In the most recent episode of Shaquille O’Neal‘s The Big Podcast with Shaq, Ice Cube was featured. Shaq and Cube both had intriguing opinions about subjects other than basketball. The two discussed music, their pasts with one another, and the Lakers’ current predicament. Ice Cube continued to discuss what LA needs to do in order to become a championship-caliber squad during his appearance on the show.
Ice Cube has been a devoted Los Angeles Lakers fan. Over the years, the 54-year-old rapper, who was frequently spotted sitting courtside at the Purple & Gold’s home games, shared his thoughts on what it would take for the Lakers to reach their peak performance.
“We needed a bigman, I mean, a true bigman. That’s what everybody call it the ‘Mickey Mouse’ championship. But all those teams was going for that Mickey Mouse championship. They was going for that banner. So, you can’t dismiss it but at the end of the day, it was Dwight Howard in there, it was Javale McGee, and we had another big guy. But AD (Anthony Davis) can only do so much, asking him to play center, to me is just—I think you got to free him up a little bit.”
Does Ice Cube have a point?
Ice Cube stated that the lack of a big man was a factor in the Los Angeles Lakers’ struggles. That ultimately leaves Anthony Davis with a great deal of responsibility, even though he is more than capable of carrying out that duty.
Cube mentioned the Lakers’ 2020 championship. He said that the Lakers possessed pure centers rather than power forwards on their squad, namely Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee. Any team’s defensive performance is enhanced when they have a pure center on the team. Furthermore, McGee and Howard made outstanding rim protectors.
During the bubble, he even threw himself into the Conference Finals against the Nuggets. That was back when Nikola Jokić and the Denver Nuggets could not be stopped by the big men on the Lakers roster. This prompted the rapper to assert that the Lakers’ matchup versus the Nuggets these past two postseasons would have turned out quite differently if they had a legitimate big man on their team.
