Buss Isn’t the Heavy in Squabble With Shaq

I got into a conversation with the wife Saturday morning. I know, I know, but if you’re going to be married you have the responsibility to make such sacrifices.

I feel so strongly about it, I believe it’s worth turning the sound down on the TV, especially because there’s really nothing on Saturday morning.

Actually, this conversation was going pretty well for a while, as we talked about the pros and cons of Phil, the wife just gushing about the guy as if the so-called genius knows everything, while I tried to point out he’s certainly no cure-all.

I didn’t even get upset when she started to sarcastically refer to him as Dr. Phil until I realized she was really talking about Dr. Phil. I guess I still don’t really know what she thinks about Phil Jackson, but that’s a different conversation in another couple of months or so.

One of the reasons we don’t converse more often, of course, is that she thinks she’s always right -- much like a lot of you people -- and she doesn’t take it well when I point out she has no idea what she’s talking about -- much like a lot of you people. I can’t recall the last time the wife was right -- you know, much like a lot of you people.

Take Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, for example. Throw in Jerry Buss too, and you people have got it all wrong, always have, and unfortunately probably always will.

You think Buss is to blame for Shaq’s departure and the demise of the Lakers. You’ve got Bryant pegged as the reason Shaq is no longer here. Anyone who says differently is a Kobe lover, which is about as low as you can go these days in name-calling for some people.

Some of you even think Mitch Kupchak can’t do anything right, but then I’m not here to argue with you.

The Lakers are a mess, all right, and one person is to blame, but it’s Shaq, who continues to take whiney potshots at Buss & Co., and the more he does, the smaller he appears. Right now I’ve got him standing neck and neck with Lil’ Penny.

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DO YOU know what it’s like to have a conversation with someone who ignores the facts? (Try talking to yourself in the mirror.)

Laker fans are furious their consistently successful team tanked this season, and they want someone to blame. Hard to blast a giant of a man with a childlike sense of humor who might win another NBA title in another month.

That leaves Buss, Bryant and Kupchak looking like the Three Stooges in the middle of all the chaos, with Bryant and Kupchak hard to warm up to these days -- if any day, for that matter.

Buss, though, explained himself last week, and I don’t understand how any knowledgeable Laker fan could still disagree with him.

“[Shaq is] 60 pounds lighter in Miami than he was in Los Angeles,” Buss said. “And as you’ve probably gathered recently, he seems to be having some [health] problems. My reaction was, if he was not willing to get in shape, which he had five, eight years, some number of times to do, and we urged him. It seems that the motivation for him to lose weight was to trade him.”

Buss was the guy paying Shaq twenty-some-million dollars while getting less than the best from O’Neal, who still had two years remaining on his contract and who wanted a two-year, $60-million contract extension right then and now.

Shaq wanted to be traded because he wasn’t getting his way.

It’s easy to spend Buss’ money, and hard to argue that Shaq isn’t a dominating player when at his best, but how often did Buss get the best from him in the last few seasons? Shaq was due to be paid $27.6 million this season, according to published reports, and that still wasn’t enough to make him happy?

And you remain sympathetic to his side -- get over it.

When Shaq began the 2003 exhibition season running up the court in Hawaii and yelling at Buss, “Now you gonna pay me?” Shaq was a tub. Had he been 60 pounds lighter at the time, the Lakers might have gone on to easily win another title. And another. But he wasn’t in shape, and he was getting older.

As a businessman, what would you have done? Why is this so hard to understand? I feel like I’m talking to the wife.

There is no evidence that suggests Shaq would have found the motivation to lose weight while remaining a Laker. He put off surgery on his foot one year to better enjoy his off-season at the expense of the team. And Bryant gets all the criticism for not being a team player.

Had Buss brought Shaq back, let’s say for one more season, he would most likely have gotten an out-of-shape giant packing a serious bad mood, especially if the Lakers re-signed the free agent Bryant.

Shaq went to Miami and got into shape because he had to impress/persuade a new organization to give him a contract extension. He thought the Lakers owed him that contract extension. (He owed the Lakers to learn how to shoot free throws better.)

Miami still hasn’t given him an extension. He’s now working for his money, and future paydays. Just imagine how unstoppable he would have been here, doing the same thing.

“I suspect if I had known he was going to lose 60 pounds I probably would have made a different decision,” Buss said.

Shaq’s response was once again petty, telling the media in Florida, “I didn’t need motivation, I needed a real owner, like [Miami’s] Micky Arison. Not a guy who parties with girls that are three times [younger] ... “

A real owner to Shaq is someone who will open his checkbook to him. It’s all about Shaq.

“Jerry Buss needs to retire because his comments, like his decisions, are dumb as hell and make no sense,” Shaq said, and so there.

And you’re still defending the big baby who doesn’t know when to shut up.

And you wonder why we just can’t have a nice talk sometimes.

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Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.