Curry: Shaq 'dead wrong' in thinking his Lakers could topple Warriors

Shaquille O'Neal feels his Los Angeles Lakers, which strung together three-straight NBA championships from 2000 through 2002, could "easily" beat the sharpshooting Golden State Warriors of the modern era.

Warriors guard and two-time Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry doesn't believe that to be true, though.

"Oh, he's dead wrong," Curry said of O'Neal's assessment prior to Wednesday's meeting with the Toronto Raptors, according to ESPN's Nick Friedell. "Of course. We'd beat them. We can go back-and-forth all day."

The 2000-01 Lakers nearly went perfect throughout the playoffs en route to their second title of the three-peat, notching a 15-1 record across the four rounds. The 2016-17 Warriors did them one better, going 16-1 prior to hoisting the Larry O'Brien trophy.

As far as who would actually emerge victorious in a head-to-head battle between the two powerhouses, Curry feels it's anyone's guess since the two teams competed in totally different time periods.

"For me, I think it's a tough conversation because I've always found it hard to compare eras to each other," Curry added. "But in terms of having three banners up there and create parallels and comparisons to how they dominated the league through their run to what we're doing now, I think that speaks a lot on its own. Just in terms of us accomplishing the goal and fulfilling the potential that we have.

"And we're still in the middle of it so - I laugh sometimes, I saw Shaq today talked about his three-peat championship team would have destroyed us for whatever reason. All those conversations are just entertaining because (1) who knows? (2) the game is so different. Teams that dominated their respective eras need to be left alone in terms of what that means. Hopefully that's how they'll approach us when they talk about us 20, 30 years from now looking back."