Kobe Bryant talks Shaq

Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, April 02, 2013 with 21 comments
Kobe Bryant recently spoke to Yahoo!Sports about the respect that he has for Shaquille O'Neal and how the two were destined to break apart.

"I always remind him every time I see him.....I saw him after the All-Star Game and said, 'How you doing, 'Four' ?' He said, 'Oh, you [expletive].' [Our relationship is] really good now. We have such a mutual respect for each other."

On the split between the two in which Bryant threatened to sign with the Clippers if the Lakers had retained Shaq.

"It was inevitable," Bryant said. "You can't expect Michael [Jordan] to play with Wilt [Chamberlain] for his entire career. That's just not going to work. I had too much talent and too much to showcase. And then there was a challenge issued by him about me not being able to win without him. That's a challenge I couldn't pass.....But ultimately during those years I sacrificed a lot, numbers-wise, to play with him. The thing that always bothered me was people said, 'Well, Kobe's selfish.' I'm not selfish. If I was selfish, I would have left. I gave up a lot to play with him."

"Personalities and playing for each other weren't the best of dynamics because he always wanted to do things a certain way and I was always on him about his work ethic," Bryant said. "He didn't want to hear that, but I didn't care....it was tough for that relationship to work forever. But there was a mutual respect, and that's why you see us engaging with each other and conversing with each other because we knew what that was about."