Time for Lakers to Shape Up or Get Shipped Out?

It is unbelievable to think that the Lakers, and specifically Shaq, are just now taking steps to get in shape. The Big Jenny Craig might have thought about starting a bit earlier, say the off-season.

SHANNON RAE

Tustin

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Now Mitch Kupchak wants to make a trade. Questions he needs to ask himself:

1. Will any team want to trade with the Lakers to make them better?

2. Outside of Shaq and Kobe, do they have one player of any value to another team?

The answers to the above are “no” and “no.”

Sorry Dr. Buss, Phil and Mitch, you’re going to have to go the rest of the way with what you have. Best of luck, you will need it.

LOU ROSENBERG

Encino

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Here are the latest NBA standings:

Kobe’s ego: 1-0.

Shaq’s ego: 1-0.

Lakers’ chances: 0-2.

TOM SCHIFF

Woodland Hills

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While the Lakers argue over who’s the man, Portland is securing home-court advantage. Can anyone say Cancun in early June?

MICHAEL GASTON

Orange

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As the first line of defense, Kobe Bryant has continued to let the man he is guarding get going early and often.

He can complain all he wants about everybody else, but as was evident with Phil Jackson’s displeasure at Kobe’s defense Tuesday in Seattle, Kobe needs to look only one place if he wants to find fault with the defense--in the mirror.

ALAN ELLIOTT

Los Angeles

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Mark Heisler didn’t have to go back to the Magic Johnson-Norm Nixon Lakers to find precedent for the Shaq-Kobe feud; he only had to take a closer look at O’Neal’s own career.

While he didn’t win a championship in Orlando, Shaq did go to the finals against the Houston Rockets in Year 2 of Michael Jordan’s first retirement. In Orlando, he had to share the ball and the limelight with Penny Hardaway. At the time, Hardaway’s star actually shone brighter, what with the ubiquitous Li’l Penny commercials and the talk that it was Hardaway, not Shaq, who would become the game’s first $200-million player.

Shaq, of course, settled their rivalry by signing with the Lakers, probably never dreaming that Kobe would become better (and more popular) than Penny ever was. Had Shaq and Penny stayed together (along with a much younger Horace Grant, Nick Anderson and Dennis Scott) the Magic might have become a dynasty on its own.

It remains to be seen if O’Neal can learn from his own history and create a dynasty here in Los Angeles.

PAUL FEINBERG

Santa Monica

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Did you catch it? It wasn’t hard to miss if you were watching carefully. It happened in the middle of the fourth quarter of a game Kobe Bryant thought he was playing alone against the Miami Heat on Sunday in front of a national audience.

Shaquille O’Neal had the ball down low, when he was double-teamed with a third Miami body rushing his way. At the top of the key, Bryant was wide open. O’Neal looked right at him . . . and then passed the ball to someone else--clearly anyone would--who was neither open nor in a position to get open.

If anyone thinks this superstar feud is over, they’re not paying attention.

JON CUTLER

Los Angeles

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The Lakers must be pretty bad because I am beginning to follow the Clippers.

ELLIOT SEMMELMAN

Los Angeles

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If Del Harris had coached like Phil Jackson, he would have been fired a lot sooner than he was.

PAT GAREHIME

Riverside