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At the start of the new millennium, the Los Angeles Lakers returned to their former glory by racking up three consecutive NBA titles on the back of the dynamic duo that was Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.
NBA teams understandably had a bit of trouble stopping the deadly combination of the sharpshooting point guard with a “Mamba Mentaily” and one of the most dominant big men to ever roam the paint, and for a while, it seemed hard to imagine there was anyone capable of stopping the Lakers from continuing to rack up championships.
However, things started to fall apart once Los Angeles pulled off the threepeat in 2003.
The 2003-04 campaign was filled with reports concerning a growing feud between the two superstars, who repeatedly butted heads over a number of different issues that caused tensions to escalate before the organization made the decision to part ways with O’Neal by trading him to the Heat after losing to the Pistons in the NBA Finals.
Shaq experienced more immediate success by winning the fourth title of his career with Miami in 2006, but Bryant was ultimately able to get the last laugh—and he made sure everyone knew it after securing what would turn out to be the last Larry O’Brien Trophy of his career.
Kobe Bryant hilariously dunked on Shaq in a press conference after winning his fifth NBA title in 2010
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The feud between Kobe and Shaq didn’t exactly die down after they found themselves playing on different teams.
In the years following the trade, the two men had trouble even referring to each other by name while speaking publically, but it appeared they’d slowly but surely decided to put their differences aside over time.
With that said, O’Neal couldn’t stop himself from taking the occasional shot as his former teammate, including the fairly infamous freestyle he delivered at a club after Bryant and the Lakers came up short in their quest for a title against the Celtic in 2008 where he invited Kobe to tell him how a certain part of his anatomy tastes.
However, Bryant got redemption when the Lakers beat the Magic in the NBA Finals the following season for the fourth title of his career, and that number claimed to five (one more than Shaq’s total) when Los Angeles pulled off the repeat and got revenge against the Celtics in 2010.
After the series wrapped up, Bryant got the chance to chat with the media about what the accomplishment meant to him on a personal level, and he pounced at the opportunity to take a victory lap and crack up the reporters in attendance by simply uttering, “I just got one more than Shaq.”
The two men eventually put their differences aside after retiring from the NBA and remained close friends prior to Bryant’s tragic death in 2020.