Shaquille O’Neal, while doing postgame (L.A. Clippers 105, L.A. Lakers 100) studio work for TNT last night made a comment about the Los Angeles Lakers that was…well we’ll go with the phrase “brutally honest.”
O’Neal on the Lakers’ starting five: “If you walk up to someone on the street and ask them to name the starting five for the Lakers I bet they couldn’t tell you.”
Shaq isn’t wrong. Here’s who the Lakers started last night: Ryan Kelly at the four, Tarik Black up front, Wesley Johnson as the forward, Jeremy Lin at the one and Jordan Clarkson.
Aside from Lin, I can’t identify any of those guys upon sight, and I’m a basketball writer. Lin is the only man among those five that anyone has ever heard of, and he’s been hardly talked about since February of 2012.
To be fair Nick Young didn’t start, and he’s very relevant. Young is to modern life what Louis XIV was to 18th century France, and arrogant egocentrist who committed the cardinal sin of giving himself a nickname. “Call me Swaggy P” is just today’s version of “Im the Sun King.”
Of course, Shaquille O’Neal has license to tell it like it is when it comes to the Lakers. His #34 jersey is retired by the club and he won three championships and three NBA Finals MVPs while playing for them from 1996-2004.
Shaquille O’Neal has been holding it down on TNT with the “B team” these past few weeks. Last night he worked with Matt Winer, Tracy McGrady and Isiah Thomas. The A-team have been off; that whole March madness thing kept a couple of them pretty busy.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. You can read Banks’ feature stories and op-eds in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and hear his regular guest spots on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.
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