Few if any teams in NBA history were as dominant as the late 1990’s/early 2000’s Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and the late Kobe Bryant. Bryant and O’Neal teamed up to win three straight championships for the Lakers; however, in the eyes of the media, the real story was found in the at-times volatile relationship between the two superstars, with reports of the duo not getting along behind the scenes running rampant in the press despite the success the Purple & Gold were having on the court.
Recently, Brian Shaw, who was a member of those three championship teams, stopped by Paul George’s Podcast P with Paul George, presented by Wave Sports + Entertainment, to shed light on what really went down behind the scenes in Los Angeles.
“We joked about it afterwards, but it wasn’t really a joke like when it really came down to it, like the media made more of the beef between the two of them and the one area that they were really professional about is that when it was time to play and to to win a game, they gave it everything they had,” said Shaw. “All the other, you know, beefs and grudges or anything else that might have been going, on they put that to the side and they handled business when it was time to handle business.”
Indeed, Bryant and O’Neal were living proof that two players don’t have to be BFFs in order to find success on the basketball court.
