Los Angeles Lakers: Why Shaquille O’Neal is wrong about the Bulls

Shaquille O’Neal is loved by Lake Show Life. Shaquille O’Neal is loved by Lakers Nation forever and ever. He has a statue in front of Staples Center. He is one of the top 50 players in NBA history. However, he is dead wrong about comparing his three-peat team to the Michael Jordan led team in the late 90’s. Lake Show Life tells you why.

Lake Show Life would like to thank Shaquille O’Neal for some interesting fodder to discuss this week. Right now, the magnitude of “The Last Dance” won’t be understood until after the pandemic is over. The NBA playoffs should be starting this weekend. The NBA world should be drowning in so much NBA content that writers, radio talk shock jocks and TV experts would be losing sleep.

Sadly, instead of looking at the new LeBron James shoe releases for the playoffs, NBA fans will reminisce over generations of Air Jordans. How bad are things these days? There are actual bets on the documentary. 

Get your popcorn ready, notebooks out and be prepared to watch any and everyone to ride the wave of Michael Jordan’s documentary through May 17th. Lake Show Life thought comparisons would be linked to just the LeBron James fanbase. Okay, we were wrong.

Hall of Famer and Inside the NBA analyst, Shaquille O’Neal told Ariel Helwani of ESPN that he believes his Los Angeles Lakers, owners of a three-peat would have “easily” beaten the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls that won six titles in eight years. By the way, they own two separate three-peats.

This is example number 537,369 of sports content being as dry as the Sahara desert. This was a leading question. What else did you expect Shaquille O’Neal to say? “Oh Lord, we have no chance. Jordan would have swept us!”

The NBA has no room for anyone that is not an ultimate competitor. The Hall of Fame is not accepting players without championship talent. Shaq is one of the top 50 NBA players of all time.  He’s supposed to believe they can win. It’s the DNA of what makes him the most dominant player of his generation and second in history behind Wilt Chamberlain.

So when Shaquille O’Neal appeared on ESPN’s SportsCenter and was asked if the three-peat Los Angeles Lakers could have beaten the 90’s dynasty Bulls, there was only one possible answer. The drama would have been bigger if he answered differently.

But naturally, Lake Show Life goes a little deeper to eliminate narratives and contexts.

While Shaquille O’Neal and Michael Jordan had some intense battles, they only matched up twice in the postseason and that was when O’Neal was in the Eastern Conference in Orlando. O’Neal’s Orlando Magic gave the Bulls their only series loss with Jordan on the roster in the ’90s back in 1995. The next year, Michael Jordan showed why this conversation was ridiculous.

When Jordan was winning his final two championships before his second retirement, a young Kobe Bryant was still trying to figure out why Del Harris had him glued to the bench. See Shaq’s Magic squad got an up-close and personal look at a team that introduced the number 70 to NBA History. More on that later.

Spoiler Alert: They were better in the postseason.

Granted on the surface, this is a classic “We have to promote The Last Dance!”  tactic, but it’s fun to break down an impossible argument.

Over the next several pages, Lake Show Life will break down why Shaquille O’Neal is just plain wrong about the Los Angeles Lakers beating the Chicago Bulls.

Let’s start with the coach.