DAY 1, ALL IS WELL

Shaq: ‘This is LeBron’s team’

The superstars’ first day together in public was cut short.

INDEPENDENCE (AP) — The lights went out, the courts darkened and a media day already like no other in Cavaliers history was canceled after just two hours.

Maybe with LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal, Cleveland has too much superstar power.

The duo’s first public appearance together as teammates was cut short Monday when the electricity went out at the Cavs’ suburban training facility, forcing the team to improvise for O’Neal’s interview and re-schedule the event for a later date.

While it might seem the high-profile James-O’Neal pairing could seemingly overload any circuit, high winds were blamed for the outage. Even before the building dimmed at 3:41 p.m., it was already evident that James and O’Neal are the NBA’s newest marquee act.

More than 150 media members swarmed on Cleveland Clinic Courts for their first chance to talk to the larger-than-life All-Stars, whose road trips with the Cavs this season may be more look more like one of U2’s world tours than, say, back-to-back games in Detroit and Indianapolis.

Look out, here they come.

“Day One of the madness,” Cavaliers guard Mo Williams said, surveying the horde of cameras, microphones and reporters.

The Cavs acquired O’Neal in June, shortly after they were eliminated in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Orlando Magic. Cleveland, which won 66 regular-season games and 10 in the playoffs and still came up short of a title, had tried to land the big man from Phoenix before the All-Star break but general manager Danny Ferry wasn’t able to complete a deal until after the season.

O’Neal may not the dominant force he once was, but the 37-year-old can still draw two defenders and strike fear into the heart of any opponent simply by being Shaq.

Upon his arrival in Cleveland, O’Neal said his goal this season was to “win a ring for the King,” a reference to his new teammate’s King James nickname, while O’Neal wants to win his fifth.

“I have four under my belt and it would be nice to get five,” O’Neal said, standing in the middle of the Cavs’ weight room. “But I just want to come play and just have my name left somewhere in history. And it will be — win or lose. There’s nobody like me. You know that.”

While O’Neal has played with and won championships with Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles and Dwyane Wade in Miami, James has never had a teammate of O’Neal’s stature or talent. After O’Neal joined the Cavaliers, speculation quickly mounted that the marriage might not work, that jealousies may get in the way of championships.

O’Neal made it clear that the Cavaliers are James’ team and that he has no intention of threatening the league MVP’s domain. He said he learned from his time with Bryant and Wade and those experiences will help him as a teammate with James.

At this stage of his career, O’Neal has no problem being a co-star.

“It’s all about winning,” he said. “Nothing else really matters. At those times in my career I was a different player. Kobe said it the best, we had two Alpha males on the same team. I never really looked at it like that. Of course, when I was with D-Wade I was a little older.

“Now I am a lot older so it’s going to be different. LeBron has always been a team player. He has always made the guys around him better, so we don’t need to have any conversation at all. We just come and play. We know it’s his team and he’s going to have the ball the most. It’s our job to help him get there.

“It’s his team.”

James and O’Neal aren’t close friends, but they share a mutual respect for each other and the game.

Some wondered how their chemistry would be off the floor, and Williams said if Monday was any indication, the Cavaliers are in for quite a ride.

James and O’Neal were already clowning around in the locker room, with 7-foot-1, 325-pound O’Neal running around and complaining that his uniform was too small.

“My shorts are kind of Brad Daugherty-ish,” O’Neal said with a nod to the former Cavs center who played in the pre baggy-shorts era.

“It’s going to be fun. Guys are very loose but they go out and take care of business. From my experience, the looser the teams that I’ve been on, we usually can get it done.”