Just when you thought former Los Angeles Lakers greats Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant had buried the hatchet, the two teammates find themselves at odds again.
Making an appearance on a Yahoo Finance program, the 47-year-old O'Neal poked fun at Bryant, referencing his own accolades in the face of a nasty “work ethic” jab.
“Was he saying that to me,” O'Neal wryly answered, “Or was he saying that to all the statues that I have outside of Staples Center?”
The barb came after earlier in the week Bryant, 41, took to Twitter to deny “beef” between O'Neal and him. “There is no beef between [Shaquille O'Neal],” Bryant wrote on Wednesday. “I know most media want to see it but it ain't gonna happen. Ain't nothin but love there and we too old to beef anyway.”
In response, O'Neal replied to Bryant's tweet, digressing by referencing another supposed Bryant “beef” with recently re-acquired Lakers center Dwight Howard. “It's all good bro, when I saw the interview, I thought you were talking about Dwight [sic], is that how [you] spell his name”.
O'Neal and Bryant have a long history of egos interfering with on-court legacy in the NBA. While the two sure-to-be Hall of Famers won three consecutive championships from 2000 to 2002, much of their shared history is tainted with jokes at each other's expense, normally with neither letting the past die.
After O'Neal left the Lakeshow in 2004, he would go on to win another title with the Miami Heat. For Bryant, though, it would take a longer journey, but eventually he one-upped his former teammate in the form of back-to-back titles scored by Los Angeles in 2009-10.
Follow Us
Subscribe
