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Shaquille O’Neal Reveals What He Would Say to Kobe Bryant After Watching Some of Their Older Games

Published 06/24/2020, 7:01 PM EDT

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A few days ago, on June 19, 2020, Lakers fans celebrated 20 years of winning the 2000 NBA championship. The likes of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal led their team to achieve this feat, and it was the beginning to their era as one of the greatest duo. Shaq remembers those times with Kobe Bryant with utmost fondness.

That season, Lakers had hired Phil Jackson as their new coach, which proved to be the turning point for the franchise. In the 1999-2000 season, they beat the Portland Trail Blazers in conference finals. O’Neal was named the MVP that year, averaging 29.7 points per game. To add cherry to the cake, he also earned the scoring title of 2000.

Kobe’s team met the Indiana Pacers in the Finals. In the second game of the series, he suffered an ankle injury because of Pacers’ Jalen Rose. The latter admitted it to be a conscious move, later on. Kobe missed Game 3 as well, but came back with equal force in the next game.

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Shaq reminisces Kobe Bryant on this memorable day

Lakers went on to win the NBA title after 116–111 Game 6 victory. They defeated the Indiana Pacers 4-2 and earned their first championship as a franchise since 1988. Shaq was the Finals MVP with three 40-point games in the series.

After Kobe’s unfortunate death in January this year, O’Neal has expressed his feelings towards his past feud partner multiple times. Even though the two developed bitterness and jealousy during their playing days, Shaq felt shattered after losing him. On this special day of reminiscing their first accolade as a duo, Shaq hilariously remembers Kobe.

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“I woke up today and I got emails, just happened 20 years ago today so then I posted…I found myself going back looking at games and TNT was showing a lot of old games,” he told Darren Rovell in an interview. “And I’m just like I wish I could have called him like, ‘Hey man! I was wide open on that play.'”

Irrespective of their differences, the duo held mutual respect for each other. They achieved a three-peat in 2002 and gave splendid performances together. 2000 NBA final was just a beginning!

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Written by:

Pavni Ahuja

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