The Los Angeles Lakers were the last team to three-peat in the NBA, and Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant were the ones leading the way for them. A video from 2002, after their third title win in a row, resurfaced recently, and O’Neal can be seen hyping up Bryant by telling him to take off the Michael Jordan jersey and wear his own.
Shaquille O’Neal: “Congratulations, the greatest.”
Kobe Bryant: “Congratulations, the most dominant.”
O’Neal: “You need to take that jersey off and put your own jersey on, playa.”
Bryant: “About time now?”
O’Neal: “Yeah.”
O’Neal wanted Bryant to step out of his idol Jordan’s shadow. He had accomplished incredible things in his own right, and it was time to flaunt that Bryant name. This was his third championship in his first six seasons in the NBA, and Jordan hadn’t won even one at that stage of his career.
In case you’re wondering why Bryant was even wearing someone else’s jersey here, he actually did that throughout the 2002 NBA Finals against the New Jersey Nets. He wore a Joe Namath jersey for Game 1, a Jackie Robinson Dodgers jersey for Game 2, and a Wayne Gretzky Oilers jersey for Game 3.
Wearing a Jordan jersey after matching his feat of pulling off a three-peat was somewhat fitting. Jordan had led the Chicago Bulls to two three-peats in the 1990s, first from 1991 to 1993 and then from 1996 to 1998.
These Bulls and Lakers teams are the only ones to win three titles in a row in the last 50 years. That lets you know just how special of an achievement it is. Now, Jordan was the best player for the Bulls in those three-peats, but Bryant wasn’t for the Lakers.
O’Neal was undoubtedly the better player of the two in those title runs in 2000, 2001, and 2002, but Bryant was by no means a passenger. In the Finals against the Nets, he averaged 26.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.5 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game while shooting 51.4% from the field.
O’Neal and Bryant were just an unstoppable duo, and you would have thought these two were going to just keep winning for a few more years. It wasn’t to be, though.
The Lakers lost to the San Antonio Spurs in six games in the Western Conference Semifinals in 2003. They would get revenge the next year by beating the Spurs in six games at the same stage, and it looked like another title was on the cards.
The Lakers were overwhelming favorites against the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals. You’d have been laughed off for picking the Pistons to win, but they would go on to shockingly beat the Lakers in five games.
Game 5 of that series would turn out to be the last time that we saw this duo together on the Lakers. O’Neal and Bryant were clashing behind the scenes, and that, along with not getting a lucrative contract, led to the former asking out.
The Lakers traded O’Neal to the Miami Heat, and he’d win another title in 2006. It seemed like the big man had won the divorce, but Bryant would win back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010 to gain supremacy. He didn’t end up winning six championships like Jordan, but at least he got one more than O’Neal.
