Shaquille O’Neal gets clowned on Inside the NBA for his hilariously NSFW Lakers media day 1996 photo: “Turn that off man, my momma watching the show”

Shaquille O’Neal has been providing basketball fans with comic relief for about 30 years now. This particular moment is somewhere at the top.

Lakers Nation has always been viewed as a market that has continually attracted marquee free agents. This is quite far from the truth. The Lakers’ only MVP signing in free agency through 70 years was one Shaquille O’Neal, back in 1996.

Prior to acquiring LeBron James as a free agent in 2018, most of the Lakers’ great players were traded for. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar came via trade, while Magic Johnson was drafted with a pick that came from a trade. Kobe Bryant was a draft-night trade engineered by Jerry West in 1996.

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Landing Shaquille O’Neal catapulted the Lakers from fringe playoff status to that of perennial contenders. But you might not have gotten that feeling if you’d landed at his introductory press conference.

Shaq goofed around at his first brush with Los Angeles media in a manner unlike the superstars they were accustomed to. In fact, he raised the bar so high that it’s unlikely you’ll ever find a more poignant introduction.

“Turn that off man, my momma watching the show”: Shaquille O’Neal at a picture of himself

If you saw the tweet embedded above, you’ve probably had to go through some visually unappealing material – namely, Shaq with his shorts drawn all the way up to his hips. There was no mistaking his comically large backside in that still frame.

Apparently, Shaq asked the photojournalist on the site to take this picture. And obviously he obliged, seeing the opportunity of a lifetime to create a humorous headline begging to be made.

D-Wade, in particular, was revolted by the picture of Shaq’s butt. He kept saying that he’d be skipping dinner after the show, and honestly? We can’t fault him one bit. This really was a grotesque sight for most of us who watched – though funny as hell.

Candace Parker, on the other hand, looked like she could break into tears of laughter at the whole hoopla. And we can’t fault her for that either. We hope that Chuck and Shaq continue to provide us with this content. In fact, most of us would have paid good money to watch this photo unveiled with the regular TNT crew (Chuck and Kenny) present.

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