Shaquille O’Neal, who had to leave Lakers because of The Black Mamba believes “Penny Hardaway was Kobe before Kobe Bryant”

Shaquille O’Neal played with some terrific teammates throughout his career which started with Penny Hardaway in Orlando

When the Los Angeles Lakers decide to go all out on signing The Big Diesel in 1996, they did another thing which turned out to be an even better deal than having the highest-paid player in the NBA.

Shaquille O’Neal might have been the most dominant force in the league at the time or arguably of all time, but getting Kobe Bryant from Charlotte Hornets was the deal that made the 1996 off-season, their greatest one in franchise history.

O’Neal and Kobe gave the Lakers 3 championships in 8 years together after Bryant became a consistent 22-plus point scorer as soon as his third year in the league.

Also read: Shaquille O’Neal, who had a public feud with ‘Mamba’, once sang ‘want to be like Kobe Bryant’ on a bus ride

The Black Mamba might not have won his first 3 if The Big Aristotle wasn’t by his side. The same couldn’t be said for O’Neal however, who could have won a few championships anywhere, even with Orlando Magic, because a Kobe was already playing behind him there.

Shaquille O’Neal believes Penny Hardaway was the Kobe before Kobe

Despite the differences they had over leadership, Shaq has never shied away from giving Penny Hardaway his flowers.

In his appearance on The Pivot Podcast where the hosts put the 4x NBA champ into questioning about his take that Penny would be top-3 if he didn’t get injured, O’Neal double down on his take and said his Magic partner was Kobe before Kobe Bryant.

Checking facts, Hardaway did start his career much better than Kobe and started averaging numbers in the north of 20p/4r/7a/2s per game towards the latter end of his first year in the league.

Meanwhile, considering The Mamba came out of high school, it did take him around 2.5 years to reach those numbers.

Also read: Kobe Bryant, who reportedly got $400 million Laker off the team, assured Shaquille O’Neal of victory

If Penny wasn’t as injury prone as he turned out to be from just his fourth year in the league, he definitely would have been an all-time great.

Not so sure about the top 3. But even after suffering through those gruesome injuries, Hardaway and Shaq could still have won a couple of titles by 2000, had they not had their differences.