LOS ANGELES – If ever there was a fitting place to discuss the topic of feuding NBA stars, this was it.



Los Angeles. Tinsel Town. Or, to be more specific, Laker Land.



Back in the summer of 2004, after all those years of in-fighting between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, the Lakers made that franchise-changing choice to trade the big fella to Miami and split up the game’s most dynamic duo. That was the most iconic example of how a superstar pairing can sour, but this sort of dynamic has been a part of the league for all of its days.



Which brings us to the debate about the Houston Rockets’ James Harden and Chris Paul.



On Monday night at the NBA awards in Santa Monica, where Shaq himself just so happened to be inside the Barker Hanger of the city’s airport telling terrible jokes to an eye-rolling crowd, the two Rockets stars who weren’t in attendance were a topic of much discussion. General manager Daryl Morey went...