Shaq has Kobe as guest on his one hour podcast

[DrazenPetrovic3]

While this thread is focused on what Shaq and Kobe could have accomplished, the thread on the GB is focused on something Kobe said about Dwight Howard. I thought that I'd just throw that out there.

Is that even true what he said about Dwight? I saw some tweet from a verified journalist saying he didn't actually say it. IDK man

[djericho]

I agree that at most Shaq/Kobe combo could have added an additional 2 championships. the 3 they won together was 1 more than the big 3 of Miami produced... Just sayin...

[Sofa King]

While this thread is focused on what Shaq and Kobe could have accomplished, the thread on the GB is focused on something Kobe said about Dwight Howard. I thought that I'd just throw that out there.

No one cared on the GB about Kobe on Shaq's podcast until I changed the title to the tweeted quote.

I'll update that thread title once the podcast gets released.

[TylersLakers]

If we would have kept Shaq, we wouldn't have won another Championship. Period.

Shaq was in full decline mode by then and by giving him the contract extension he wanted AND re-signing Kobe, there would have been next to no room available to surround those guys.

It truly worked out for both parties.

[Kilroy]

It wasn't possible to keep Shaq without all sorts of things fixing themselves, not just his trade demand.
You can't think about it that simply.

They both had to WANT to play together... They had to WANT to be a dynasty together... That's what Shaq and Kobe are talking about.

IF Shaq had decided to work with Kobe and accepted his slightly diminished role, it would mean he was motivated to work. It follows that he would be willing to stay in shape in the off season and be committed to continuing to dominate. He clearly had more good seasons ahead of him judging from his Miami stint, he just wasn't motivated to make it work with Kobe. But then like he said, he always regretted leaving LA, so maybe that had a lot to do with his decline.

IF Kobe had decided to work with Shaq, he would have been more motivated to make the financials work and more inclined to take direction from Phil.

The stars would have to align, but if they did, I'm not sure how that wouldn't translate into at least 2 maybe 3 more championships. To me the single biggest source of frustration with the Detroit series, is that the Lakers clearly weren't playing as a team. It was the risk of bringing in Malone and Payton to begin with, but they just weren't united in that series. If they were, I think it's a 5 or 6 game win for us. And I think the single biggest factor that kept it from happening is that Shaq and Kobe had decided they were done with each other and divided the camp.

Another thing that has to be taken into account too though is the Hubris of Phil Jackson. His constant playing in the media did a lot to disrupt that team too... His favoritism... I also always thought the Malone/Payton thing felt like a Phil Jackson move. I think he thought he could coach anyone and wanted the personal challenge. I think it's a mistake Pop for example, wouldn't have made.
So mark down Phil deciding he wanted to continue coaching in LA as another thing that needed to change... Phil's attitude... His arrogance and superiority surrounding the situation probably cost us the Detroit series and did a lot to break up Kobe and Shaq too. I never heard Phil accept any responsibility for that breakdown. I've heard him place the blame at everyone else's feet, but never his own. At least not in any meaningful way. How about, "How I **** up in LA;" by Phil Jackson. Might be refreshing.

[kblo247]

Phil wasn't the one too cheap to give horry 2mil to backup Malone ... That move alone wins them the ring ( paying fisher the next summer too )

[RingsDontLie]

Back then Shaq got a little greedy. He should have taken a little less money to stay with the team. Kobe didn't help the situation either. He was ready to have his own team. But if they stayed together they would have won 8 titles or so I think. If shaq was more like Duncan and realized that he should take a paycut and allow Kobe to dominate more then I think it could of worked.

[Sofa King]

Bryant, entering his 20th season with the Lakers, and O'Neal, an NBA analyst on TNT, reminisced on O'Neal's podcast about those turbulent moments with the Lakers from 1999-2004.

Bryant and O'Neal won three championships together, in 2000, '01 and '02, and lost in the 2004 NBA Finals to Detroit, but they argued all along the way, the end coming when now-deceased Lakers owner Jerry Buss shipped O'Neal to the Miami Heat.

