Lakers Follow Their Leader to a Championship

Shaquille O’Neal just wouldn’t let the Lakers lose.

Every shot they missed, he seemed to get and put back in. He just dominated.

Where does he rank with the all-time big men? Well, going back to George Mikan and then Wilt Chamberlain and of course Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, I think he has more offensive moves than any of them. Plus, his rebounding and strength inside are better than any player I’ve seen. His hands are so strong. You just can’t take the basketball away from him.

Another thing. He plays without emotion, without losing his poise or getting a lot of technicals. When things go bad for many teams, they start to blame the referees for everything. Not Shaq. He doesn’t argue with the bad calls. The other players, they see that and they learn from it. He just gave this team unbelievable leadership all season long.

You can’t dwell on his foul shooting. Too many people do that. That’s all they see. He’ll improve. He needs to get a softer shot up, but that’ll come.

The other night, Austin Croshere shot 12 free throws for the Pacers and made 11, and all seemed to bounce around before they went down. That’s a soft shot. But Shaq is close. In a year or two, I expect him to be a 70% free-throw shooter.

Kobe Bryant is the most improved player in the league, and that is because he has done so much better in two key areas.

First, his defense. The Pacers were saying that his ankle injury mostly hurt his defense, and that was quite a problem for the Lakers because his defense was so good. Well, they probably wouldn’t have been saying that a year ago.

The second thing is his shot selection. That has improved too, although he still has some improving to do.

The thing is, he is a gamer. He is still so young. He didn’t have college to learn all the dos and don’ts, so he is learning them in the pros.

Another thing that needs to be said is what a great job the Laker coaches did with this team. Before the season, the question was whether Shaq and Kobe would buy into the triangle offense. Well, they both did, and they both had their best seasons.

--as told to BILL DWYRE