Now that we are officially past the halfway point in the regular season, I will be interested to see if Mike Brown starts getting Shaq more involved in the offense. To date, he's only averaging 10, 6 and 1 block per game. In Tuesday's win against Toronto, the Diesel had 16 points. He might ratchet it up again tonight vs. the Lakers.

For Cleveland to be a force in the East, Shaq will have to be more involved offensively. That would give them 3 legitimate scoring threats: LBJ, Mo Williams and Shaq.

All of the contenders in the Eastern Conference have some issues, either with injuries or not yet jelling. It will be interesting to see if there are any major moves made by the trading deadline and if whether said moves have a significant impact.