LOS ANGELES — Shaquille O'Neal said he never agreed to host a youth basketball camp in Florida.

        “People know when I do an event it's done right,” O'Neal told Fox Sports Net on Thursday.

        “But this wasn't even a camp. It was a charity basketball event and I was just a specially invited guest. And I say, yeah, I'd show up. And then they tried to make it a Shaquille O'Neal weekend and you can't do that.”

        A Lakers spokesman has said O'Neal missed the event because he was hospitalized due to a flulike virus that gave him a 103-degree fever.

        Michael Ulenkamp said Wednesday that O'Neal spent Aug. 15 in an Orlando hospital and missed the Sunday events at the “Shaquille O'Neal Tampa Celebrity Basketball Weekend,” for which tickets cost $250 apiece.

        O'Neal had a contract with the event paying him more than $50,000, promoter Darryl Madison has said. O'Neal also missed a dinner with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Aug. 16 that was part of the program.

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