The NBA season starts next week, and the Los Angeles Lakers are expected to do big things. With the additions the Lakers made during the offseason, they are looking to win their second NBA title in three seasons. PopCulture.com recently caught up with Lakers legend and Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal who revealed how the Lakers can win their 18th title.
“Whenever you got two or three more superstars on a roster, people automatically, ‘Ooh, this and that,’” O’Neal told PopCulture. “[The Lakers are] still fairly a new team, so they’re still training hard to get to know each other. You can never count out the champs, Brooklyn is there, Golden State is back. Those can be very, very interesting. They don’t have a lot of work to do, I think there are only two. Their biggest task are, can they manage their egos and can they stay injury-free?”
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The Lakers added Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony to play with LeBron James and Anthony Davis. Last season, the Lakers finished seventh in the Western Conference and lost in the first round of the playoffs. If the team can stay healthy, the Lakers will have a chance to make a deep run in the playoffs. But as O’Neal mentioned, the Phoenix Suns are the best team in the west right now with Chris Paul Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton. The Warriors are looking to have a huge season with Stephen Curry and the return of Klay Thompson. And the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks aren’t going anywhere, especially with Giannis Antetokounmpo signing a contract extension last year.
O’Neal will follow the Lakers and all the NBA teams this season since he’s an analyst on the TNT show Inside the NBA. O’Neal’s co-host Charles Barkley teased leaving the show when he’s 60, which leads to the question of how long will O’Neal do the show.
“As long as they’ll have me,” O’Neal said. “When I was at NBA one day, said, ‘Hey, we need to go younger.’ And so I had to do something else, that’s why it’s always just good to have something to fall back on. So, a lot of advice I give to young entrepreneurs, is it’s important to be true who you are, and just carve your own path. You got to look for opportunities that are authentic to who you are as a person.”
