The split between Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal is one of the most well-known and controversial rifts in NBA history. Neither got the good end of the stick, with both regretting their actions later on.
Advertisement
The roots of the conflict between Bryant and O’Neal can be traced back to the 1999-2000 season.
Shaquille O’Neal was the clear leader and MVP of the Finals. This dynamic continued in the following season, with O’Neal again leading the team to a championship and earning Finals MVP honors.
However, tensions between the two began to rise during the 2001-2002 season. Bryant, who had been steadily improving his game over the previous seasons, began to chafe under O’Neal’s dominance on the court and his larger-than-life personality off of it.
Kobe Bryant reportedly believed that he should be the team’s top option on offense and that O’Neal was not doing enough to help him succeed. The tensions between the two players came to a head during the 2003-2004 season.
As the season wore on, Bryant and O’Neal began openly feuding in the media. Bryant criticized O’Neal’s work ethic and conditioning, while O’Neal accused Bryant of trying to take over the team and of not being a team player.
Kobe Bryant Had a Down First Year Without Shaquille O’Neal
The Lakers had acquired Lamar Odom and Caron Butler in their blockbuster summer trade sending Shaq to Miami. The 2 of them combined well with Bryant at the start of the year as the Lakers started their campaign off well.
They possessed a record 5 games above .500 for the first half of the season. However, with Rudy Tomjanovich retiring with medical problems, the team fell into disarray.
The Lakers finished the season 37-45 – 10th in the West and well out of the playoff running. They’d lost 9 of their last 10 games, despite having Bryant for most of it.
Kobe had averaged 27.6 points per game on nearly 44% shooting. However, he missed 15 games with an injury before the All-Star break, coinciding with a steep Lakers descent in the standings.
Nonetheless, he did not receive even a single 5th-place MVP vote that year after 3 years in contention. PJ Brown of the New Orleans Hornets, who won 18 games that year, got more votes than him while averaging 10.8 ppg.
Shaq lost one of the closest MVP races ever to Steve Nash and is still bitter about it
Shaquille O’Neal, meanwhile, stayed in championship contention with his move to South Beach. He had a resurgent year, averaging 22.9 points, 10.7 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game.
O’Neal also visibly lost weight due to Pat Riley’s famously intense physical regimen from the Heat’s preseason training camp. Due to staying in better shape, he also garned 58 first-place MVP votes.
Overall, he fell just 34 points short of Steve Nash, who got 65 first-place votes and 1066 points overall. To this day, O’Neal feels he was robbed of an MVP trophy.
