Shaquille O’Neal appeared on the latest episode of the Off The Record podcast, where he was asked an interesting question. O’Neal had to pick who had the least help among Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Stephen Curry in their careers, and his answer proved to be surprising.
“It’ll be a tie,” O’Neal said. “Kobe had a lot of help, and let me go on record, I had a lot of help. So, that deletes that. Mike and Steph are the same people. Both bad boys, but they got another bad dude next to you. Klay [Thompson] was whew! … It’s a tie between those two.
“Mike had to carry a lot, but [Scottie] Pippen was a bad boy,” O’Neal added. “Steph had to carry a lot, but Draymond [Green] and Klay, them some bad boys, so it’s a tie. Kobe didn’t have to do much, let me rephrase it the right way, because I was there, and I didn’t have to do much, because he was there.”
O’Neal and Bryant were teammates on the Los Angeles Lakers and three-peated together from 2000 to 2002. That took Kobe out of the equation for the 53-year-old, even though he did win two titles after their split in 2004.
O’Neal didn’t give any explanation for why he thinks James has had more help than Jordan and Curry, though, and that is quite an interesting take. One of the big talking points throughout his career is that he doesn’t have enough help. While that may have been true at certain points, he has played alongside some special players.
James first formed a Big 3 with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat in 2010 and won two titles with them. He then formed another one with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love on the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014 to win his third title in 2016. All four men have made at least five All-Star teams, with Wade and Bosh in double digits.
James then got to team up with 10-time All-Star Anthony Davis on the Los Angeles Lakers, and they won it all in 2020. The 40-year-old is now getting to play alongside five-time All-Star Luka Doncic, so he has teamed up with some big guns during his career. It was only really during James’ first stint with the Cavaliers that he didn’t have a star next to him.
As for Jordan and Curry, they did play alongside great players, too, as O’Neal pointed out.
Jordan had seven-time All-Star Scottie Pippen as a teammate for all six of his title runs with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. Two-time Defensive Player of the Year Dennis Rodman was also part of that Bulls team for their second three-peat from 1996 to 1998.
As for Curry, he was fortunate enough to play alongside both five-time All-Star Klay Thompson and four-time All-Star Draymond Green for much of his career. The trio won four titles together, with 15-time All-Star Kevin Durant joining forces with them for two of those runs.
All of this just proves that you need great players around you to be successful. An important point to bring up, though, is that Curry and Bryant won multiple titles without a teammate who was included in the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. The two of them and Tim Duncan are the only players to have pulled that off.
So, you can actually make the case that the tie should be between Curry and Bryant here, not Jordan.
