10 NBA player/jersey combos that just don’t look right

Shaquille O’Neal (Boston Celtics)

For a player considered one of the greatest in Los Angeles Lakers history with his No. 34 in the rafters of Staples Center, watching Shaquille O’Neal don Boston Celtics green was a bit hard to stomach.

Shaq never found himself in the heat of the Lakers/Celtics rivalry. While LA was winning three consecutive NBA titles in the early 2000s, the Celtics had a single playoff appearance — a conference finals run in 2002 — followed by a second-round and two straight first-round exits the next three years.

Still, the LA/Boston blood runs deep dating back to the 1960s. Sides must be taken with no perceived room to jump ship.

O’Neal went to Boston in pursuit of another title, but the Deisel proved to be out of gas. He played just 37 games, averaging career-lows with 9.2 points and 4.8 rebounds before calling it a Hall of Fame career after the Celtics were eliminated in the conference semis by the Miami Heat.

Laker fans didn’t seem to harbor any bad feelings towards the beloved big man in ways other fanbases might have, in part because of Shaq’s on-court irrelevance at 38 years of age.

Had O’Neal made this type of move with something left to give, who knows the type of animosity that would emanate from the most storied back-and-forth in NBA history.