Michael Jordan retired from the NBA never having played with a player who was on par with Shaquille O’Neal in terms of talent. MJ’s ‘second-coming’, Kobe Bryant, enjoyed this luxury for 8 years. however, internal strife between Bryant and O’Neal led to the Miami Heat trading for the big-man and offering him $101,000,000 over 5 years in the summer of 2004. The Lakers obliged and traded him away, much to Jordan’s chagrin.
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The Kobe-Shaq tandem was something the league had never seen before. The fact that they won 3 championships in a row and had expectations of winning even more goes to show just how incredible the two were together. Unfortunately, their inability to defer to one another led to them becoming insufferable when around each other.
Trading one of them was the only option and the Lakers front office decided which one to keep through a fairly simple strategy.
Michael Jordan didn’t want the Lakers to trade Shaquille O’Neal
In an interview with Cigar Aficionado in 2005, Michael Jordan was asked about what he would do to improve the Los Angeles Lakers. At the time of this interview, the Lakers had just finished their first season with Kobe Bryant manning the helm on his own, missing the Playoffs with a 34-48 record.
“I would have never gotten rid of Shaq, it’s as simple as that,” said MJ. “You’ve got 3 championships with a big man, and big men are hard to find. Not only that, you have the most dominant big man in the game today. You don’t just send him away because you got some problems.”
Michael Jordan understands just how much of a luxury it is to have a big-man. The reason he does is because he never had an All-NBA level center manning the paint for him. If he had someone of Shaq’s caliber, the dominance with which the Chicago Bulls would enter the postseason year in and year out would be unheard of.
Jerry Buss and the Lakers front office felt as though they had no choice. Paying Shaq another $100 million while he was exiting his prime was something they weren’t willing to do. Instead, they wanted to focus on Kobe Bryant, a man in his mid-20s and build around him instead.
Things worked out for Kobe and Shaq
With Shaquille O’Neal in Miami and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, things would work out for them both as the decade closed. Shaq won his 4th and final championship alongside Dwyane Wade in 2006 after learning to take a backseat to him and be the 1B to his 1A.
Kobe on the other hand, 3 years after O’Neal won his 4th chip, hoisted the Larry O’Brien in 2009 after defeating the Orlando Magic in the 2009 NBA Finals. Him and Pau Gasol would repeat in 2010 after beating rival, Boston Celtics, in 7 games.
