Lakers honour Shaq with high-flying statue outside arena
LOS ANGELES — The Lakers honoured Shaquille O’Neal with a bronze statue of the Hall of Fame centre who helped them to three consecutive NBA titles in better days outside Staples Center on Friday.
With his youngest son pulling a gold braided cord to drop a shiny gold curtain, O’Neal laid eyes upon something bigger than the big man himself. The statue of him completing a monster dunk with his legs in the air is 9 feet and weighs 1,200 pounds. It is suspended 10 feet in the air, attached to the arena’s side. O’Neal is 7-foot-1 and was 325 in his playing days.
“This was very unexpected,” said O’Neal, dressed in a cornflower blue and yellow plaid suit.
Purple and gold confetti and streamers rained down on O’Neal, his family and some of the biggest names in NBA history, including Jerry West, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Kobe Bryant, all of whom spoke at the hour-long ceremony.