Tag: shaquille o’neal

Sixers guard Danny Green takes pop quiz on career, talks hazing from Shaq

Philadelphia 76ers veteran guard Danny Green takes a pop quiz on his NBA career while talking rookie hazing from Shaquille O’Neal.

Philadelphia 76ers guard Danny Green has had a very successful NBA career to date. A second-round pick in the 2009 NBA draft, Green has put together a very long and productive NBA career now in his 13th season out of North Carolina.

Green serves a very important role in Philadelphia as a veteran and a guy who can shoot the 3-pointer at a high clip to ensure that Joel Embiid has the proper spacing out on the floor to dominate and do his thing in the post. Even now coming off the bench, he still has a big role on the Sixers and ensures their success.

Considering he has three championships on his resume and has accomplished so much in his career, Green sat down with Sixers Wire and he was pop quizzed on those accomplishments. He reminisced on big events such as his NBA debut, his first 3-pointer, his playoff success, and even some rookie hazing from Shaquille O’Neal while with the Cleveland Cavaliers. This will be a two-part interview as there will be more from this talk with Green coming soon.

Andre Drummond did something similar with Sixers Wire and his pop quiz can be read here.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal is glad Staples Center is undergoing name change

Los Angeles Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal explains why he’s happy Staples Center is changing its name, and it involves Kobe Bryant.

The Los Angeles Lakers will soon be playing in Crypto.com Arena, the new name for the building once called Staples Center.

Crypto.com, a crypto exchange company based in Singapore, agreed to a $700 million naming rights deal to have the iconic building undergo a name change. Staples Center had been the building’s name since 1999.

READ: Crypto.com CMO says people resist change about still calling arena Staples Center

There have been plenty of negative reactions to the move, but Lakers legend Shaquille O’Neal had a different perspective.

Shaq explained why he’s happy about the name change on an episode of “The Big Podcast” (h/t: LakersNation.com):

“It was a blessing to be able to play in that building. To play in front of my favorite actors and actresses, to play in front of my family, score 61 points on my birthday, win championships, three in a row for the city. I’m glad they’re taking the name of the Staples Center down because that was our building. Congratulations to the owners for getting a new deal, but, hey, the Staples Center belongs to Shaq and Kobe forever.”

Of course, Shaq and Kobe led the Lakers to a three-peat from 2000 to 2002, which is one of the memorable eras the franchise that is rich in history has had.

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Shaq plans to buy all of Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell’s record 11 NBA championship rings

The Big Aristotle plans to outbid the field in the charity fundraising event this week.

NBA and Boston Celtics legendary big man Bill Russell is planning to work with Hunt Auctions this week to auction off a huge amount of historic items from his Hall of Fame career with the Celtics in their heyday of the late 1950s and 1960s.

The once-in-a-lifetime auction is featuring all sorts of memorabilia and hardware from his career to benefit two of his favorite charitable organizations, Mentor and Boston Celtics United For Social Justice, and has attracted the interest of a fellow Celtics center — Shaquille O’Neal — who reportedly plans to purchase an especially memorable assortment of those items for safekeeping.

He will of course have to win the bidding war likely to ensue, but he is better positioned than most to do it, having amassed a fortune in investments built off of his substantial earnings in his own Hall of Fame career.

That would of course be Shaquille O’Neal, who discusses those plans amid coverage of the auction on a recent episode of TNT’s “Inside the NBA”.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!

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Which Boston Celtics centers populate HoopsHype’s estimate of the best to play the game at the 5?

The Celtics check in with seven alumni among HoopsHype’s recent list of the 20 greatest centers in NBA history.

The center position may have lost some of its luster in the NBA of today, with it often being seen as perhaps the most replaceable position after decades of the five being among or even the most important position in the sport.

And with a team as storied as the Boston Celtics are, you have to think that any list of the sport’s top centers in league history has to be peppered with quite a few Celtics alumni. Such an assessment would be a solid one, given a recent such list published by our sister site HoopsHype to highlight the 20 greatest centers of all time was populated by seven former Boston big men.

Let’s take a look at the players so honored.

Los Angeles Lakers all-time roster: See which legends made the cut

To honor the 75th season of the NBA, LeBron Wire compiled an all-time roster for the Los Angeles Lakers. See who made the cut.

The 2021-22 NBA season has marked the 75th anniversary of the league’s beginning, a remarkable milestone for one of the prominent sporting leagues.

To celebrate the achievement, the NBA looked back to its extensive past and honored 75 of the best players to have played in the league.

The Los Angeles Lakers had 18 players, both current and former, make the list, regardless of their contributions while donning the purple and gold.

This list will be different. LeBron Wire is putting together an all-time Lakers roster using the franchise’s rich history as the framework.

Ground rules: Not every franchise great will make it due to positional priorities since this is a 15-man roster, especially because the Lakers have had countless successful big men throughout the decades.

Also, the list will prioritize what players accomplished while on the team. So even though Russell Westbrook is a Laker and would warrant a spot based on his production, his accomplishments came while playing for other teams.

Here is the all-time Lakers roster:

Shaquille O’Neal says LeBron James would be the GOAT if he becomes highest scorer in NBA history

This is how Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James would be the GOAT of the NBA, according to Shaquille O’Neal.

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James has accomplished just about anything one player can in the NBA.

Through 19 years in the league, James has accumulated four NBA titles, four NBA Finals MVPs, four regular-season MVPs, 17 All-Star appearances and 13 All-NBA first-team selections among his accolades.

