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The 2009-10 season marks the 40th year of the Cleveland Cavaliers, although the team has yet to win an NBA championship. Shaquille O’Neal is entering his 18th NBA season and has four championship rings to show for his efforts.

Let’s just say the Cavaliers wouldn’t mind adding a fifth ring to his collection this season, which in turn would get them off the 14-team list of NBA franchises without a title.

It’s probably just a one-year rental, as O’Neal will earn $20 million dollars this season in the final year of his current contract. But if the team wins that elusive championship the acquisition will be well worth it, especially since they only gave up Sasha Pavlovic, Ben Wallace, a second round pick and cash considerations to the Phoenix Suns for the “Big Diesel”. (In case you were wondering, neither Pavlovic nor Wallace will play for the Suns this season as they were both bought out of their contracts.)

Aside from championship experience, O’Neal brings a long history of low-post domination. He is the leading active scorer in the NBA, with 27,619 points. To put that in perspective, 34-year old center Zydrunas Ilgauskas has 10,142 points in his career, over 17,000 less than Shaq.

Even though he is a future Hall-of-Famer, O’Neal is in Cleveland for the chance to win, not to pad his stats.

“I’m not really here to grab any individual accolades,” said O’Neal. “I’ve been here 17 years and I’ve won almost every award you can imagine.”

His list of personal achievements would make even Wilt Chamberlain sweat a bit. O’Neal is a 14-time All-Star, former Rookie of the Year, a three-time All-Star game MVP, a one-time league MVP and, most importantly, a three-time Finals MVP. Not much left to accomplish for the 7′3″ center, but a fifth ring would give O’Neal one more championship than fellow big man Tim Duncan and would help his case for being the best player of his era.

Although he has been limited to just 19.2 minutes per game in the preseason, O’Neal has played fairly well for the Cavs. He is averaging 10.2 points and 6.2 rebounds in the team’s five games and has looked in sync with fellow superstar LeBron James.

The question of how the two top-notch performers would mesh together has been thrown around throughout training camp, but Shaq insists he and James will co-exist just fine.

“He’s a great player and a very very unselfish player,” said O’Neal. “We’re not gonna have any problems.”

James was ninth in the NBA in assists per game last season at 7.2, which was good for first among non-guards. That number could climb even higher this season with a 58 percent shooter like Shaq around the basket. O’Neal has led the NBA in field goal percentage 10 times in his career, including last season when he shot over 60 percent from the floor with the Suns.

Last season’s high field-goal percentage was part of an All-Star season for O’Neal in which he averaged 17.8 points and 8.4 rebounds in 75 games.

Don’t expect the 37-year old center to play 75 games again this season or average near the 30 minutes per game he was playing a year ago. The Cavaliers won a franchise-record 66 regular season games last season and should be able to capture one of the Eastern Conference’s top seeds no matter how little O’Neal plays. Having Shaq fresh for the playoffs is the team’s main concern, where he will be expected to slow down each opponent’s center, especially Orlando’s Dwight Howard.

The NBA season is often referred to as a marathon, as opposed to a sprint. Think of Shaquille O’Neal as a distance runner, pacing himself until it is necessary to break away from the pack. He will reach a sprint during the postseason, at which point he will look to bring history to the city of Cleveland.

Namely, an NBA title.