Shaquille O’Neal played alongside one of the greatest players in NBA history in Kobe Bryant, but what if he had the privilege of being teammates with the GOAT, Michael Jordan? Well, that was the question Ashley Nevel asked O’Neal in an interview, and he reckons they’d have won nine titles together.
“Oh, we win nine instead of six,” O’Neal said.
Jordan, of course, won six titles playing alongside Scottie Pippen on the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. They three-peated from 1991 to 1993 and then from 1996 to 1998.
It was after that incredible Bulls run that O’Neal and Bryant took center stage. They led the Los Angeles Lakers to a three-peat from 2000 to 2002, and no team has since managed to win three in a row.
If you bring together the best players on these three-peating teams, you would get titles galore. It speaks to the greatness of Jordan and O’Neal that nine titles doesn’t seem like an outlandish claim either.
Jordan averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 2.3 steals, and 0.8 blocks per game in his career. To go with his six titles, he won six Finals MVPs, five MVPs, one DPOY, and 10 scoring titles. Jordan also made 14 All-Star, 11 All-NBA, and nine All-Defensive teams.
O’Neal, meanwhile, averaged 23.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 0.6 steals, and 2.3 blocks per game during his time in the NBA. He would win another title after leaving the Lakers and finished his career with four titles, three Finals MVPs, one MVP, and two scoring titles. He also made 15 All-Star, 14 All-NBA, and three All-Defensive teams.
Jordan’s exploits have led to him being widely regarded as the greatest ever, while O’Neal is considered to be the most dominant player in modern NBA history. It would have been a scary sight if they had ever teamed up.
O’Neal once stated that he would have joined Jordan’s Bulls if superteams were acceptable in his day. The rest of the league is glad that wasn’t the case.
Shaquille O’Neal Believes He And Kobe Bryant Would Have Won Seven Titles If He Hadn’t Left In 2004
While we never got to see O’Neal and Jordan tearing up the league, we did get to see him and Bryant do it. They were incredible together on the court, but clashed off it. Those clashes and some other factors contributed to O’Neal asking for a trade in 2004. He’d be sent to the Miami Heat and would win his fourth title in 2006.
While winning another title felt great, O’Neal believes he would have won more had he stayed. The big man claimed he and Bryant would have won seven titles together on the Lakers.
That’s a bold claim, and we’ll never know for sure what could have happened. Bryant did go on to win two titles in 2009 and 2010 after O’Neal’s departure, so perhaps they could have come close to winning seven.
O’Neal also stated that his getting traded wasn’t about the beef with Bryant. He just wanted more money, while the Lakers wished that he would take a pay cut. O’Neal had no interest in doing so at the time and now admits his ego got in the way. He wishes he had done things differently back then.
