There is no secret that former LSU center Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant never really got along with each other while the two played together for the LA Lakers.
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Shaq is normally seen as the fun loving, goofy guy who everyone loves. His personality and knowledge of basketball landed him a gig on Inside the NBA on TNT along with former Auburn Tiger Charles Barkley and Kenny “the Jet” Smith.
The job seems to have fit him perfectly. Meanwhile, Kobe Bryant is seen as sometimes a tight, aloof and selfish player that everyone loves to hate. O’Neal and Bryant’s personalities mixed like oil and water.
But it didn’t seem to effect their play on the basketball court.Together the pair won three NBA Championships and managed to tolerate each other at least for a moment or two.
But who knew the situation in LA was this bad. According to Lakers vice president of public relations John Black, the duo almost came to blows a few times and one time Shaq just about had enough.
Black was quoted in a story by Ric Bucher in Bleacher Report which was later picked up by the LakersNation Blog:
“Mostly it was Shaq and Kobe didn’t like each other, but it didn’t affect them on the court. They would say something about the other, on or off the record, but it didn’t become confrontational more than two or three times over the eight years. When Kobe gave the statement to Jim Gray where he went off calling Shaq fat and lazy, that was one of the times. There was one really bad one, early on. Brian Shaw had to pull them apart. Shaq threatened to murder Kobe.”
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Anyone who follows the Lakers shouldn’t be surprised. The main reason Shaq left LA was because of his relationship with Bryant. When the Lakers front office decided to stick with Kobe over Shaq, Shaq was done and move on to Miami and then Boston late in his career.
Over the years, O’Neal and Bryant have taken shots at each other. Shaq didn’t think that the Lakers would win another championship with just Kobe and Kobe did not attend Shaq’s wedding years ago although he was invited.
The beef between the two seems to come from Shaq’s treatment of Bryant through the years; treating him not as an equal, but more like a little brother which Bryant did not like.
Now that they are no longer teammates, the two seem to get along a little bit better. At least in public, the pair seem to tolerate each other more than when they played together.
Still, it’s hard to believe the former LSU Tiger would let someone push him to the brink, considering what a nice guy Shaq appears to be.
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