Shaq And Kobe’s Face-To-Face Conversation Touched On The Highs And Lows Of Their Tumultuous Relationship

The NBA’s best beef between two people over the last few decades featured Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal. While feuds like, say, Kevin Durant vs. Russell Westbrook have been captivating, nothing has come close to the acrimony and intrigue of the relationship between the two faces of the Los Angeles Lakers.

The pair have cleared the air in the time since they went their separate ways in 2004, when O’Neal was traded from Los Angeles to Miami. But on Saturday night before the NBA’s All-Star festivities, TNT aired a conversation between the two in which they looked back on various moments from their relationship.

Let’s start with the funniest moment of the entire show: Kobe saying his favorite moment with Shaq came after the Lakers beat the Kings in Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals. It involves mooning a bunch of people from Sacramento, and it’s tremendous.

In other optimistic moments, the pair talked about where they rank among 1-2 punches in NBA history, explaining why they sit atop the list…

…and looked back on the 2002 Western Conference Finals as a whole, namely Game 4, which ended with a massive three by Robert Horry as time expired. As Shaq explained, with how the game ended, he didn’t realize the Lakers had won.

But of course, the reason that this relationship is so captivating is that the two really, really hated one another. In a really cool story, the duo talked about the first time they got into a fight, which occurred while they were playing a game of pickup during the league’s lockout in 1998.

The two also discussed their break up, in which Kobe admitted he was all ready to leave Los Angeles for Chicago. He even went to the Windy City to look at houses and got the sign off from his wife, but realized he wasn’t going anywhere after Shaq requested a trade.

And in what might have been the best moment of the entire show, the two discussed the media’s role in their breakup. It included, among other things, Kobe revealing that he loved Shaq’s infamous rap in which he said “tell me how my ass tastes.”

https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/965028250064793600

These kinds of shows are always fantastic, and the one involving Shaq and Kobe did not disappoint. It’s great that the two have cleared the air to the point that they’re friends who can sit down and look back on their relationship like this.