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Shaquille O'Neal was at the Chase Center when the LA Lakers opened their season with a loss against the defending champions Golden State Warriors. Like thousands of basketball fans, Shaq saw LA's brick-building throughout the game.
On “The Big Podcast with Shaq,” the Hall of Famer echoed the obvious Lakers deficiency with a hilarious take:
“They’re like a community where I lived. They have no shooters. The Gated Community Gangsters, they have no shooters. I can leave my door open, I can walk around in my underwear.
"When they get outside the gates, they talk hard but inside the gate, ain’t got no shooters. They ain’t got no guns!”
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Perhaps how the LA Lakers ended up in this situation is even more comedic than Shaquille O'Neal’s entertaining comment. GM Rob Pelinka had all summer to tinker with the lineup. He prioritized youth as the Lakers were the oldest team last season and often looked gassed in large stretches of any game.
Lost in the hoopla to get young players was that the roster still couldn’t shoot. The preseason was only a harbinger of how inept the LA Lakers can be with their three-point shooting. They were a dismal 26.7% in six preseason games.
In two regular-season games, the Hollywood team has shot a horrific 22.4% from long-range, ranking them dead last in the league. They are embarrassingly out of the Minnesota Timberwolves league, the second-worst team, which is averaging 29.6%.
The Inside the NBA crew, which included Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley, Kenni Smith and Ernie Johnson, repeatedly mocked the Lakers’ outside shooting. They still couldn’t believe how stubborn the Lakers were in adding decent shooters to the roster to best maximize LeBron James’ skills.
The Lakers missed 30 of their 40 three-point shots, which just boggled the minds of basketball fans. Social media was aghast at the number of attempts given the team’s most obvious and glaring weakness.
The LA Lakers proved Shaquille O'Neal right against the LA Clippers
After hitting just 25% of their three-point field goals against the Golden State Warriors, the LA Lakers were back at it against the LA Clippers. This time, they were even more embarrassing, making only 9 of 45 attempts for a humiliating 20% clip.
Shaquille O'Neal and Charles Barkley repeatedly shook their heads at what the Lakers were doing against the Clippers. Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverley, Kendrick Nunn and Lonnie Walker IV combined to shoot 3 for 25.
The numbers looked hilarious to Shaquille O'Neal, but Laker Nation was horrified on social media. Most predicted that this was coming light years away, but their team didn’t do anything in the offseason to change it.
Shaquille O'Neal’s former team is now sixth in three-point attempts, hoisting shots at an average of 42.5% per game. The Lakers’ 22.4% efficiency from beyond the arc makes for sleepless nights for loyal Laker fans.
LeBron James, in a post-game interview against the Clippers, was convinced the team could still shoot their way out of the slump. They better make that turnaround quick as they still have a brutal schedule ahead of them.
The LA Lakers’ next few games will be against the Portland Trail Blazers, the Denver Nuggets twice, the Minnesota Timberwolves and New Orleans Pelicans. They could conceivably lose all of them.
