Shaquille O'Neal Says He's Not Going to Watch Kobe Bryant's HOF Ceremony
Shaquille O'Neal said he's not going to watch Kobe Bryant's induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame because it would be too painful.
“I’m actually not going to watch the Hall of Fame ceremony," O'Neal said on The Big Podcast with Shaq. "...Because it’s going to bring me, on a scale of sadness from 1-10, I’m finally at least at a 2 now, but that would bring me back to a seven, eight or nine. I can't right now. I don’t want to see old highlights that I’m already watching now. It’d be great if his wife gave a speech, or if his mom and dad gave a speech, but I'll see that afterwards. I’m not going to watch the ceremony.”
O'Neal said he still misses and thinks about Bryant every single day.
"You know what would be nice?" O'Neal said. "If they had a hologram. A hologram of him sitting next everybody else."
After Bryant died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26 along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven other people, O'Neal teared up on live television and said, "I now know what it feels like to lose a brother."
O'Neal added that he wasn't sleeping and hadn't "felt a pain that sharp in a while."
Bryant and O'Neal won three NBA championships together from 2000-2002.
They had a complicated relationship when they played together, with Bryant criticizing O'Neal for being lazy and out of shape, and O'Neal calling Bryant a showboat. O'Neal was eventually traded to Miami in 2004.
But at Bryant's public memorial at Staples Center, O'Neal said there was a deep respect and brotherhood above all else.
"Sometimes like immature kids, we argued, we fought, we bantered, we assaulted each other with offhand remarks on the field," O'Neal said. "Make no mistake, even when folks thought we were on bad terms, when the cameras are turned off, he and I would throw a wink at each other and say, let’s go whoop some ass."
O'Neal said that him and Bryant were one of the most dominant one-two punches in sports history.
"Not unlike another leadership duo, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, whose creative rivalry led to some of the greatest music of all time, Kobe and I pushed one another to play some of the greatest basketball of all time," O'Neal said. "And I am proud that no other team has accomplished what the three-peat Lakers have done since the Shaq and Kobe Lakers did it."
