Shaq And Kobe Get Together To Reflect On Their Years As Lakers Teammates

The Lakers dynasty of the early 2000’s always feels as if it were cut short. Shaq and Kobe went through ups and downs in their relationship, but ultimately the business side of basketball and ego brought those teams to en end way too soon.

We all know the history of Shaq and Kobe’s relationship back then, but as with most things, time has shown them both how good they really had it with each other.

Kobe was a guest on Shaq’s podcast, The Big Podcast with Shaq, and the two revisted the past and discussed talked about how immature they were back then, the good and bad on using the media to communicate with teammates and more. The full podcast drops on Monday, but for now check out a a few clips.

 

“When you say it at the time you actually mean it and then when you get older you have more perspective and you’re like holy shit, I was an idiot when I was a kid.” Kobe said. “To me, the most important thing was really just keep your mouth shut. You don’t need to go to the press with stuff. You keep it internal and we have our arguments and our disagreements, but I think having our debates within the press was something I wish would’ve been avoided, but it did kind of create this whirlwind around us as a team with myself and Shaq and the press and the media that just put so much pressure on us as an organization.”

Kobe on that time Shaq said he was going to kill him:

Kobe compared he and Shaq’s time playing together to what would’ve happened if Wilt Chamberlain in his prime played with up and coming Michael Jordan. There’s only so long that could go before MJ would want to be the leader.

Kobe’s single season with Dwight Howard made him appreciate his time with Shaq all the more.