame. He said he is fully convinced that O'Neal will report in shape when the Heat open training camp in October.

"He's a totally unique athlete because we've never seen anybody as big as him before," Van Gundy said. "Everybody wants to make a big deal about his shape, but he's been in good enough shape to win three championships and put up the numbers that he has. You hear that he's 300 pounds and you think that's overweight. But he's been a durable guy, you don't see him get outrun down the court too often and he still plays big minutes."

O'Neal and his family flew into Miami Tuesday morning from Orlando, where they still have a summer home. He said he felt no ill will toward the Magic, who had a shot at trading for O'Neal but declined. O'Neal began his career in Orlando, playing there for four seasons and leading the Magic to the 1995 NBA Finals. But he left on bitter terms, bolting for Los Angeles in free agency in the summer of 1996. Four times this season he will face Orlando, a franchise he has destroyed the past eight years, but added that he will treat teams like the Magic and Lakers the same as all others.

"I'll be on a mission this season," he promised. "I've always handled all of my personal vendettas in the past. I crushed them, dropped them off in the bathroom and flushed them away. For me, it's not about getting 40 points when I face L.A. To me, it's all about winning."

Though the Heat have only two established players, blossoming guard Dwyane Wade and 3-point specialist Eddie Jones, to surround O'Neal, he feels the Heat can be championship contenders right away. He repeatedly raved about Wade Tuesday, saying the Heat were his team. But O'Neal let everyone know that he would be the engine that drives the Heat's chances for a championship.

"I'm letting guys around here know that this is going to be a different sort of year than what they are used to," said O'Neal, who has appeared in the NBA Finals in four of the last five years. "They already had a good team here. But they were missing a few pieces. Now they have one very big piece in me."