The end of a career affords one the ability to look back on all of their successes and failures with an incredible amount of perspective. Kobe Bryant‘s had one of the most illustrious careers of anyone in professional sports: MVP, five-time NBA champion, 11-time All-NBA first-team, the list goes on and on. Still, with all of his successes, it is impossible to talk about Kobe’s career without mentioning the messy break-up between him and Shaquille O’Neal.
In a recent interview with Turner’s Ernie Johnson, Kobe said that — if given a do-over — he’d try and make things work with Shaq (hat tip to Silver Screen and Roll for the transcription).
“If I had a do-over, I think, I would take more of a leadership role in talking to Shaq. Earlier, before things went south.”
Even though both Shaq and Kobe went on to achieve great success after their Hollywood schism, there is always a lingering sense of “what if?” surrounding the two. What if the feud had never happened? What if the two remained teammates? What if they could have won even more titles together? Kobe apparently wonders this as well. Hindsight is 20/20, and never more so than for those involved in the incident.
