With Kobe Bryant retiring and the awesome ’30-for-30′ profiling the relationship between Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway — The Diesel has been out making the rounds.
Shaq and Bryant seem to be in a good place relationship wise — so it was only natural for the media to inquire about what really down that time Mamba told Colorado police about O’Neal’s extramarital hush money.
During a sit down with the Daily Mail — O’Neal addressed whether he forgave Bryant for “snitching” to police.
I ask Shaq how he really felt about getting “ratted out by Kobe,” and if they ever really buried the hatchet. After all, less than a year after Kobe’s betrayal, Shaq had orchestrated a trade to the Miami Heat, where he won a championship opposite Dwyane Wade.
“There never was a hatchet. I’m not worried about that,” responds Shaq. “That’s something that happened and I didn’t think it would’ve gone on, but there was never a hatchet. As a leader, sometimes you gotta do certain things, like, if I owned The Daily Beast and you came back with a bad article and I know your potential, I’d be like, ‘That’s some bullshit,’ and you’d either punk up and quit, or say, ‘Oh, it’s bullshit?’ and write a better piece.
It was my job to get everyone to play at a high level. People want things to go perfectly, and if you really look at it, three out of four championships is pretty perfect. I’m glad and honored to be the most enigmatic, controversial, and dynamic one-two punch in Lakers and NBA history.”
He pauses again to ponder the question. “There never was a hatchet,” he adds of Kobe. “It was two guys competing. But one thing you can say about Shaquille O’Neal is he always played the right way. That’s all I wanted to ever do, is play the right way. So I never took anything personally.”
Bryant will go down in infamy for telling officers that, “I should have done what Shaq does,” adding, “Shaq gives [mistresses] money or buys them cars, to keep the girls quiet.”
It seems like O’Neal has moved on — albeit seven-years ago — he was asking Bryant “how his ass taste.”