LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers are currently in the opening stages of a highly important offseason for the future of the franchise that's already seen the team part ways with its entire coaching staff. The Lakers are coming off of a crushing Game 5 loss to the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs, marking the second straight season that James and his teammates came up short against Nikola Jokic and company.

When James and Anthony Davis teamed up in Los Angeles back in the summer of 2019, many fans likened the duo to the organization's previous partnership of Shaquille O'Neal and the late Kobe Bryant, who won three championships together during the early 2000s. While James and Davis haven't been able to reach quite that level of success together, they did reach championship glory during the 2020 NBA Bubble in Orlando.

Recently, O'Neal stopped by JJ Redick's Old Man and the Three podcast to discuss his partnership with his late teammate, including how he and Bryant both wanted the “Batman” persona, as neither one was willing to step into a secondary “Alfred” role.

“The crazy thing about him is I wanted him to be Alfred, but he didn’t want it, he was like ‘nope, I’m Batman’, I’m like ‘no, I’m Batman. No, I’m Batman. I’m Batman, I’m Batman… and it worked to our advantage because when you got two guys that want to take over that’s 60 points right there, right?” said O'Neal, per JJ Redick on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.

An iconic duo

Indeed, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal were known to have their fair share of friction between one another despite all of the success they experienced together as teammates. At times, there were reports of verbal locker room spats and a decided lack of camaraderie between the two superstars off of the court, juxtaposed by the championship heights they were consistently reaching on it.

While O'Neal was the Finals MVP for all three championships that the duo won together, there was no confusing Kobe Bryant as some sort of Robin, or Alfred, as O'Neal pointed out. Bryant would go on to prove as much by winning two championships as the best player on his team after O'Neal left for the Miami Heat, first in the 2009 NBA Finals vs the Orlando Magic and then the following year in 2010 vs the Boston Celtics.

O'Neal, meanwhile, would muster one more ring alongside Dwyane Wade with the Heat in 2006.

Since the iconic duo was formed, many other teams have tried to follow the blueprint of a dominant wing and a dominant big, with mixed results. Up until the Golden State Warriors' run in the mid 2010's and extending into the current decade, O'Neal and Bryant's Lakers were largely viewed as the last great NBA dynasty, pushing the boundaries of what a team could do despite the high level of parity around the league at the time they were playing together.