Shaq in a race against time to punctuate his legacy

Shaquille O'Neal, who won a title with Miami in 2006, will try to take a fourth team to the NBA Finals this season with Phoenix. AP

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In time, we will know everything about Shaquille O'Neal's trade to the Phoenix Suns and its impact on all involved. What it means to the Suns, to the Miami Heat and to the rest of the NBA. What it means to Shawn Marion, the unsettled four-time All-Star swapped for the big man Wednesday, as well as to Steve Nash, Amaré Stoudemire and Dwyane Wade. And what it means to Mike D'Antoni's system, Pat Riley's future and Steve Kerr's job security.

For now, though, I have a question in need of a more immediate answer: What does this mean to O'Neal's famous Godfather analogy?

If, as O'Neal once said, Penny Hardaway was Fredo, Kobe Bryant was Sonny and Wade was Michael to his Vito -- a Hollywood metaphor designed to praise Wade, point out the obvious flaws in the other two players' temperaments and remind listeners who the head of the family really was -- where does Nash, Shaq sidekick No. 4, fit among the Corleones?

Since we're running out of sons, maybe this makes Nash Tom Hagen, the foster kid, the consigliere, the family exotic (Hagen was German-Irish in a house full of Sicilians, Nash is Canadian in a league full of ... non-Canadians). Or maybe he is Vincent Mancini, the Don's surprise grandson, more modern, unorthodox and crazed than the others, reinventing the family's style as he goes.

Let's hope, for O'Neal's and the Suns' sake, that Nash isn't little Anthony Coreleone, running helter-skelter around the tomato garden as the old man staggers to keep up and finally keels over for good.

We'll leave this one to the Big Coppola to sort out and focus instead on a facet of the trade that largely has been overlooked: What it means to O'Neal himself, to what is left to his career and to his legacy.

"Legacy'' is a word more commonly associated with presidents and bluebloods, but the fact is, in NBA history, only seven of the all-time great centers can be considered to have led their teams to multiple championships. Willis Reed, Robert Parish, Dave Cowens, Bill Walton and Bill Laimbeer ranked a tier or two below the very best, Moses Malone managed to win only one ring and Tim Duncan is determined to forever be known as a power forward. That leaves only George Mikan, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and O'Neal as elite centers in terms of both individual achievements and team accomplishments, at least as we're defining them here.

The field thins considerably even from there, depending on your choice of filter: O'Neal will turn 36 years old on March 8, an age by which Mikan already had been retired for four years. Russell was done at 35, though he averaged 42.7 minutes as Boston's player-coach in his final season.

Chamberlain played until he was 36 and won his second of two NBA titles at age 35. Robinson won twice, in 1999 and 2003, and went out with that second ring at 37. Olajuwon stuck around until he was 40 but stacked up his two championships in Houston when he was 31 and 32. Abdul-Jabbar? He was just a freak of nature and physical fitness, leading Milwaukee to a title when he was 24, earning his sixth with the Lakers in 1988 and then retiring a year later at age 42.

O'Neal, with four rings, is caught in dead heats now between championships to be won and seasons left to win them. Between availability and age. Between high hopes and health.

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