“The Lakers was one of the hardest franchises I had to play for”: Shaquille O’Neal details his experience with the LA-based team while talking about LeBron James and co.’s title aspirations

According to Shaquille O’Neal, the LeBron James-led Los Angeles Lakers will “definitely” be making the postseason, but will “probably not” win a championship this year.

The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the two most winningest organizations in the NBA. With 17 championships under their belt, the franchise has witnessed some of the greatest ballplayers to represent the team. Out of the several megastars to have dawn the purple and gold, Shaquille O’Neal was arguably the most dominant figure.

Shaq spent 8 glorious seasons at LA. And during that time span, he and Kobe Bryant solidified themselves as one of the greatest duos in history. The pair won 3 straight championships, dominated teams on a nightly basis, and had one of the most entertaining highlight reels we’ve seen.

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Despite all the success O’Neal saw with the Lakers, he calls them the hardest franchise he had to play for. In a recent TMZSports video, the Hall-Of-Famer said:

“This was one of the hardest franchises I had to play for. I remember when I came here, Jerry West said ‘look I know you do movies, I know you do rap albums and all that’ and he made me look up and I look up and I seen Wilt and Kareem. He said ‘at the end of this you can either be a bust or you could be a legend.”

“Probably not”: Shaquille O’Neal on the Lakers’ championship aspirations

The current LeBron James-led LAL team has been struggling. The team stacked with All-Stars and future Hall-Of-Famers were expected to be the deadliest team ever to be assembled. Instead, they have been playing subpar basketball.

Shaq went on to talk about Frank Vogel’s shot at winning the title:

“The Lakers will definitely make the playoffs… those guys just have to decide how they want to be remembered. The problem is, they’re older. The young guys are coming at their head. So they got to turn it up from the beginning. You see they always have these miraculous  — they’re down 15 and they cut it short they got to come out with energy. I think if they come out with energy they could put these young guys away.”

TMZ: Will the Lakers win a championship this year?

“Probably not”

Also Read: Julius Erving details his relationship with the Bulls legend on the Knuckleheads Podcast

Currently, the Lakers have a 26-31 losing record and are very far away from being the title-contending team. However, we all know LeBron James’ playoffs streak. Keeping that in mind, we can’t rule the Lakers out of playoffs contention… just yet.