Shaquille O'Neal will team up with Cavaliers star LeBron James next season after the Cleveland franchise pulled off a sensational trade hours before the NBA draft.

The deal saw O'Neal move from the Phoenix Suns to Cleveland and Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic - a second round draft pick in 2011 - and around US$500,000 in cash go the other way. The Suns had wanted to offload O'Neal, who picks up US$21 million a year in wages, after their controversial 2008 move for him failed to pay dividends.

With an ageing Suns team unable to contend for the championship, the franchise was keen to lower the payroll. The Cavaliers, meanwhile, are desperately mounting one last bid to build a championship-winning team around the NBA's star asset, LeBron James. Already millions over the league's luxury tax limit - the Cavs paid out almost US$91 million in player wages last year - the franchise will be breaking the bank again to pay O'Neal.

After a glittering career featuring four championship wins, 37-year-old 'Shaq' is still regarded as one of the most effective players in the league. Cavaliers fans will be hoping he can recreate with LeBron James the kind of on-court relationship he had with Kobe Bryant at the Los Angeles Lakers.

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, meanwhile, will be counting on O'Neal and James forming the kind of commercial partnership that Shaq and Bryant had - although he will be aware that O'Neal's age and the long-term wooing of James by the New York franchises may put serious time constraints on that. But, for one year at least, the Cavaliers have the two most internationally popular stars in the NBA. They must make the most of that before the year ends - with or without a championship win.