The line ‘It’s better to burn out than to fade away’ originated in Neil Young’s song, My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue). Later, it was famously quoted in Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s suicide note. It’s also an apt descriptor for the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers, because that team was dominant in winning three straight NBA titles, but broke apart while both superstars were still at the height of their powers.
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There’s no telling how many rings Shaq and Kobe would have if they just would have been able to squash their differences, but in the end, they both walked different paths once Shaq was traded to the Miami Heat in 2004. Each player still ended up with what most people would agree is a top-10 career, and each became champions once more (Shaq in 2006 and Kobe in 2009 and 2010).
One of the biggest NBA what-ifs of the past quarter-century, though, is what would have happened if Shaq and Kobe had stayed together.
Gary Vitti, the former head trainer for the Lakers, appeared on the most recent episode of Byron Scott’s Fast Break and he said that it’s more than just Shaq and Kobe who deserve blame for that dynasty falling apart.
“A team is like a family,” he said. “And you may get mad at somebody in your family, you might get angry with your mom or your dad or you brother or sister. But you don’t stop loving them and that’s the difference. In that era, we stopped loving each other, and when that happened, people started choosing sides.”
Vitti was fighting back tears as he recalled the way things fell apart. “It’s easy to blame Kobe … This really bothers me, because we should have won 10 championships. It’s easy to blame Kobe and it’s easy to blame Shaq. What about the rest of us? Including me. There’s other players, there’s management, there’s ownership, coaches. People chose sides.”
What Vitti is saying is that although Shaq and Kobe clearly had issues with each other as they wrestled for control of the team, everyone else within the organization failed to do their part to help the situation. Once the battle lines were drawn, there was no going back. In the end, Shaq was traded away and the Lakers family was forever fractured.
Vitti credited former Lakers coach Pat Riley with creating that family mindset. Riley won four titles as head coach of the Showtime Lakers in the ’80s, and he later coached Shaq to his title with the Heat in 2006.
Riley once coined the phrase “the disease of more.” What it means is that when teams win, everyone starts wanting more. More credit, more money, more influence. Essentially, the things that helped that team win in the first place, like teamwork, unselfishness and sacrifice, fall by the wayside, eventually causing even the greatest dynasties to fall.
Riley left the Lakers in 1990, so he was long gone when Shaq and Kobe pulled off their three-peat (another turn of phrase that he invented). He surely would have recognized how the disease of more broke that team apart though, and as Vitti pointed out, nobody stepped up to be the doctor the Lakers needed to treat or cure that disease.
Shaq and Kobe did eventually reconcile, though it was far too late to salvage their time with the Lakers. Nearly 20 years later after their feud became bigger than the team, Vitti still has regrets over what might have been.
