Imrem: Sorry, Shaq, you never had MJ on your side
Shaquille O'Neal better watch out or I'll take him by the ears and shake some sense into him.
Afraid of the big fella?
Heck no, not me.
I was sitting in the first row of a Saturday night fight when, five feet from me, Shaq took a swing at Brad Miller.
O'Neal missed, of course, as if the punch was one of his wild free throws. His fist came closer to landing on my head.
I barely flinched. Shaq outweighed me by only a couple hundred pounds, so what was there to fear?
This all rushes to mind because Shaq is going to have to go through me if he ever wants to get to Scottie Pippen.
Shaq and Pip exchanged Instagram taunts this week, most notably O'Neal blustering that an all-greats Lakers team would beat an all-greats Bulls team by 50 points.
Never mind that Shaq picked the teams and gave the Bulls' Horace Grant and Dennis Rodman so he wouldn't have to face the taller Artis Gilmore and Joakim Noah.
The other Bulls starters were Michael Jordan, Derrick Rose and Pippen; the Lakers' were Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Elgin Baylor, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaq.
(A player must have to be alive or I'd take Norm Van Lier over Rose; actually, I might take the spirit of the spirited NVL over Rose anyway.)
Regardless, the matchup drew so much attention that WSCR 670-AM morning hosts "Mully and Hanley" contacted PredictionMachine.com.
The website computed that the Lakers' greats would beat the Grant-Rodman Bulls' greats 99.7-96.2 and the Gilmore-Noah Bulls' greats by less than a point.
The computer must not have taken into consideration the capital-X factor.
Michael Jordan.
The Lakers wouldn't beat the Bulls with Jordan now any more than they did in the 1991 NBA Finals.
Take the Lakers that Shaq picked, add Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain, play 7-on-1 against Jordan and they still wouldn't prevail.
Seriously, here is how some potential Chicago lineups with Jordan would do against any Lakers lineup.
Jordan and former Bulls dubious draft picks like Erwin "Wolfgang" Mueller, Kennedy McIntosh, Tate Armstrong and Marquis Teague: Jordanaires 312, Lakers 9.
Jordan and Chicago athletes from other sports like Hector "Calorie Collector" Villanueva (Cubs), Claudell "He Slept Here" Washington (White Sox), Bob "Slo-Mo" Avellini (Bears) and Sergei "Not Worthy of a Nickname" Krivokrasov (Blackhawks): Jordanaires 630, Lakers 11.
Jordan and expired Chicago nonathlete legends like Roger Ebert, Gene Siskel, Harold Washington and "Big Shoulders" Sandburg: Jordanaires 847, Lakers 13.
Put any other four humans with the superhuman Jordan and they could name the score, to say nothing of naming their own area code.
Come to think of it, they could name their own ZIP code too: Jordanaire Bulls 60006, Lakers 00006.
Does Shaquille O'Neal really believe any combination of Lakers would beat any combination of Bulls that included His Royal Airness?
Even if Shaq could make a case for such a game being close, he would be dismissing Chicago's nuclear option.
Da Coach!
Since Phil Jackson coached both the Lakers and Bulls, he is disqualified and the Bulls could activate Mike Ditka as player-coach.
Allowing for the remote possibility that the Bulls' lead ever dipped below 100 points, Ditka could come off the bench to rough up O'Neal.
Wow! Imagine a lineup of Jordan, Pippen, Gilmore, Rose and Ditka.
So, Shaq, dummy up.
mimrem@dailyherald.com