Shaq daddy

Los Angeles Lakers news from all over, includes this ESPN.com - NBA Shaq filed complaints in April

Shaq knew this was coming, has known it for months, because he's refused to take the pay cut Buss wants him to take -- the same sort of pay cut Kevin Garnett bent over backwards and took in Minnesota. Shaq says the Lakers organization asked him to recruit Karl Malone last summer, asked him to recruit Gary Payton, and that it was understood they'd take care of him down the road. But they're not taking care of him, and I'm not surprised that he's just demanded a trade. He told me in late April he was resigned to the fact that it was time to go.


"Well, I've seen it before," he said as we sat alone in the team's El Segundo training complex. "I've seen it before. It happens with the Ewings and the Dominiques. But give me enough respect and enough courtesy, and let me know. And I'll make it easier for everybody.


"But just don't tell me one thing and do another. Because you insult my intelligence like that. Just tell me. I ain't tripping. But the good thing about this country we live in, somebody will want this. Someone will want the Diesel. I've got about five, six good years left in me. Because the stuff that I'm doing, I still got a whole lot of stuff in me. I'm not even allowed to really take over the game how I want to. So I'm just out there playing on fumes right now."



Shaq says the Lakers vowed to get him 'whatever you need' after recruiting Malone and Payton.
O'Neal has a lot of beefs with the franchise. They are, in no particular order: