The careers of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant are so intertwined that hearing news of one without the other being mentioned has become the exception rather than the rule. Their age disparity doesn’t matter. Neither is the fact that they played on different teams longer than together. Because they framed their greatest success alongside each other, perspectives of the remainder of their body of work become springboards for comparison. Heck, even they themselves can’t help but view their collective accomplishment with What Ifs and Could Have Beens.
In part, the wistful longing for a protracted alliance stems from how productive it was. O’Neal and Bryant were the principal protagonists in the dynasty the Lakers crafted at the turn of the millennium. Their dominance on the court — individually, as a pairing, and as leaders of the team — enabled them to run the table three straight times against otherwise-outstanding competition. And, as conventional wisdom would have it, more championships were in the offing for them had they not decided to bicker and jostle for alpha-male status. Instead, they split up, and while their accomplishments apart from each other still held merit, they couldn’t quite recreate the magic they had as the National Basketball Association’s most devastating One-Two punch.
Which, for all intents, was why no eyebrows were raised when Bryant once again found himself harking back to the good old days. At a convention in Las Vegas last month, he argued that O’Neal would “be the greatest of all time, for sure,” if the latter had just worked harder. “He’d be the first to tell you that. This guy was a force like I have never seen. It was crazy. Generally, guys that size are a little timid and they don’t want to be tall; they don’t want to be big. Man, this dude did not care. He was mean. He was nasty. He was competitive. He was vindictive … Yeah, I wish he was in the gym. I would have had f–ing 12 rings.”
After video of the declaration was posted on Instagram, O’Neal couldn’t help but push back on the narrative that he was lazy. “U woulda had twelve if you passed the ball more especially in the finals against the pistons #facts,” he replied. “You don’t get statues by not working hard,” he added. Clearly, he gave in to his sensitive nature and felt compelled to shoot back. Never mind that Bryant was actually extolling his singular talents, and that viewing the statements in the context of their thawed relationship would have been more prudent.
Fortunately, Bryant refused to take the bait. “There is no beef with @SHAQI know most media want to see it but it ain’t gonna happen. Ain’t nothin but love there and we too old to beef anyway #3peat,” he tweeted in response. To which O’Neal happily backpedaled, but not without a shot at another popular target. “It’s all good bro, when I saw the interview, I thought you were talking about Dwite, is that how u spell his name lol,” the Diesel wrote, paying as backhanded a compliment as any of his countless others to controversial Lakers pickup Dwight Howard. But that’s the subject of another story for another time.
Nothing has changed, to be sure. Bryant’s conciliatory stance and maturation notwithstanding, O’Neal remains just a wrongly interpreted quote away from resorting to payback. Their friendship will continue to be complicated. And, for all and sundry, looking back on when they jointly ruled the roost will always be an appealing proposition.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
