Through Thick and Thin, O’Neal Is Never Boring

Shaquille O’Neal was back in town Saturday, citing history and rewriting history in his own way, providing a little reminder that for all his maddening comments, things are still better when he’s around to make them.

His media sessions during a promotional event at the Crossroads School gym in Santa Monica focused on his eight years in L.A. -- especially the end -- but he did offer a preview of the Lakers’ future without him.

“The real problems will finally show,” O’Neal said. “I’m not here, and they can’t point fingers at me anymore. The real problem will finally speak for itself.”

He wouldn’t identify “the problem,” but he did blame General Manager Mitch Kupchak for the July trade that sent him to Miami in exchange for Caron Butler, Brian Grant and Lamar Odom.

“I think they listened to the wrong people,” O’Neal said. “Mitch Kupchak was never a player, so how can you listen to him about me?”

First of all, Kupchak played nine years in the NBA, had a key role in the Washington Bullets’ championship in 1978 and came back from a major knee injury to help the Lakers win it all in 1985.

And the decision to move O’Neal came from Jerry Buss. He didn’t want to hand out $30 million a year to extend O’Neal’s contract at the end of his career, and it didn’t hurt that if Kobe Bryant wanted to prove he could win without O’Neal he’d get the chance to do it immediately with the Lakers.

Buss kept Bryant in the fold when he gave him a maximum contract for $136 million. Interesting how people tend to stay in Lakerland when Buss pays them well.

Remember, if Buss had paid Jerry West what he wanted, West would still be in Los Angeles instead of Memphis.

While fans in L.A. still pine for West, O’Neal inspires rage because he is now the nightmare scenario for these spurned Laker lovers: He’s the ex who looks better than ever after the breakup.

O’Neal has not looked this lean since he played for the Orlando Magic. And Laker fans are hating him because he never looked this good in the purple and gold uniforms.

“It’s just that no one has ever done it like me before,” O’Neal said. “Of course, if you don’t know me and you say 360 [pounds] you automatically go, ‘Oh, he’s fat.’

“I’ve always been a type to follow rules. When I first got here they wanted me to work out all the time, so I would lift and lift and get stronger. I guess they were always intimidated by numbers. I was pretty high a couple of years ago, but I never went above 15% body fat.

“Pat [Riley, the Heat president] wanted me to get down, so I’ve just been working hard like I always do and I just got down. I’m looking to do a lot of damage.”

Phil Jackson said he wanted O’Neal to come to training camp in better shape, but O’Neal never responded to this degree. Apparently he forgot to study that history lesson as well.

But here’s one recap I won’t debate:

“I’ve got three rings in five years,” O’Neal said. “If I would have got the ball [in the 2004 NBA Finals] we would have had four rings in five years.”

This is where everyone needs to stop and realize the simple fact: The Lakers and O’Neal were better off for the time he spent in L.A. The people who are glad he’s gone must have been really inconvenienced by all those street closings for the championship parades.

Otherwise, it sure was fun when O’Neal was the ringleader of this Laker circus. He was clowning around again Saturday, at the Nestle Crunch “Hot Shots Camp,” which brought in 10 teenagers from around the country and gave them a chance to showcase their skills by playing with and against O’Neal. O’Neal showed off his dance moves and his And1 Mixtape skills. Laughs all around.

It was a sample of what’s gone for this season, but not forever. He said he’ll “always” have a connection to L.A.

He said he’d miss the people the most while he’s gone, especially the ball boys and the valet parkers and all of the other out-of-the-spotlight folks.

“Those people know that I was real,” O’Neal said. “They were the ones that were in my element down there. I was the one that kept everybody loose over there. And they’re going to miss that.”

Bryant is now the face of the Lakers, but even though his sexual assault case never made it to trial, it will be hard to look at him without thinking of the ordeal.

For all their squabbles, O’Neal said he was happy Bryant no longer faced the prospect of prison time.

“I’m glad that he can get back on to his life,” O’Neal said. “I’m glad he can get back to his beautiful wife and beautiful daughter and just be normal. You never want to see a guy of his caliber go down for something like that.

“I’m glad it’s over. I’m glad he can continue to be the great basketball player that he is. I’m happy for him.”

O’Neal thinks too much was made out of a reference to Bryant he made while rapping on a DJ Vlad CD this summer.

“I was going at Skillz,” O’Neal said, referring to another rapper. “But because I said [Bryant’s] name, people want to keep the hype going. And I’ll keep the hype going. But I just want to keep it going correctly. If I’m going to do a Kobe song, he’ll know. Because he’s not that important to me. No male is that important to me.”

O’Neal liked to tether himself to past Laker big men Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and now he has something else in common with them: They both were traded.

“Nobody’s safe,” O’Neal said. “It’s all a business. And I’m going to treat it like a business. You can’t let nothing get to you. And I won’t let it get to me.”

He’d be wise to let the historical inaccuracies go, and start moving ahead. But everyone else needs to realize that half of what he says is strictly to feed the marketing monster.

“To me, it’s a game,” O’Neal said. “That’s what I do.”

The sad thing is he now does it for a different team.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.