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.

"They called it my tournament, but it wasn't my tournament, I just agreed to go to one of their parties," O'Neal told the Los Angeles Times. "Then suddenly I look up and the promoter has called it my tournament! When I do something, I do it right, and that tournament had nothing to do with me."

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.