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

Shaquille O’Neal has a selective memory. Dennis Rodman played him straight up with success in 1996.

Lake Show Life has to give the big fella some credit here. Shaquille O’Neal has a point. In the 1994-95 Eastern Conference Semifinals, when O’Neal was with the Orlando Magic, he destroyed the Bulls front line with a box score of 24.3 points, 13.2 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.0 blocks and 1.0 steals per game, leading the Magic to a 4-2 series win.

Only one problem here. Dennis Rodman was not on the roster that year. The Bulls made a deal to get him out of San Antonio. The Spurs got Will Perdue in that deal. Nuff said.

The next year, it was a totally different story. Michael Jordan found the fountain of motivation (He was embarrassed from the year before, Also read: Pissed off!) after having a full summer to prepare.

He had found the love of the game again (Also read: Focused!) Pippen was Pippen, but it was Dennis Rodman defending Shaquille O’Neal that made the difference. Rodman could actually hold his own against O’Neal one on one.

O’Neal was taken out of his game by Rodman’s irritating defense. The Orlando Magic was dismissed in a sweep.

The next season, Shaquille O’Neal was in a Los Angeles Lakers uniform.

Here’s one of the main reasons why the “Rodman effect” would affect O’Neal’s Lakers in this discussion. In Shaq’s first year with the Lakers in a game against the Bulls the next year, Shaq disappeared in the second half scoring only four points.

NONE of those points were scored on Dennis Rodman. This game was a Lakers 22 point beatdown until Rodman switched assignments and guarded Shaq in the post.

Here’s where O’Neal misses the boat. Pay attention to his quote here.

"“I would have killed Luc Longley, Bill Wennington, Cartwright, yea.”"

Sorry, they didn’t matter.

The Bulls rarely depended on these centers for offensive contributions. They used their wing defenders to get the fast break started as you can see against the Bucks when they won their 70th game to make history. Outside of Luc Longley doing a couple of things, it was all about the up-tempo.

Longley and Wennington (Cartwright was retired by the era discussed!) had 12 fouls to put O’Neal on the line. Plus the Bulls had Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman dropping down to help with aggressive double teams. O’Neal was not good enough at that time to deal with that level of defense.

"“So he would’ve tried the hack-a-Shaq thing,” O’Neal  “I still would average like 28, 29, but the key would’ve been free throws. With me, it’s always 50-50. If I would’ve been on, we win. If I would’ve been off, we lose.”"

Phil Jackson used to pull Shaquille O’Neal at times late for his free throw struggles. Los Angeles Lakers’ Phil Jackson would have pulled Shaq because Bulls’ Phil Jackson would have just put O’Neal on the line which would have slowed Kobe Bryant’s production.

Let’s got to the level where the true ballers understand.