My impression of them at that time and the actual conversation did not inspire confidence.

I also recall one of Shaq's dunks, which he executed on a player I'd watched since before his BYU days. He was a big guy, a tough guy and someone known to be able to do the dirty work inside against other tough players. I remember thinking he'd essentially done everything right on a play that ended with Shaq basically dunking on his head. The Diesel was just unstoppable.

Shaq brought just a completely different mix of size, strength and athleticism than anything our guys had seen, and it played out that way.