Shaquille O'Neal brings different dimension to Lakers-Suns rivalry
LAKERS
The Phoenix center takes on his former team Thursday night after taking Lakers Coach Phil Jackson to task in recent comments.
Not long ago, the Lakers and Phoenix Suns could have played an entire 82-game season against each other without a steep drop in entertainment value.
There was Mike D'Antoni vs. Phil Jackson, Kobe Bryant vs. Raja Bell and that riveting seven-game playoff series in 2006.
There were suspensions from flagrant fouls, insults directed at the Lakers in a book, and, wait a sec . . . this thing could still be entertaining when they play tonight in Phoenix.
Indeed, D'Antoni is now coaching in New York and the Lakers have passed the Suns in Western Conference relevance, but there's the presence of that one guy who makes Lakers-Suns games amusing again.
Shaquille O'Neal arrived on the Suns' doorstep back in February, failing to help Phoenix advance past the first round of the playoffs but, in the smaller scheme of things, he added a new wrinkle to the Suns-Lakers rivalry.
In fact, O'Neal strolled down an interesting version of memory lane in an interview last week with a former Lakers beat writer who now works for the Sacramento Bee.
O'Neal claimed he never really had a problem with Bryant and blamed Jackson for all the conflict on the championship-winning Lakers teams earlier this decade. O'Neal also didn't swat away a question about whether he'd return to the Lakers as a free agent in 2010 as Andrew Bynum's backup ("I don't like to think that far ahead, but anything could happen," he said).
Of course, O'Neal will be 38 by that time, and he might not have a huge supporter if Jackson is still the coach.
The last few days, Jackson found himself answering to O'Neal's latest views on the Bryant conflict. The Lakers coach also launched a mild rebuttal to O'Neal's assertion that "it was all designed by Phil, because if you think about it, Phil never called us into the office and said, 'Both of you all, shut . . . up.' "
Said Jackson on Tuesday: "I think we did one time. It was maybe after the first championship. It was just about, 'We're about winning, right?' "
In an unpredictably weird twist, the Suns center on Wednesday denied he criticized Jackson.
"America, don't always believe what you read," O'Neal told reporters in Phoenix.
"It just wouldn't be right to say that now, 10 years later. On the record, Phil has always done right by me. Great guy, he always took care of me. We won championships and it would be idiotic of me to say something bad about him now."
