Photo Courtesy of Shaq/Instagram
Shaquille O’Neal’s NBA career was conceived from the Orlando Magic – starting what would grow into basketball superstardom as a 1st draft pick on the team. He recently revealed in an episode of The Big Podcast with Shaq that he wants to take ownership of the team in its entirety. Not only is the team not up for sale, but he sent a pretty direct message to the DeVos family – who has owned the team since 1991 – that he, and his former teammate Dennis Scott, believes themselves to be fully capable.
In his podcast episode, Shaq stated, “We [O’Neal & Dennis] still run that franchise, and if they wanna sell it to us, DeVos family, we’re ready to go right now.”
However, the team is not cheap. The Magic is worth quite a bit of money. Earlier this year, Forbes valued the team at a whopping $1.64 billion, making The Orlando Magic one of the most expensive teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Shaq hasn’t expressed any worry about the money. When questioned by Dennis, he responded, “Dennis, we got the money. You ain’t got to worry about the money.”
The retired baller continued, “But this message goes out to the DeVos family: If you’re ready to sell the Orlando Magic, sell it to somebody that’s going to take it to the next level. That’s us.” There’s nobody Shaq would want to run the team with him more than his guest on the podcast, saying, “I’m gonna bring one person in that I trust, that’s gonna be D Scott, and then, D Scott can pick everybody else.”
He described their duo as “smart people combined with common sense people and people that’s been there before. You can’t go wrong!”
There’s been no response from the DeVos family, but if they ever decide to sell; there are two people on the market looking.