Shaq’s days of livin’ large are over

And then, as Bill Murray says in “Stripes” as his girl walks out the door, depression set in.

That’s how it felt when Shaquille O’Neal left, and not just in Miami. Coach Pat Riley had just announced that Shaq would be back for that night’s game against the Knicks when the bad news dropped on them like a wrecking ball.

The Heat is now treating O’Neal’s arthroscopic surgery like any other, listing him at four to six weeks ... which sounds better than “Well, it was fun while it lasted.”

Hope springs eternal, so everyone is still going light on the awkward fact that it was wholly avoidable. O’Neal was originally hurt in the second game of the season, bumping knees with the Nets’ Bostjan Nachbar after neglecting to put on his protective pad. When it happened, Riley didn’t even cover for him. Said teammate Alonzo Mourning, “Things happen over the course of the season, but it’s important to do things to prevent things from happening. He knows he did wrong.”

O’Neal returned wearing a double-thick pad but bumped knees again with Houston’s Chuck Hayes and tore cartilage this time.

Shaq will be back in six, eight or 10 weeks, but he won’t even be as ready as opening night, when he collected his fourth championship ring and got seven points and five rebounds in the Heat’s 42-point loss.

No longer the Shaq we knew, he’ll have more nights like his most recent game when a mere mortal like Yao Ming, if one eight years younger, greased him, 34-15.

If he could bear the indignity of being a lesser Shaq, he could play out this season and the last three on his $80-million deal and be a huge plus. Even if he’s no longer Superman, there’s no hulk like him and never was.

Shaq arrived as the first 300-pounder we ever saw who wasn’t fat, with an elongated frame, 11% body fat and a small waist.

He was 350 by age 30 but still athletic. I remember him at that time, blocking a shot by Washington’s Jahidi White, who looked like a 6-9 version of Shaq until they were on the floor together, when White appeared to be moving in slow motion.

Now O’Neal is more like a lighthouse sitting in the middle of the lane, but those still come in handy, especially alongside someone like Dwyane Wade.

When Shaq was with the Lakers, I used to write that he could play until he was 40 with the right attitude, but that was a nonstarter. Shaq always had the same attitude, and it wasn’t sucking it up for the good of the team.

Until he won his first title, “SportsCenter” kept dragging out the quote from his first Lakers news conference about having won “at every level except college and the pros” and it made him crazy.

Anyone who could help him get over the top was OK, even Dennis Rodman, who had insulted him on TV and proceeded to dynamite their one season together. Anyone who couldn’t was gone if Shaq had anything to say about it, and he did (see: Kurt Rambis’ departure in 1999 and Phil Jackson’s arrival).

Not that that ever changed (see: Stan Van Gundy’s departure in 2005 and Riley’s return).

Now the big question is, will O’Neal feel like sticking around beyond this season as comparisons get even more embarrassing with “SportsCenter” still airing nightly?

If not, there will be good reasons to retire. He’ll get all his money, and insurance may pay part of Miami’s tab. His salary will go off the cap a year after his last game, enabling the Heat to start rebuilding around Wade.

“That could happen,” Jackson acknowledged last week. “That would be sad.”

Whenever it ends, it has been heading that way for years. At the end of O’Neal’s Lakers career, you could start to see his decline, but it was subtle. Only in the 2004 postseason, when a gap opened between his scoring average on one day’s rest (17) as opposed to two or more (25), did it become plain.

The surprise came after he left for Miami, worked mightily to get in shape ... but continued to decline, no longer subtly but dramatically. His waist shrank but his explosion never came back. Shaq’s average dropped under 20 points for the first time in the 2005 postseason and to 13.7 in the Finals.

Fittingly, he got his fourth title, putting him squarely between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s six and Wilt Chamberlain’s two. Shaq crowned himself MDE -- Most Dominant Ever -- and had a point.

Wilt played against Bill Russell (who won 11 titles), Nate Thurmond, Walt Bellamy, Willis Reed and Wes Unseld, Kareem against Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson and Patrick Ewing.

The Age of Giants was over by the midpoint of Shaq’s career. It was The Age of Giant and he was it.

Nevertheless, more than anything else, O’Neal will be remembered as much for the sheer fun of having him around.

“He was outrageous,” says Jackson, whose job it was to keep O’Neal’s mind on the game. “When he was in a good mood, he kept everybody happy.”

O’Neal spent half his career thinking up lines for the media (and the other half ducking the media). He was the Big Aristotle, the Big Pythagorean Theorem, Big Daddy, Shaq-Fu, Diesel ...

The Lakers’ coaches called him the Big Moody, which was true too. Whenever he leaves, he’ll leave a Big Hole, which is undeniable.

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mark.heisler@latimes.com