{"id":444338,"date":"2026-01-31T03:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/444338\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T03:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T03:16:08","slug":"lakers-deandre-ayton-joins-shaq-kareem-in-epic-franchise-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/444338\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers&#8217; Deandre Ayton joins Shaq, Kareem in epic franchise history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Deandre Ayton always had a lot of hype surrounding him from high school to college to his status as a No. 1 overall NBA Draft pick.<\/p>\n<p>At least for a night, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> center put himself in the company of legends.<\/p>\n<p>Ayton put up numbers for the Lakers on Friday night against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/washington-wizards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wizards<\/a> not seen since Shaquille O&#8217;Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.<\/p>\n<p>Ayton&#8217;s final line:<\/p>\n<p>28 points13 rebounds3 assists1 steal3 blocks12-14 FG4-4 FT<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/ncaa-basketball\/duke\/news\/duke-legends-cooper-flagg-kon-knueppel-all-time-nba-record-mavericks-hornets-blue-devils\/604523884f75b065863eed85\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel set all-time NBA record as Duke rookie foes<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He did all of that in just 29 minutes as the Lakers romped by 31 points over the Wizards.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the historical comparison via StatMuse:<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Last three Lakers with 25\/10\/3b on 85+ FG% in a game:<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Shaq<br \/>\u2014 Kareem<\/p>\n<p>and Deandre Ayton. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iqIs0gw5Uw\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/iqIs0gw5Uw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 StatMuse (@statmuse) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/statmuse\/status\/2017419183487619402?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">January 31, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/nba\/cleveland-cavaliers\/news\/naeqwan-tomlin-didnt-play-high-school-basketball-rising-nba-star-cavaliers\/8d761f661b211db6052182ce\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cavs&#8217; Nae&#8217;Qwan Tomlin didn&#8217;t even play high school basketball<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You aren&#8217;t going to find better big man company in Lakers history than that, or hardly anything better in NBA history, either.<\/p>\n<p>Ayton, of course, hasn&#8217;t had the career of either of those guys.<\/p>\n<p>But at least for a night, he was as dominant as a couple of all-time greats.<\/p>\n<p>More NBA news:<\/p>\n<p>                            <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deandre Ayton always had a lot of hype surrounding him from high school to college to his status&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-444338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}