Read More: Kobe Bryant (G – LAL), Brian Grant (C – PHO), Orlando Magic, Miami Heat, Los Angeles Lakers

Shaq’s retirement leaves a gaping hole in the NBA, as the big man’s wide body and planetary statistical profile defines the NBA in his prime. And while O’Neal, who nicknamed himself the “Most Dominant Ever,” may not have quite lived up to that billing, he was certainly a great, transcendent player.

O’Neal’s early career with the Orlando Magic was rife with stunningly athletic plays and abused backboards, but while more than a few players have shattered glass, Shaq pulled one down:

Shaq didn’t win an NBA title with the Magic despite reaching the NBA Finals in 1995, and headed west in 1996 in hopes of brighter lights and bigger successes; he found them in Los Angeles with Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant, winning three consecutive NBA championships from 2000 to 2002, and destroying the Western Conference in the low post on the way, blending savvy with exceptional athleticism to become an almost unstoppable NBA center.

In the 2000 and 2001 playoffs, Shaq averaged — averaged — over 30 points and 15 rebounds per game, and he punctuated the Lakers’ first trip back to the NBA Finals since the Magic Johnson era by finishing a Bryant alley-oop in the 2000 Western Conference Finals and giving fans one of his most iconic celebrations.

One series later, in the 2000 NBA Finals, he decimated the slighter Pacers, averaging 38 points and 18.3 rebounds per game and dropping 43/19 and 40/24 performances in Game 1 and 2, respectively, to give the Lakers a 2-0 series lead.

After that third title, the Lakers dynasty ebbed, and the Shaq and Kobe feud tore the Lakers apart. Shaq was valiant in the Lakers’ 2004 NBA Finals loss to the Pistons, even throwing up a vintage 36/20 in Game 4, but Los Angeles lost in five games, and O’Neal would be gone before the summer was over, traded to Miami for Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, and Brian Grant.

Post-Lakers Shaq was a different sort of player: no longer able to consistently overpower defenders, and no longer healthy enough to be 100% for even 70 games of a season, Shaq went from dominant to complement in short order. The Shaq who teamed with Dwyane Wade to help the Heat win the 2006 NBA championship, his fourth, was a situationally dominant player who had just one game of 30 points in the 2006 playoffs.

After another year of getting old on South Beach, O’Neal’s twilight odyssey began: the Heat sent him to Phoenix in February 2008 for Shawn Marion and Marcus Banks, where an excellent training staff and Steve Nash could only revitalize him so much; the Suns flipped him to Cleveland before the 2009-10 season for Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, and trinkets, where Shaq foundered as a potential sidekick for LeBron James. In 2010-11, after signing with the Celtics for one final run at an NBA title, Shaq played in just 37 games.

Shaq’s career is one with an incredible peak and a long, painful decline.

Toronto Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan is coming off a 26-point performance on Saturday. (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

Last month, before his team embarked on a pivotal stretch against several of the league’s top squads, Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said he was content playing 10 guys before deciding how to pare down his playoff rotation.

With six games to play, though, Van Gundy simply hasn’t had that option anymore.

“I couldn’t play 10 guys if I wanted to right now,” he said after his team’s final practice Saturday before traveling to Toronto (20-55) on Sunday. “It’s sort of crazy right now.”

Over the past several weeks, sixth-man J.J. Redick, backup point guards Gilbert Arenas and Chris Duhon, and forward Quentin Richardson have all missed time because of injury or illness.

Redick has missed 11 straight games with a lower abdominal strain. Duhon has been out the last two games with a ligament strain in his right thumb. Arenas played five consecutive games after resting a sore left calf and knee, but has missed two games in a row with an illness. And Richardson is back on the floor, but recently missed three games with back spasms.

The Magic (48-28) will have only nine players for the third straight game Sunday.

It’s resulted in more questions marks around an already perplexing Magic team in their final push before the postseason.

“The only thing for us that has been tough is that we haven’t had the same guys out, so it’s been hard to get into any type of rhythm,” Van Gundy said. “We go into New York and we have Gil and Chris, but we don’t have Jameer (Nelson). Then we go to Atlanta and we don’t’ have Chris or Q, but we’ve got Jameer and Gil. Then we go into (Friday) night and we don’t have Gil or Chris, but we have Q back.

“So it’s really hard to get into any kind of playing rotation,” he said, “and consistency in the way you play. And I think that’s shown up in the way we play.”

What is pretty much a foregone conclusion is that the Magic are snugly in the No. 4 spot in the East and will likely meet division-mate Atlanta in the first round of the playoffs.

And despite a tough stretch in March, when the Magic went 9-6 with a schedule the featured 10 games on the road, there are glimmers of progress since the All-Star break.

The Magic are fourth in the NBA in overall opponents’ field-goal percentage, allowing teams to shoot just 43.6 per cent. And after some early struggles, starting forward Hedo Turkoglu is starting to show flashes of the offensive threat that helped the Magic reach the NBA Finals in 2009. Over the past 13 games, Turkoglu is averaging 15.4 points and 5.3 assists.

Magic centre Dwight Howard, who believes Orlando has the pieces to make a Finals run this year, said the recent injury bumps can’t be a crutch.

“Just be consistent and play hard every night,” Howard said. “When we went to the Finals, we were exhausted. We had put so much in and I don’t think we had anything. But that’s not an excuse for why we lost. We’ve been there once and we want to get back.”

The one piece, of course, that the Magic can’t allow anything to happen to is Howard. Van Gundy was able to get him some rest in the second half Friday night against Charlotte, but said he probably won’t let Howard sit out an entire game before the playoffs.

“It would probably just be a reduction of minutes,” Van Gundy said. “If I did ever sit anybody down it would mostly likely be on the second night of a back-to-back or something like that. I won’t rest him on the last night. That one, to me, doesn’t make any sense. He may not play huge minutes, depending on the situation, but (the starters) are going to need to play.”

In the meantime, getting healthy remains the priority.

Arenas won’t make the trip with the team Sunday, and the earliest Duhon will return is next week. Redick will meet the team in Canada, but is still day to day.

Van Gundy would like to have all three healthy as soon as possible, but healthy or not, Arenas’ situation may be the most troublesome. Before his latest ailment, he told reporters that he still wasn’t 100 per cent jumping off his surgically repaired knee. It’s shown up in his performance; he has connected on just eight of his last 38 shots.

“That doesn’t surprise me. I think anybody who watches him can tell physically he’s not where he needs to be,” Van Gundy said. “With a guy like him, he can’t go twice in one day.”

To that end, Van Gundy said he’ll try to limit how hard Arenas goes in practices coming off games once he is able to return

For now, though, the Magic will trudge on with whomever they have in a uniform.

“Obviously we want to get everybody healthy and everybody back,” forward Ryan Anderson said. “These are important games. … Regardless if we have guys that are injured or who are out, we need to keep improving on the things we need to work on.”