When he went on O'Neal's "The Big Podcast with Shaq," which will be available Monday, Bryant recalled how vicious some of their attacks were against each other.

See the most-read stories in Sports this hour >>
"When you say it at the time, you actually mean it," Bryant said. "And then when you get older, you have more perspective, you're like, 'Holy . . . I was an idiot as a kid.' To me, the most important thing is you keep your mouth shut. There's no need to go to the press. You keep it internal.

"We have our arguments and our disagreements. But I think . . . having our debates within the press was something I wished would been avoided."

O'Neal, 43, began the podcast by saying it was "time to clear the air" about their relationship.


"I just want people to know that I don't hate you, I know you don't hate me. I call it today a 'work beef,' is what we had," said O'Neal, who retired after the 2010-11 season. "I was young, you was young. But then as I look at it, we won three [championships] out of four so I don't really think a lot was done wrong. So I just wanted to clear the air and let everybody know that, no, I don't hate you. We had a lot of disagreements, we had a lot of arguments. But I think it fueled us both."

Bryant, 37, recalled the time when he and O'Neal almost came to blows in 1999.

Bryant was 21 at the time, but he wasn't going to back down to the 7-foot-1, 330-pound O'Neal.

"In '99, I think Shaq realized that this kid is really competitive and he's a little crazy," said Bryant, who is heading into what could be his final NBA season. "And I realized that I probably had a couple of screws loose because I nearly got into a fistfight and I actually was willing to get into a fight with this man. I went home and I was like, 'Dude, I've either got to be the dumbest or the most courageous kid on the face of the Earth.'"

O'Neal viewed it then as an affront to his authority as the team leader, but these days he sees it differently.

cComments
@Robert52 You're dead on regarding emotional maturity. What would you expect of a kid who steps out of high school into the NBA? That's the best argument for ending the one-and-done policy of the NCAA and putting a minimum age of 20 for non-college recruits. Giving a boy an...
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AT 9:47 AM AUGUST 31, 2015
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"That just showed me, 'You know what, this kid ain't going to back down to nobody,'" O'Neal said. "Kobe seen me punk everybody in the league. So when this kid would stand up every day [to me], I'm like, 'This kid ain't going to back down.' I knew then, if I'm down by one and I kick it out to someone, he's going to shoot it and he's going to make it."

Both Bryant and O'Neal laughed.

"He was either going to beat the . . . out of me or I was going to get it done," Bryant said. "I was comfortable with either one."

Even today, O'Neal said, the public sometimes reminds him of the disparaging comments he made about Bryant.

"They'll say, 'I read an article where you said you was going to kill him.' Yeah, I did say that, but I didn't mean it," O'Neal said, laughing.

Bryant remembers that, too.


"Of course I remember that day," he said, laughing. "I was like, 'All right, then come on then.' Dude, if you could have seen this . . . you'd be like, 'OK, Shaq is going to . . . kill this kid.' But, really, his response to that and what America would think, that shows how different we are. He keeps telling people, 'Listen, it wasn't like that, it wasn't like that.' And my response is, '. . . I don't care what they say.' That's how we felt about each other. That's how we rolled with each other."

O'Neal said, "I definitely did not want to leave L.A.," even though he requested a trade after the 2004 season.

O'Neal was seeking a contract extension, and at training camp in Hawaii in 2003, he ran down court after scoring a basket during an exhibition game and yelled at Buss, "Now you gonna pay me."

Buss wasn't happy, adding to the tension O'Neal had with Bryant. Buss traded O'Neal to Miami on July 14, 2004, ending the pair's eight-year partnership. Buss then placed his bets on Bryant, re-signing the guard the very next day to a seven-year, $136-million deal.

"Again, it was two alpha males and the business aspect kicked in," O'Neal said. "I was getting older. Management was like, 'Hey, you're getting older, we know you want this, but we want to give you that.' And in my mind, 'I'm not getting older. I don't want that. I don't want that.' And they just wanted to move in a new direction."

Bryant suggested imagining Wilt Chamberlain in his prime playing with up-and-coming Michael Jordan, and Jordan decides he wants to take the controls.

