Shaquille O'Neal buys minority stake in the Sacramento Kings

LeBron James (C) and teammate Dwyane Wade (L), are interviewed by former NBA player Shaquille O’Neal (R) following the Miami Heat’s victory against the San Antonio Spurs in the 2013 NBA Finals on June 20, 2013. (Getty Images)

Five-time NBA Champion Shaquille O’Neal has bought a minority stake in the Sacramento Kings. The legendary centre will be presented as the newest member of the team’s new ownership group on Tuesday.

O’Neal has been acting as an informal advisor for the Kings all summer, as well as mentoring young big man DeMarcus Cousins. In recent weeks, the future Hall of Famer was in talks to take a minority share in the franchise.

O’Neal, who led the Los Angeles Lakers past the Kings in a hard-fought seven-game series in the 2002 Western Conference Finals on the way to a three-peat, joins an ownership group led by tech mogul Vivek Ranadive.

The consortium led by the Indian American bought a 65 percent stake in the Kings in a deal worth $535m in May earlier this year, following a battle with a group of investors who wanted to move the franchise to Seattle.

Last week, ESPN named the Kings as the worst franchise in professional sports. In response, the Kings posted a banner on its official website that said, “Hey ESPN… Nice Airball” with the tagline “New Era, New Swagger.”

New stakeholder O’Neal too responded to the claims:

“Worst is at the bottom, which means you can’t get no worser,” O’Neal told USA Today. “There’s no such thing as ‘worser’, which means we can only get better.

“And we will get better. Once that new arena comes, once that new downtown is up, once we have a conversation with the players and get everybody to step up, they’ll be knocking on the door.

“Hopefully Vivek, I, the team and organisation can get it back to where it used to be. I’m telling you these new plans, oh my. You’re going to be like, ‘Sacramento is doing what?’ That’s what we want people to say.”

One of Ranadive’s first acts as team owner was to hire Pete D’Alessandro as General Manager and Mike Malone as Head Coach. The 2013-14 season tips-off on October 29.

After retiring from the game in 2011, O’Neal went on to become an analyst for TNT.