The beef between Shaq and Kobe has long been squashed, but that doesn’t mean that the fans are any less-interested in hearing about it.
Shaq recently invited Kobe on to his podcast, The Big Podcast with Shaq, and the two are able to hash it out like men discussing topics in a mature and candid fashion.
The full podcast isn’t available until Monday, but based off of the clip provided by ESPN Radio, via Complex, we’re able to transcribe some of the juicy details for you here today.
As for how the pair would have handled their beef differently:
Shaq: “A lot of things. You just played the clip where I said I wanted to be traded. I definitely did not want to leave L.A., but you know that’s how you’ve got to talk when you’re in business, especially when you think you’re in control. Definitely didn’t want to leave L.A. A lot of stuff was said out of the heat of the moment. I guarantee I don’t remember a lot of stuff that they said because I changed my thought process of, you know what, we won three out of four, what the hell are you all talking about? This is not really even a story.”
Kobe: “Here’s the thing, though. When you say it at the time, you actually mean it, and then when you get older, you have more perspective and you’re like, holy shit. I was an idiot when I was a kid. To me, the most important thing was really just keep your mouth shut. You don’t need to go to the press with stuff. You keep it internal and we have our arguments and our disagreements, but I think having our debates within the press was something I wish would’ve been avoided, but it did kind of create this whirlwind around us as a team with myself and Shaq and the press and the media that just put so much pressure on us as an organization.”
Obviously they’re going to have a lot more to say on the matter, but here we see that Shaq never really wanted to leave showtime (and why would you?). More surprisingly, Kobe admits that his immaturity ultimately caused a lot of the dysfunction.
It’s rare that anything has me looking forward to a Monday, but for anyone who was paying attention to the NBA during their Lakers reign – this podcast release can’t get here soon enough.
The complete episode will be available Monday at PodcastOne.com and the PodcastOne app “The BIG Podcast with Shaq”.