The Los Angeles Lakers are on a devastating losing streak and former NBA veteran Matt Barnes took this as the perfect time to reminisce about the “Showtime Lakers”. On a fresh episode of his podcast hosted with Stephen Jackson, legendary LA radio host Big Boy joined to speak about his 26-year-long career. His best time would easily be the ’90s and early 2000s when Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal would three-peat to make his job easier. However, then came a huge drought.
Big Boy shared, “When the Lakers were winning, it was good for the city…We was going back-to-back, you know, three-peat, it was easy radio”. It’s always easy to talk when your team is winning. The 54-year-old continued, “I love what the city felt like when those things were going down…It made it easy…the parades felt different”. The long-lasting drought did come to an end in 2020, but sadly due to the pandemic, there were no parades.
Big Boy also shared that 4-time champion Shaq would call in whenever he wanted, as he had the inside line back then. It was a celebration for all the 3,794,820 back in 2000 when Bryant and Shaq would torch their opponents. However, Big Boy believes the times have changed.
Big Boy subtly mocks the modern Lakers in comparison to Kobe Bryant and Shaq’s squad
Bryant’s last championship was in 2010 and the following years kept on getting sadder. The Lakers were even struggling to make it to the playoffs. After Bryant retired, it was just hard for the LA fans to watch the game anymore. Big Boy shared, “It got to a point where, you know, s***, it felt like you had to…take the engine out the bus. That bus was going nowhere for a while. No parades was going down.”
Big Boy added, “It’s cool now”, to describe the current Lakers. Well, they have LeBron James for now and stand exactly at .500 in the Western Conference. So it’s fair the radio host feels that way. Moreover, the team has lost nine out of their last 12 games, after winning the In-Season Tournament. The volatile Lakers are definitely not as good as the team back in 2000. Big Boy believes so!