The flare-ups have been memorable — and occasional lyrical, as we saw with Shaq's rap performance Sunday, courtesy of the ever-vigilant TMZ. (Watch video here.)
Here are the top 10 highlights of this fabulous feud.
1. Two wills, one basketball
While winning three consecutive NBA titles in Los Angeles, O'Neal and Bryant kept their differences largely under control. But when the Lakers opened the 2002-03 season in a serious funk, the tension became palpable.
Bryant questioned Shaq's commitment to conditioning given the big fella's excessive weight and chronic foot injuries. In turn, O'Neal regarded Kobe as a shot hog.
"I'm just going to play within the flow of the game," Bryant said at the time. "If people want to criticize that, they're going to criticize that."
(At least these two agreed on one thing that year: They weren't to blame for the team's demise. That fell on the team's ineffective role players. Looking at you, Samaki Walker.)
2. Thrown under the bus
Kobe delivered the most personal salvo in 2003 while being questioned about rape allegations against him in Eagle, Colo., after a local resort employee accused him of sexual assault.
Perhaps looking to put his actions into context, Kobe noted how the Big Diesel handled his own problems away from the court. Bryant suggested O'Neal paid up to $1 million to make such matters go away.
According to police in Eagle, Kobe said, "He should have done what Shaq does ... that Shaq would pay his women not to say anything."
Perhaps Shaq got wind of that assertion, since he didn't contact Bryant that summer to offer support. Bryant felt that snub and complained bitterly to team management.
3. Shaq takes attendance
While off tending to his legal issues, Kobe missed the start of the 2003 training camp. A reporter asked O'Neal about not having the entire team present.
"I can't answer that," Shaq sniffed, "because the full team is here."
Ah, the needle and the damage done. This was just a little jab, but it stung Kobe and sent the feud swirling out of control. After a couple exhibition games, Shaq reminded reporters that the Lakers were "my team" and suggested that Kobe must become more of a team player.
4. The Jim Gray interview
In October 2003, Kobe took his sniping with Shaq to the next level during a chit-chat with Pete Rose's buddy.
When Gray asked Kobe about Shaq's leadership, Bryant said, "Leaders don't beg for a contract extension and negotiate some $30 million-plus per-year deal in the media when we have two future Hall of Famers playing here pretty much for free. A leader would not demand the ball every time down the floor when you have the three of us (Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Bryant) playing beside you, not to mention the teammates you have gone to war with for years, and by the way, then threaten not to play defense and rebound if you don't get the ball every time down the floor."
Bryant also used the phrase "Shaq's childlike selfishness and jealousy" during the interview and cited the big man's "unprofessionalism," pointing out he was "fat and out of shape."
Lakers coach Phil Jackson fined Bryant for airing his grievances in public after agreeing not to do so. The incident also prompted the Zen Master to hold a 20-minute team meeting to control the verbal wildfire.
Things got so bad that even NBA commissioner David Stern weighed in on the rift.
"My thought is to say, 'Kids, cut it out.' It's a guy thing. You say this, I say that. You say that, I say this and here we go," Stern told reporters. "Someone has to stop it, because at bottom it distracts us from our league and the teams."
5. Kobe divorces Shaq
No, Bryant didn't engineer the 2004 trade that sent O'Neal to the Miami Heat and ended the Lakers' mini-dynasty. By threatening to bolt L.A. as a free agent, though, Kobe forced Lakers owner Jerry Buss to choose between his two superstars.
In his 2004 book "The Last Season," Jackson recalled addressing this issue with Kobe on his way out the door:
"Will Shaq's presence on this team color your decision to come back or not?" I asked him.
"Yes, it does," he said. "There's no doubt about that. ... I've done that for eight years with him, but I'm tired of being a sidekick."
His sentiment came as no surprise, obviously. In the past few years, the entire city of Los Angeles has heard many times from many "sources" that Kobe was no longer willing to play a subservient role to Shaquille. But to hear it in the words of the only source that matters, to hear Kobe say "sidekick," really struck me.
6. Firing back from South Florida
O'Neal didn't say much about the trade. But when Bryant's earlier comments to Colorado investigators came to light, Shaq did not hold back.
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| Shaq took shots from South Florida after Kobe forced Lakers management to pick one or the other. (Eliot J. Schechter / Getty Images) |
"This whole situation is ridiculous," O'Neal said. "I never hang out with Kobe, I never hung around him. In the seven or eight years we were together, we were never together. So how this guy can think he knows anything about me or my business is funny. And one last thing — I'm not the one buying love. He's the one buying love."
And ...
"The guy's a joke. I'm just trying to tell the world that the whole time, but just because he hits a couple of shots, everybody thinks he's a great person."
And ...
"He's a clown. Kobe, he gets caught by the police after doing what he did, and my name comes out."
7. Recorded rap attack
O'Neal's has used the microphone to insult Bryant before. In 2004, he collaborated with DJ Vlad on the CD "Hot in Here Part 5." On the track, "You Not the Fightin Type," he took a swipe at Kobe while giving a shout out to Cincinnati radio personality DJ Skillz:
"Even with wings you never as fly as me ... you remind me of Kobe Bryant trying to be as high as me ... but you can't ... even if you get me traded ... wherever I'm at, I'm Puffy; you Mase and you're still hated."
8. Pettiness explored
After Jackson "retired" as coach of the Lakers, he aired out his dirty laundry in "The Last Season," covering the Shaq-Kobe divorce in great details and offering vivid looks at their daily bickering.
Here was one snapshot: "At times, the pettiness between the two of them can be unbelievably juvenile. Shaquille won't allow himself to be taped before a game by Gary Vitti because he's too aligned with Kobe. Kobe won't let Chip Schaefer, Shaq's guy, tape him. Reporters aren't immune from these territorial disputes. If a writer lingers too often around one superstar's locker, he is likely to be shut out by the other."
9. The Christmas showdown
Naturally, media types hyped the first Heat-Lakers game to the hilt. Shaq and Kobe cheerfully played along.
"If you've got a Corvette that runs into a brick wall, you know what's going to happen," O'Neal told ABC.
"I'm so far from a Corvette, it's not even funny," Bryant told LA reporters, suggesting he was really a Lamborghini.
"No, he's not," O'Neal told Miami reporters. "He's a Corvette."
Then there was this: A member of Shaq's entourage came to the game in L.A. with a T-shirt picturing O'Neal and Bryant's body with a rat's head. Nice.
10. Free-style rap attack
Thanks to the power of the Internet — and the resourcefulness of TMZ — thousands of American web surfers can't get this refrain out of their heads: "Kobe, tell me how my a** tastes."
That was the line Shaq liked most during his impromptu rap performance at a New York club Sunday night. A video of that performance quickly hit the world-wide web.
Of course, there was some build-up to his finishing line. Shaq started with "You know how I be, last week, Kobe couldn't do it without me" and mixed in "I'm a horse, Kobe ratted me out, that's why I'm getting divorced. ... He said Shaq gave a [woman] a mil. I don't do that 'cause my name's Shaquille. I love 'em, I don't leave 'em."
Later, O'Neal reminded America that he was just playing around and has no issue with Kobe, none whatsoever.
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