"How long is that going to last before Michael says, 'You know what, it's time for me to show what I can do,'" Bryant said, adding of O'Neal, "That's why he and I are one of a kind when it comes to tandems, because you literally had two alpha males playing together on one team and that normally does not happen."

O'Neal said Lakers coach Phil Jackson "never" played favorites between the two players.

"He was really fair," O'Neal said. "He only got fed up one time and he came in and said, 'Both of ya'll need to cut it out.' And that's the only thing he said."

This is the last season on Bryant's Lakers contract that pays him $25 million. He has played in only 41 games the last two seasons because of injuries.

O'Neal asked Bryant if this would be his last season.

"I'm training and getting ready for the season," said Bryant, who has resumed shooting after surgery to repair a torn right rotator cuff. "I'm really excited about this is my 20th [season]. Twenty years. That's nuts! I couldn't imagine playing for 20 years back in the day. So I'm just getting ready. I'm really excited for the team."

When Bryant won his fifth championship in 2010, O'Neal, who won four, said he was upset.

"He gets No. 5 and a reporter says, 'You feel good you got one more than Shaq?'" O'Neal said. "Then Kobe was, 'Yeah, I got one more than Shaq.' I was like he got me."

For his part, Bryant said he was driven even more after O'Neal got his fourth ring in 2006 with Miami.


"I knew he was going to push me to win more, because I always wanted to get to where Magic [Johnson] was, where Michael [Jordan] was," Bryant said. "So four was something that was really on my radar. It pushed me even more. It drove me even more. So when I got five, I was like, I just had to turn the knife a little bit."

http://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/la-sp-kobe-shaq-feud-20150830-story.html

[pdub15]

I haven't heard the entire interview but the one part I didn't like from what I heard is Shaq talking about how the organization came to him and said if he didn't take a certain amount they would have to trade him. He called it business. No Shaq it was your ego. 2 years prior you were on National television after sweeping the Nets saying you were fortunate enough to play with the "Best Player In The World." If it wasn't for Shaq & Kobe getting egos as big as they did they could have won 6 or 7 rings together. People forget Shaq was a great passer as a center. Their Legacy as a duo will always be some what tarnished because of how they let their egos get in the way. That is a shame because would have easily went down as the best guard-center duo of all times if they hadn't.

[Kilroy]

Phil wasn't the one too cheap to give horry 2mil to backup Malone ... That move alone wins them the ring ( paying fisher the next summer too )

Signing both Malone and Payton was a clown-shoe move in the first place. It was divisive and completely unnecessary and was underwritten by Phil... He thought he was a good enough coach to make it work. It was like hiring two extra anti-Kobe voices because at least initially, they both were in Shaqs camp.

I was embarrassed by the move when it happened. It turned a team supposed to win the championship, into the Harlem Globetrotters.

[kblo247]

Spoiler:

Phil wasn't the one too cheap to give horry 2mil to backup Malone ... That move alone wins them the ring ( paying fisher the next summer too )

Signing both Malone and Payton was a clown-shoe move in the first place. It was divisive and completely unnecessary and was underwritten by Phil... He thought he was a good enough coach to make it work. It was like hiring two extra anti-Kobe voices because at least initially, they both were in Shaqs camp.

I was embarrassed by the move when it happened. It turned a team supposed to win the championship, into the Harlem Globetrotters.

and yet in still with injuries to Fix, a misdiagnose of Malone, shaq missing his yearly forth of games and Kobe Colorado mess they were second in the west. They were also a team that won well over 2/3 it's games when together despite chemistry issues and won the west in year one together beating the defending champs in a back door sweep, the number 1 seed wolves, and a solid jvg team in Houston. By every means Phil's coaching wasn't as much a issue as Mitch and Jerry Buss.

