Shea Serrano Gets Honest About How Lakers-Era Shaquille O'Neal Would Fare Today

On Oct. 27, Shea Serrano delivered unto the hoops faithful another must-read New York Times bestselling hoops book, Expensive Basketball. It takes stock of the pivotal players and moments that most touched Serrano's basketball fandom, all explored through his one-of-a-kind lens.

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One particularly memorable moment is the chapter in which the lifelong San Antonio Spurs diehard finds himself in the surprise position of paying tribute to former Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal. Beyond his memorable playoff clashes with the Tim Duncan/David Robinson-era Spurs, Serrano points out that O'Neal also took down several of his other favorite non-Spurs players and teams.

In the 2000 NBA Finals, the O'Neal-Kobe Bryant Lakers withstood the best efforts of the Indiana Pacers, led by Serrano's first favorite NBA player, Hall of Fame shooting guard Reggie Miller. Following Allen Iverson's "48 special" against LA in Game 1 of the 2001 Finals, O'Neal obliterated Iverson's Philadelphia 76ers in five games. The Lakers also knocked out the Chris Webber-era Sacramento Kings in each of their three straight championship seasons from 2000-2002.

O'Neal was the most dominant big man of his era, especially during his Lakers prime. The 15-time All-Star reached that rare level of basketball excellence where the NBA had to actually change a rule to deal with him, allowing zone defenses back into the league.

So, weirdly, the "Big Diesel" is very much responsible for the modern game, even if he himself would be a throwback player today were he to be ported over with his shot diet.

I recently had an opportunity to chop it up with Serrano about all things Expensive Basketball — and all things Shaquille O'Neal.

"Here's what's crazy: 2000-2002 Lakers Shaq f---ing ruined my life, my basketball life. Ruined it," Serrano allowed with a laugh. "He's attached to so many horrible memories, and yet I find myself in these conversations where I'm defending him when somebody says, 'Oh, Shaq would get played off the court in the NBA today.' Are you f---ing out of your mind?"

Across that span, O'Neal averaged a whopping 28.6 points on 57.5 percent field goal shooting and 52.9 percent free throw shooting, 12.4 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.6 blocks, and 0.6 steals. He finished among the top three in MVP voting in each season, winning in 2000. He also was among the top eight players to receive Defensive Player of the Year votes in 1999-2000 and 2000-01. He was named to three straight All-NBA First Teams, three All-Star squads, and two All-Defensive Second Teams during that span.

O'Neal was also, unquestionably, the best player on a team that also included Kobe Bryant, another of the top 15 NBA superstars ever. O'Neal was voted Finals MVP during all three of their championships together. By the end of their three-title run, Bryant had emerged as one of the three best players in the NBA, along with O'Neal and Spurs superstar Tim Duncan.

"2000-2002 Shaq today would average like 40 and 28. Something stupid like that. He would be so incredibly [dominant]. 'Oh, they're gonna pull him out to the 3-point line.' Okay, sure, that's that side of the court. What about the other side? You've got to deal with this guy, you've got to deal with this f---ing volcano of a human, who's going to do whatever he wants," Serrano noted.

The league has sped up and spread out to the 3-point line since O'Neal finally hung up his sneakers for good in 2011. But Serrano asserted that the 7-foot-1 LSU product would still decimate the competition were he in his Lakers prime this season.

'I Can't Believe I've Got To Defend Shaq!'

"I think if you dropped him into the NBA today, he would immediately become, again, the most dominant player in the league, and whatever team you put him on would be a championship contender, if not favorite," Serrano continued. "I can't believe I've got to defend Shaq!"

Serrano suggested that a modern O'Neal would be just as much of a matchup nightmare for the opposition as three-time MVP Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic is right now — albeit as a behemoth in the painted area, not the jump-shooting, pass-happy force Jokic has been.

"He would be dominant. You know what he would be?" Serrano asked. "Shaq today would be like, 'What if the Joker was fast?' That's Shaq. That's how he would play today."

That's not to say that O'Neal would suddenly be tossing up 4.5 triple tries a night and making them at a 42.6 percent clip (Jokic's current long range output), or dishing out a league-leading 10.9 dimes per bout. But he would be just as impossible for rival defenders to stop, with an added seasoning of athleticism.

"We don't need to teach Shaq to shoot 3-pointers," Serrano insisted. "You've got Shaq on your team? Go in the post, I'm going to give you ball, and f---ing rip somebody's head off, and we're done."

That feels about right.

So what compelled Serrano to return to basketball as a topic, eight years after his first hoops bestseller, Basketball (And Other Things)?

"I feel like if you're going to write a book about something, you can only write it about something that you love, especially if it's a non-fiction book, because you're going to spend a couple of years researching this thing and just being in it," Serrano told me. "And so for me, the only things I really, really love, pop culture-wise, are basketball of course, rap, movies, and probably TV."

"I knew I wanted to write a basketball book, and then it just became, 'Well, what is it going to be? How are you going to do this? Are you going to write a Tim Duncan-type book? Are you going to write a book about the 2000-2002 Lakers? What are you going to write about?' You need a hook of some sort. You spend a fair amount of time exploring and sort of wandering around different ideas," Serrano explained.

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As he worked through these various concepts, he would rope in his friends for a little speculative research.

"So I would just hit up a buddy, or go to lunch with somebody, and we'd just be sitting there chatting. And I kept asking everybody the same question, which was, 'Tell me about your favorite basketball memory, or one of your favorite basketball memories,'" Serrano said. "And every single person answered the question the exact same sort of way. It was the same pattern every single time."

In every case, it was about the emotional resonance of beloved basketball moments — not about counting stats.

"When somebody's telling you about a thing that they love, it's always this feeling, this emotion first. 'I was in the arena, the ball dropped in, everybody went crazy.' It's always something like that," Serrano revealed. "And that to me was just super interesting, and I thought, 'Oh, okay, I'm going to do a basketball book, and I want it to be that. Let's figure out a way to write about the basketball stuff that made you feel something.'"

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