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When the Los Angeles Lakers were upset by the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals, legendary head coach Phil Jackson decided that he'd finally had enough. After winning six titles with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the '90s, Jackson guided the Lakers to three straight titles from 2000 to 2002. But, the tension and stress had become overwhelming.
Leading the way for Los Angeles were two of the best players in the game at the time and in NBA history: Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. Their relationship was always tenuous, and it reached a breaking point after that 2004 Finals defeat. Pat Riley believed he could mend it.
Riley was solely the president of the Heat in the June of 2004, having recently given up coaching duties to Stan Van Gundy. When the Lakers job opened up, Riley was given the go-ahead by Miami owner Micky Arison to meet with Jerry Buss regarding the vacancy.
The prospect of coaching O'Neal and Bryant together intrigued Riley, but with the duo's break-up already playing out, it just didn't come together.
From the Sun Sentinel's Ira Winderman:
Article Continues Below“We sat and we talked about the team,” Riley says. “And I remember the one conversation that came up and I asked them the question, I said, ‘What about Shaquille and Kobe?' And they said . . . ”
Riley pauses, as if conjuring the tension of two decades earlier between O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.
“They really didn't want to talk about it,” he says of the meeting with the since-deceased Lakers owner. “And I said the only way that I could come and coach the team is they give me a chance to put these two back together, to build this relationship and to keep this thing going forward, because I thought with their team, and what they had just accomplished, that they could win more championships together in Los Angeles.
At that point, the Lakers knew that Riley wouldn't be coming back to coach for the franchise that he achieved so much success with in the '80s. But, their business wasn't totally complete.
More from Winderman:
“And right after that, we all went upstairs to dinner and that was the last I heard about them wanting me to coach — but they definitely would like to make a trade with us. So I don't know if he brought me out there to really coach the team, or if he brought me out there to speculate on whether or not we would trade Wade and Caron Butler and everything else. And I said no. But when they called back, when Mitch [Kupchak, the Lakers' general manager] called back, there is no doubt we had interest and that then formulated into an offer and then a trade that was made for Caron and Lamar [Odom] and Brian Grant with the first-round pick. And we ended up getting Shaq and we ended up getting the championship.”
It's crazy to imagine what might've been had O'Neal and Bryant settled their differences to play under a new regime led by Riley. The landscape of the NBA's last 12 years would look much different; the ramifications of such a move going back to '04 are impossible to completely fathom.