Phil's coaching offset Jerry being cheap and Mitch having no clue how to build a team back then. Jerry would not spend for them. Kobe and shaq made him bank, drew ratings, always sold out but he would not spend to support them like he did the Pau team. He cut corners every way possible. Letting rice walk for a cheaper Horace Grant was one move; the team only offset that because Kobe and Fish both blew up. Then not using to offer Horace or Lue a deal was another after the team went 15-1, and that's why they struggled thorough the yeR and were in a dog fight in those playoffs as he simply chose to barely pay a done Richmond and Hunter. The 03 team was outright worn out and with shaq healing on company time, and no quality players added, Mitch and Jerry rode Rick and rob to the wheels fell off. They chose to bring Horace back on a vet min deal out of retirement and lucked up on Payton and Malone taking the exemptions, but they needed a backup 4, and refused to give horry 2mil which was stupidly short sighted. That was the common place for those teams Jerry didn't open up a wallet and Mitch never got anything of substance done, never made the right pick, and his grand acquisition in all that span was over paying George. Hell they let fisher walk after 04 for the mid level money and then paid a 3 year older fisher the same money which shows they were inept at the time with their recruitment of bums.

Phil won. He won despite never having management add depth to the team. He won despite an owner being cheap and always sniping about wanting showtime back despite the fact Phil's way has more than doubled his in winning. What Phil can be criticized for is not sitting shaq and Kobe down, but winning and being dominant ain't one of those things. Hell Karl Malone doesn't get hurt in the finals and they won despite all else; same could be said for simply having horry to check Rasheed like the past 3 years so we aren't royally **** and doubling on to him. They are known as the team that lost to the Pistons, but fact remains they when healthy and on the floor were a team with a ridiculous w/l ratio despite fit and issues because Phil had it working.

It cannot be considered unnecessary ... They got to the finals, and Mitch had shown he couldn't make any good moves, he wasn't west ... He was just as bad during the 3 peat as an exec as he was when he was bringing in smush and kwame to waste Kobe's prime years, let's not sugar coat it. We needed the talent, Mitch had no idea how to bring in talent or fit at the time; we added two guys who knew the game but had egos, yet Phil managed to get that **** out the west despite injuries and other things. Hell its fanning on Mitch, not Phil that the 04 team still was better than the previous two years talent wise where Mitch sat on his butt doing nothing.


I stand by the statement that Jerry Buss and Mitch screwed Kobe, shaq, and Phil even more because they made sure they had to over work every single year and couldn't simply take days off or carry a lesser load and turn it up in the playoffs. The fact is Kobe and shaq had to do so much heavy lifting unlike the showtime teams, unlike the bull teams, and even unlike the Pau/lo group after Kobe put them on media blast that it was always going to lead to two alphas clashing. They had to put up 60 points every night, play 40 minutes, and never turn down the intensity fully because they weren't given help outside fisher, fox, and horry which are a far car from any teams best 3rd-5th guys in the west back then.

I mean you can sum up Jerry Buss in a nut shell during the years of the Kobe and Shaq tour ... A team that only lost once in the playoffs saw him refuse to offer Lue and Horace anything above one year vet min deals to return. Lue left for 2 years and 3.5mil and Horace for 2 years at close to 5mil. We replaced them with guys who the league paid half their salary to and who had no talent, no fit, or skill in Walker, Hunter, and Richmond. That was the jist of the **** they had to handle every year and people wonder why Kobe and Shaq stayed at each other's throats when they had to come hard every night to win and couldn't simply just coast like teams with good management at the time. Phil at his worst times with the bulls always knew he had a core or guys they would retain that was 8-9 deep to get them through a year healthy and not spent, but Jerry Buss and Mitch didn't provide that at all ... I mean Walton was the best draft pick that Mitch even made all that time

[Kilroy]

Malone wasn't misdiagnosed... He lied about that. He re-injured himself when he went to go work at he and his brother's lumber mill, when he was supposed to be in LA rehabbing.

You had two choices... Build a team with role players around Shaq and Kobe, or build a clown-show with aging HOFers... Not sure either way could be considered 'being cheap.' On paper they both could be considered 'right' but if there was one person who could have directed that decision correctly it was Phil. All he would have had to say was that he didn't think that mix was coachable... Which it wasn't... It looked like a hot mess on the court for most of the season. It wasn't really until the playoffs that Malone's role became clear and it started to flow. Payton lost at least a full step. Shaq was completely out of shape, and Kobe was basically on a island given the politics of the team.
And Phil basically just sat back and watched it happen.

