Shaq: Lakers Would Beat Suns in Playoffs

The Los Angeles Lakers are a mediocre team with very few interesting storylines but dominate NBA discussion even now because they are the Lakers and they have LeBron James. LeBron, tangentially, is one of those few interesting storylines for his team because he has decided to score as often as possible while the season winds down, which is a blast to watch because LeBron almost never does that. He now leads the league in PPG at 37 years-old. The Lakers stink, but LeBron certainly does not.

Anyway, we’re three weeks away from the postseason and Los Angeles is all but assured to participate in the play-in game as the No. 9 seed. This means they will have to win two games in order to qualify for the postseason– one against the No. 10 seed and one against the loser of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 seed matchup. Los Angeles has not won two consecutive games since January 7, so it’s a bit of a long shot, but they also expect to have Anthony Davis back by playoff time. So there’s reason to hope for fans of the purple and gold.

Should they manage to somehow pull that off, the Lakers would earn the last playoff spot and a date with the Phoenix Suns in the first round. The Suns, of course, rather easily sent Los Angeles home in the first round last year. In the time that has passed since then, the two squads have gone in opposite directions; the Suns have only gotten more dominant while the Lakers have fallen apart completely.

Despite all this knowledge, Shaquille O’Neal expressed his firmly-held belief that the Lakers would take down the Suns in the postseason if Los Angeles makes it past the play-in tournament.