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Los Angeles Lakers: All-time starting five, with no teammates allowed

By Luca De Angelis

Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal (L) keeps the ball away from Portland Trail Blazers' Shawn Kemp in the first quarter of the second game of their first round NBA Western Conference playoff series 25 April 2002 in Los Angeles, CA. AFP PHOTO/Lucy Nicholson (Photo by LUCY NICHOLSON / AFP) (Photo credit should read LUCY NICHOLSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Los Angeles Lakers' Shaquille O'Neal (L) keeps the ball away from Portland Trail Blazers' Shawn Kemp in the first quarter of the second game of their first round NBA Western Conference playoff series 25 April 2002 in Los Angeles, CA. AFP PHOTO/Lucy Nicholson (Photo by LUCY NICHOLSON / AFP) (Photo credit should read LUCY NICHOLSON/AFP via Getty Images) /
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(LUCY NICHOLSON/AFP via Getty Images) – Los Angeles Lakers /

Lakers all-time starting five – Center: Shaquille O’Neal (1999-00)

Stat line: 29.7 PPG / 13.6 RPG / 3.8 APG

My second selection was amongst the toughest that I made. Shaquille O’Neal is one of the all-time great centers in NBA history, but his inclusion over someone like Wilt Chamberlain forces me to omit the greatest shooting guard in Los Angeles Lakers history from this lineup, Kobe Bryant. Alas, in this tough exercise, sacrifices need to be made.

What better person to include as the centerpiece of my all-time roster than the Big Aristotle himself? Full disclosure: Shaquille O’Neal is the primary reason I became a Lakers fan, so there may be some latent bias with this selection. However, even putting my biases aside, the numbers simply cannot be denied.

Over the course of his eight seasons in Los Angeles, Shaq won three championships, won three finals MVP’s, one regular-season MVP, and put up the following numbers:

  • 27.0 PPG
  • 11.8 RPG
  • 3.1 APG
  • 2.5 BPG

With all due respect to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the above accolades give Shaq a very strong argument for being the best center in Los Angeles Lakers history, no small feat when you consider the plethora of quality big men the franchise has had in its illustrious history.

Why I chose this version of him?

By both conventional and advanced metrics, Shaq’s age-27 season was the most dominant version of “The Most Dominant Ever“. He led the league in points per game, was second in rebounds per game, and was third in blocks per game (3.0), en route to a near-unanimous MVP selection, and an All-NBA Defensive Second Team nod.

For those who love advanced metrics as much as I do, Diesel led the NBA in Win Shares (18.6), Offensive Win Shares (11.7), Defensive Win Shares (7.0), Win Shares / 48 (.283), and Value Over Replacement Player (9.0). Those metrics aren’t just strong, they’re historically strong. The Win Shares are the 27th most over the course of a single season in NBA history (second in Lakers history behind George Mikan) and the VORP is the 26th best single-season figure on record (first in Lakers history).

1999-00 Shaq had historically great conventional statistics, advanced statistics, won the NBA title, and won the NBA finals MVP on the back of 30.7 PPG / 15.4 RPG / 3.1 APG across the entirety of the playoffs (23 games) that year. There’s not much more I could ask from my starting center – he even delivered ridiculous headline-grabbing quotes with regularity.

Here’s a scary thought: Shaq did all this with Derek Fisher as his point guard, and with a young Kobe Bryant who was still figuring out the nuances of team-oriented basketball. Imagine how good he could have been with the best passer of all-time giving him looks he’d never seen before? I’m salivating at the thought.

Unfortunately, our dynamic duo of Magic and Shaq is light on floor-spacing, albeit this is slightly mitigated due to the version of Magic Johnson I chose. Therefore, my next pick is going to be made with outside shooting as a priority.

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