The lakers were having a hard time surrounding both Kobe and Shaq with adequate talent long before that season, and since they knew they were going to have to pay both of them that off season, they couldn't commit any long term money to role players. Horry wasn't interested in a 1yr deal and neither was a lot of the other legit talent.

Kobe and Shaq hamstrung the Lakers... If they had been better team players, they could have been a dynasty, they could have had a solid bench, and a lot more hardware... But they had to want it more than personal fame accolades, and money. And that includes Phil Jackson.

Just telling Dr Buss to spend more, and Mitch to pull more Free Agents out of thin air is not the reality. It's revisionist history.

[kblo247]

When you have the top ratings draw in basketball all which they were every year for a 4 year stretch, always sell out on the road, top merch movers in the nba in both of them at the time as they never left the top 5 in that stretch, and you never not sell out at staples ... You pay them their **** money. You don't ask them to take a discount especially when you hadn't, and they never did after 96 show that they can lure a good free agent or make a trade for a true third star. There is also the fact that they start cost cutting with Eddie, Elden, and Nick long before Phil came ... Then it just continued year after year.

It isn't revisionist, Mitch couldn't build a good team and Jerry Buss was too cheap to even retain useful guys to maintain depth which ran them into the ground.

Revisionist history is you trying to spend Malone as at fault. Malone didn't hurt himself, anymore than the lakers quacks screwed up and didn't know Kobe fractured his knee to he got to practice said something wrong and went got his own opinion, or how they misdiagnosed Blake all together and had him playing on a injury he was supposed to be out months for. It's happened more than once, hell Kobe ended up in colarado because he didn't trust their doctors to take care of his knee and shoulder at the time.

And it is totally revisionist to ignore the win rate Kobe, Shaq, Payton, Malone, and Fish had with Karl in the lineup.

[kblo247]

With Malone

19-5 to start the year won by an average of over 11ppg.
14-4 upon his return won by an average of 14ppg

In the playoffs they went 12-5 out west with him defending KG, Tim, and even Yao ... Holding them all under their averages and lowering their fg% we split games 1 and 2 of the finals when he played 42mina per. We lost the last 3 when he was hurt and couldn't log over 20 mins and didn't play in game 5

Its pure fiction to act like they didn't click, they didn't win, or they weren't dominant as a group despite fit problems.

Again that's all on the Horry decision and being cheap biting them in the ass, like how they almost failed the 3 peat because they didn't have Lue or Horace to put on Webber and Bibby for stretches. Let's be real here, 7mil dollars stopped the lakers dominance, nothing more and nothing less. Jerry was just shamed into spending for Kobe and Pau by the Kobe media trade me tirade and Phil backing Kobe, after he had to crawl back to Phil and pay him 10mil to save the franchise


Grand total btw we won 73% of the games Malone played even with the two injured finals games in his total 46/63 ... That's as in year one

[jeroka]

nice Kobe and Shaq are good now

[crazyeights]

Here's the REAL podcast.

Former LA Daily News Lakers Beat Writer, Howard Beck with Zach Lowe dishes on the real story from the Dynasty years. A must listen:

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/grantland/player?id=13573559

[Slava]

Here's the REAL podcast.

Former LA Daily News Lakers Beat Writer, Howard Beck with Zach Lowe dishes on the real story from the Dynasty years. A must listen:

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/grantland/player?id=13573559

Listened to it today morning, I didn't realize Beck was to prominent with the Lakers' press in those days. He actually paints Kobe in a very favorable light in that whole episode. The parts bout Rick Fox's leadership were also good to hear.

[jeroka]

Here's the REAL podcast.

Former LA Daily News Lakers Beat Writer, Howard Beck with Zach Lowe dishes on the real story from the Dynasty years. A must listen:

http://espn.go.com/espnradio/grantland/player?id=13573559

Thanks