The next night, Howard's Magic bombed O'Neal's Heat by 21, opening a ridiculous eight-game lead on their only theoretical challenger in the Southeast.

On paper, the 6-11, 265-pound Howard -- who leads the league with 13 double doubles -- is head and shoulders above the 7-1, 325-pound O'Neal, with averages of 22.5 points and 14.4 rebounds to O'Neal's 16.6 and 7.5. On the hardwood, the difference between the 21-year-old Howard and the 35-year-old O'Neal is even more palpable.

Howard runs the floor like Karl Malone, flushes lobs like David Robinson and pounds the glass even harder than O'Neal did when he was a 21-year-old Magic superstar. The Daddy, well, he wheezes a lot -- on those rare occasions when he's trying hard.

"Shaq isn't used to running," says Magic forward Hedo Turkoglu. "And Dwight runs better than all of us."

The point of this isn't to promise that Howard will ever dominate quite like O'Neal, who has four mighty large rings to show for his Hall of Fame career. Nor is it to dump on O'Neal, who was bound to slow down as humans tend to do. Then again ...

"I'm the type that I've got to get (the ball) in my area to really do work," O'Neal said following the loss to the Magic, in which he had 20 points and six rebounds to Howard's 17 and 13. "If I don't get it in my area, it doesn't seem like I'm doing work."

Excuses, excuses.

You might say Howard has supplanted O'Neal as the premier post player in the Eastern Conference. It is, after all, undeniably true.

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