Shaq vs Kobe: Again

by Marcel Mutoni

For a few years, most notably on Christmas Day, the NBA shoved the Kobe/Shaq saga down our throats. When O’Neal’s Miami Heat lost all sense of relevancy, we were given a reprieve from the tired storyline … and now, of course, it’s very much back.

Tonight, Shaq makes his debut in a Suns uniform and guess who’s in town to greet him?

Thankfully, Shaq is downplaying the matchup against his former nemesis and head coach.

On the eve of Shaq’s much-anticipated Phoenix debut — and on the eve of another reunion with his former Lakers running mates — Shaq spoke in such glowing terms of Bryant and Jackson that it appears this once dysfunctional relationship has transformed back into a love triangle.

Don’t tell any of that to the ESPN hype machine, though. They’re broadcasting the game tonight, and with O’Neal having joined LA’s most bitter rival, expect plenty of flashbacks to those wild Laker days of the not-too-distant past. Should be fun. Or not.

(While on the subject of ESPN: I hope Bill Walton has the guts to show up to the arena tonight after the war of words the two big men recently engaged in. That could make for tremendous theater.)