3 Years After the Trade, Shaquille O’Neal Recalls Harsh Message to LeBron James in Purple and Gold

The pressure on the Los Angeles Lakers to make the playoffs from their fans and the front office is seemingly increasing with each passing game. A special emphasis should be placed on not repeating the mistakes they made last season. It seems that even though Lakers star LeBron James is doing everything in his power to save the team’s reputation, they still need to figure out how to pull the team out of this rut. The Los Angeles franchise, however, has not been plagued by these issues before.

When James joined the Lakers back in 2018-19 free-agency, they won the championship in 2020. When speaking at the Road Trippin interview, James credited his win to the pressure he received from former Lakers player Shaquille O’Neal.

“Shaq is a hard a** on everybody. I remember one of his quotes he was like ‘you are not a Laker until you have a banner in the stadium’.” Moreover, he also mentioned the pressure he felt when stepping on the court because of Shaq.

“And I was like ‘Damn, that’s a lot of pressure’. I remember walking into the Staples and looking up there and seeing all those damn banners and seeing all those jerseys I was like ‘you have got some work to do’,” as James put it.

The trust Shaquille O’Neal has in LeBron James

Although his time with the Lakers has been bittersweet, especially since his draft, King James has had to deal with a lot of injuries. The Lakers star, even at this age, continues to lead the team with his best effort. In Shaq’s opinion, he is among the best players the NBA has ever seen.

Despite Shaq’s rough words for James, Shaq appreciates the performance James has shown over the years as well as the game he plays. In 2017, Shaq mentioned that James had qualities that can be compared to some of the greatest players in the NBA’s history during an interview with Cleveland.com.

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In that interview, he even mentioned how he is a mixture of great players such as Kobe Bryant, Shaq, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson. Shaq, nevertheless, was tough as usual.

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