READ: Lakers’ LeBron James reacts to making NBA 75th Anniversary Team

And he is on pace to collect more achievements.

James is third in NBA history in total points scored with more than 35,000. He trails Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has 38,387 and Karl Malone, who has 36, 928.

If James surpasses both NBA legends, Shaquille O’Neal, an NBA and Lakers legend himself, said James would be the GOAT of the league, via Broderick Turner of The Los Angeles Times:

“He’s got four rings and he becomes the highest scorer in the NBA history. He’s the best ever,” O’Neal said. “Ain’t nothing you can say.

O’Neal said James can hit that goal in about two seasons:

“I know what he’s doing,” O’Neal said while eating some roast beef. “Championships are great, but he’s trying to pass Kareem up. That’s what he is doing. I know exactly what he’s doing. ‘Cause now if you pass Kareem up, it ain’t no talk about who the best player ever is. Think about that? I saw he needed to average (25) points or something like that the next few years, which he will do. He can do that in two more years.”

Here’s a closer look at the games needed for James to become No. 1, via Fox Sports:

If he stays healthy and continues to score an average of 27 points per game, he could surpass Malone in about 71 games and Abdul-Jabbar in 124. That means a healthy LeBron could hold the all-time scoring record within the next two seasons.

Through two games this season, James is already averaging 29.5 points. He’ll have to stay healthy to have a shot, though, because two of his last three seasons have been derailed with injuries.

James already boasts a resume arguably worth being deemed the NBA’s GOAT, but becoming the leading scorer in history would pad it even further.

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18 Lakers selected to NBA 75th Anniversary Team

The Los Angeles Lakers had 18 players, both current and former, selected to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team.

The 2021-22 NBA season marks the 75th anniversary of the league, which is an astonishing milestone for any league.

To celebrate, the NBA has been acknowledging legends of the game both current and former in a variety of ways.

For the NBA 75th Anniversary Team, the league named 75 of the league’s best players in batches of 25.

The Los Angeles Lakers had 18 players make the list. For a franchise with such a rich history, being one of the most represented teams on the list was expected.

LeBron James was among those selected, and he shared his reaction to the news on Twitter.

From James and more, here is the full list of Lakers that made the team:

12 Lakers make USA TODAY’s Top 75 players in NBA history list

See where 12 members of the Los Angeles Lakers ranked in a list of the NBA’s Top 75 players in history.

The 2021-22 season will mark the NBA’s 75th anniversary of the league, which is a phenomenal achievement for any sporting league to have.

Throughout the league’s founding, there have been so many incredible talents that fans have grown to revere across decades and generations.

With it being the 75th season, the league will be spending time honoring its past and iconic players of the present.

That will certainly be the case for the Los Angeles Lakers. With a roster comprising LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and other future Hall of Famers, L.A.’s reputation for being a household place of talent lives on.

To honor the best players the league has seen, USA TODAY compiled a ranking of the top 75 players. Let’s look at where members of the Lakers ranked (paid subscription required):

HoopsHype lists 16 Boston Celtics on their projected 75 greatest players list

16 Celtics alumni make the cut for HoopsHype’s projected 75 greatest players list for the NBA’s 3/4 century celebratory accounting.

Not to be left out of the NBA’s 75th anniversary list creation extravaganza gripping the league’s wider media sphere, our sister site HoopsHype assembled a list of their own 75 greatest players of all time building off of (and cutting a few of) the NBA 50 greatest players list released for the Association’s 50th anniversary.

Given that the initial official list was, shall we say, a little generous to some and not as much as others perhaps warranted, we expected some players — including Boston Celtics alumni — to not make the cut of a list that was heavily dominated by the team in green and white.

They include Bill Walton, Sam Jones, Dave Bing, and Bill Sharman.

Shaquille O’Neal calls out Sixers star Ben Simmons for his holdout

Shaquille O’Neal calls out Philadelphia 76ers star Ben Simmons for his current holdout.

The Philadelphia 76ers and 25-year old All-Star Ben Simmons are currently in a stalemate as the Simmons is holding out in hopes of getting a trade done sooner rather than later. The Sixers are two days into training camp and Simmons has not yet reported to the team.

This has been a long, drawn-out affair that has turned ugly after Simmons had another poor playoff performance. He averaged 11.9 points, 8.8 assists, and 7.9 rebounds in the playoffs which looks good on paper, but when one factors in him shooting only 34.2% from the foul line and he still refuses to take any jump shots, there is a reason why Philadelphia is looking to move him.

However, one Hall of Famer believes that Simmons is going about his trade request the wrong way. Shaquille O’Neal joined CBS Sports Network’s Tiki and Tierney and said this about Simmons (h/t CBS Sports):

“One, he’s not showing up. As a player, you have to be able to be real with yourself,” O’Neal said during a recent appearance on CBS Sports Network’s Tiki and Tierney. “You need to be aggressive and he definitely got exposed last year in the playoffs, he didn’t want to shoot.

“You have to look in the mirror and say ‘Am I as good as I can be?’ He’s going about it all wrong,” O’Neal added. “He could have gone into the office, say ‘hey, my feelings are hurt. You guys didn’t stick up for me. I’d like to professionally ask for a trade.’ The question is, does anyone want him? I’m not paying $200 million for a guy who will not be aggressive and will not shoot in playoff time.”

O’Neal is in the right here when it comes to Simmons. The guy is obviously talented, but he also does not show up when the time calls for it. He has continuously come up small in the playoffs and he and the Sixers need to move on and find different scenery.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!

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