1. Trading Shaquille O’Neal to the Heat for Brian Grant, Lamar Odom, and Caron Butler
The feud between Kobe and Shaq put pressure on the Los Angeles Lakers front office to make a decision to choose between the two stars that could no longer stand each other. Jerry Buss had the foresight to choose the younger budding star in Kobe Bryant rather than the established dominant MVP Shaq who was arguably the better player at the time.
Looking back on this move, it seems like they could have gotten more for one of the best players in the league and the most dominant force in basketball history at the peak of his power. Lamar Odom surprisingly never made an All-Star team in his career and when a franchise trades a legend like Shaq, they should at least get back one All-Star level player in return.
If the Lakers would have gotten Shaq and Kobe to get on the same page instead of shipping one of them out of town, they probably could have won at least a few more championships together. They both might have even reached Michael Jordan’s six championships which would have undoubtedly meant a ton to Bryant who idolized Jordan.
Instead, Shaq went on to win another ring in the next couple of seasons in Miami creating a similar one-two punch with Dwyane Wade. Kobe had to wait a little longer to win another championship, but he won back-to-back titles after the Lakers traded for Pau Gasol, one more than Shaq.
An argument could be made that the Westbrook deal is worse than this one because Gasol was traded for only after the Lakers acquired Kwame Brown for Caron Butler who was in this Shaq deal. Then the Lakers were able to win a title by the end of the decade they traded Shaq.
It is unlikely with how the roster is currently constructed that the Lakers will bounce back from the Westbrook trade to win a championship this decade. However, losing Shaq is a much bigger loss than trading a group of role players and a draft pick.
The Los Angeles Lakers should look at the past lows from the O’Neal and Nash trades and see that they have been able to bounce back from rock bottoms into title contention with the right moves.