Gradually strained throughout their title run together, the relationship between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal deteriorated severely at the end of their co-existence in Los Angeles — to the point where O’Neal threatened to murder Bryant.
In a Bleacher Report oral history of the 2003-04 Lakers, the first NBA “super team” in the modern era, it is revealed, among other things, that the two stars had to be physically separated after one particular confrontation.
“Mostly it was Shaq and Kobe didn’t like each other, but it didn’t affect them on the court,” said John Black, the team’s vice president of public relations.
“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.”
It was Bryant’s remarks to Gray that served as the flashpoint of the simmering feud between the two players, and served as an unwelcome omen for the season to come, and it was later, it was revealed that Bryant had made up his mind: he was done playing with O’Neal.
“I wasn’t going to play with Shaq anymore after that,” Bryant said. “That just wasn’t going to happen. Things he has said, criticism from the media in saying I can’t win without him. Look, I put that individual s–t aside to win championships and now I’m getting criticized for it. Now I’m going to show you f–cks what I can do on my own.”