The Briton who remains in demand in NBA at 74
To sit nightly in the courtside seats occupied by the Lakers coaching and training staff in that era was akin to a spot in the front row of a box-office title fight. O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, combustible but extraordinary in unison. A head coach in Phil Jackson who had moulded Michael Jordan into a winning machine for the Chicago Bulls and was now replicating that feat in the shadow of Hollywood.
"The Jack Nicholsons of the world, all these other famous people, were sitting three, four feet away from where I'm sitting," McKechnie says. "It's the thing I'll say about the Lakers - the Lakers entertain. It's an entertainment industry.
"Every single agent is represented around the courtside. It's unbelievable. People from rock stars to David Beckham - when he was playing [football] there in LA - were there during that period, Just amazing, really.
" The Lakers' supremacy in that era ensured their top billing. Keeping the headline act of O'Neal in rude health was fundamental amid huge fluctuations in his weight and a notorious distaste for keeping fit in the off-season. McKechnie is, Jackson enthused, "a guy that can keep players on the floor".
That talent convinced O'Neal to rent a house in Vancouver and maintain his alliance with the physio during the summer hiatus. "He [O'Neal] played bocce in my backyard with my daughters or would be out chasing the neighbours' dog," McKechnie chuckles. The staff at the clinic felt his presence too.