Shaquille O’Neal (Paras Griffin/Getty Images for Pepsi Stronger Together)
When it comes to potentially coaching the Los Angeles Lakers, Shaquille O’Neal named his price.
After finishing the 2021-22 season 11th-place in the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Lakers opted to fire head coach Frank Vogel. With the Lakers in need of a new coach, what if they were to call a certain team legend and Hall of Famer?
During the latest episode of “The Big Podcast,” Shaquille O’Neal was asked by Spice Adams what it would take to coach the Lakers. O’Neal revealed that he would do it, but for $25 million a year for four years.
You can listen to a clip of O’Neal’s comments in Inside the NBA’s tweet below. You can listen to the full podcast episode in the above link.
Shaq named his price, now the Lakers have to pay up
So Lakers, are you in?
This past season, even with the addition of former MVP Russell Westbrook to team up with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, the Lakers drastically underperformed, finishing the year 33-49 record.
At the end of the team’s regular-season finale, ESPN senior NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the Lakers were going to fire Vogel the following day. The thing is, the Lakers did not tell Vogel that, as he referenced in his postgame press conference. Sure enough, Vogel was officially let go.
The handling of Vogel’s firing reportedly has potential candidate and Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder “less interested” in taking the job, per Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times.
It will remain to be seen how the Los Angeles’ coaching search will go and who the team will ultimately hire.