Between the parades through Downtown Los Angeles, the three Finals MVP trophies and the booming question of “Can youuuu dig it?!” to thousands of celebrating Lakers fans, it’s possible to forget the turbulent times the Shaquille O’Neal and the purple and gold faced during their three-peat era.
But for Brian Shaw — the backup guard and current Associate Coach of the Lakers — the rougher patches are what revealed why those teams were so successful.
These instances include a regular season game against San Antonio, when Devean George made a costly end-of-game mistake that caused O’Neal to angrily confront the young small forward in the locker room after.