Shaquille O’Neal Refused Surgery Costing Lakers 4th Championship, Ex-Teammate Claims

“Some accidents you can prevent, but you can never prevent freak accidents. I missed 200 games for my injuries…” During his rant on load management, Shaquille O’Neal revealed openly about missing games that were beyond his control. Despite extensive trouble with his toes, ankle issues, broken thumbs, and torn muscles, the Lakers legend gave everything for 19 years to the NBA. Yet, there was a time when he could have done some treatment that would have helped him even more. At least that’s what a former teammate claims.

The what-if question everybody likes to ponder is how many more titles could Kobe-Shaq duo would have won. One of their teammates recalled, “Yeah. I mean, really, there’s no telling,” said Brian Shaw. He was 36 at the time and was one of the leaders of the team. Shaw was on Byron Scott’s podcast, where the revelation came to light.

“So, at the end of our we had won three in a row. We’re trying to win the fourth, and that year Shaq was on this thing about getting paid. Yeah. So, he didn’t have his surgery on his toe. So he missed, I don’t know, maybe the first 30 games or whatever of the season because he didn’t do the surgery right after the season ended.” It was almost three months of indecision, after which Shaquille O’Neal finally had surgery. Reportedly, if the decision had been taken earlier, he probably would have been at full speed by the time the season began.

The march for the four-peat didn’t start as expected. Without Shaquille O’Neal, the team faltered 3-9, and after his return, the record was still abysmal 11-19. It was the worst start in 9 years for the Purple and Gold franchise. They managed to recover post the All-Star break and even won the first round matchup, but lost to the eventual champions, the Spurs. Shaw recalled that the late surgery was one of the reasons why the team couldn’t contend for the championship.

“And so anyway we end up losing, I think to San Antonio in the playoffs, fall short of a fourpeat after the season is over Shaq and Kobe they they say we need to get younger and more athletic. So that cost Robert Horry and me, right? So they came to us, they said, ‘Well, we got to get younger. We got to get more athletic, so we got to bring in some different guys, try to keep it going forward.’ So I retired!”

After coming short during the 02-03 season, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal decided to change the cast around them. Because of this, B-Shaw retired being 36, and Horry found success with the Spurs. Shaw criticized the decision, since the co-captains of the team didn’t change the cast as they promised.

Another Lakers legend feels Shaw was a better fit than Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant’s new teammates

Shaq and Kobe promised to find younger partners to replace Shaw (36) and Horry (32). Instead, they bought old veterans like Gary Payton, Karl Malone, and brought Horace Grant back. Their average age at the time–37.6 years, and it turned out be the last year for Malone and Grant. The team would reach the NBA finals, but lost to the Pistons. Shaw recalled, “they they fell short, you know, lost to Detroit in the finals and and I would just, you know, talk to Robert and we sit back and say, you know, if we was there, we might we might have got another one.”

Backing B-Shaw was the host of the podcast, Byron Scott. “…You guys are already knew with you and Rob, you already knew your roles. You understood what it took to win a championship. So, you get rid of them. You bring in Hall of Famers. But Hall of Famers got agendas.” The former Showtime era champion also claimed that Payton and Malone wouldn’t accept the bench roles and reduced minutes. And they didn’t, the two played more minutes than Horry and Shaw, and the performance was also different.

As Scott stated, Payton didn’t accept the bench role; he would start all 82 games and average the third-best minutes, 34.5, and Malone was next with 32.7 minutes during the regular season.  This also led to higher production in points. Shaw and Horry had 3.5 points and 6.5 respectively, with reduced roles. Meanwhile, the new veterans at the time, Payton alone had 14.6 points while Malone contributed with 13.2 points. Not a bad move from Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe as they got more out of their new teammates, even though they lost in the 2004 Finals.