Shaq Is Glad to See Some Old Friends

No, really, the Daddy didn’t think the Lakers looked funny, locked in a close game with the Charlotte Bobcats, when he dropped in on them Sunday night.

Actually, we don’t know what Shaquille O’Neal thought of his old team. In ultra-diplomatic mode before his Miami Heat teammates played the Clippers on Monday night, he declined to describe what the Lakers looked like to him.

“It doesn’t matter what I think about that,” O’Neal said. “I’m not really in a position to be talking about that right now. Until we win, then I won’t make predictions about other teams.”

Grinning, he added, “You make your prediction and write it down

“I just wanted to come to see some familiar faces. Yesterday was a day off so I got to go see all the people that took care of me when I was here. The valet and the people at Jerry’s Deli, the people at the hotel, some police officers. Last night, me and Jerome [Crawford, his longtime bodyguard] wanted to come to the game to see guys like Norm, Steve Jackson. It was fun.”

Norm is Norm Pattiz, head of the Westwood One radio network and a signature courtside fan who sits near the Laker bench. Jackson, whom O’Neal sat next to on the other side of the court, is O’Neal’s partner in the sneaker business.

O’Neal worried about being booed before his first game against the Lakers last Christmas, but was cheered. Sunday night, it was strictly a love fest, with O’Neal acknowledging the cheers and the Lakers playing the theme from “Superman.”

“I appreciated that,” O’Neal said of the crowd’s reaction. “I’ve been here eight years and I put in a lot of work and I appreciated that. I know most of them appreciated me and it was a pretty good feeling. But I didn’t know what to expect.”

This season, the Christmas game between the Lakers and Heat is in Miami. O’Neal, who has sat out all but the first two games of the season because of a severely sprained ankle, is expected back in a week, rejoining a team that was expected to dominate the East but is now 10-8, second in the conference, 4 1/2 games behind Detroit.

Of course, O’Neal’s former team is 7-9 and started the night four games behind the Clippers, on whom O’Neal once dropped a career-high 61 points at Staples Center after they didn’t give him as many complimentary tickets as he’d asked for. But then, times have changed.

“The Clippers have a pretty good team right now,” he said. “They have some snappy, cunning veterans on their team. I think this year they’ll make the playoffs. I know they haven’t been in a while but I think this year they’ll make it. ...

“They’ve got a lot of nice veterans. They made a couple of nice pickups this year. Donald Sterling did an unbelievable job of putting this team together. ... Am I surprised? No, because Donald Sterling is a businessman. He’s tired of being second fiddle so he’s just stepped his game up.”