Before forming their devastating and legendary duo in the Lakers, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal had actually met a year earlier. The scene had not necessarily happened in the best of ways.
Since the death of his great friend, Shaquille O’Neal has not stopped sending messages of affection and tributes to Kobe Bryant. The two NBA legends, if they had left on bad terms after the lost 2004 Finals, had managed to put the pieces of their relationship together afterwards.
The anecdotes binding them are therefore numerous, and several of them have been told by the Shaq since the tragic helicopter crash of January 26. A few days before this disastrous event, the pivot, on the occasion of a passage in the Tonight Show by Jimmy Fallon, was already telling a story like this, and more particularly that of their first meeting. An episode that obviously hadn’t really marked him at the time.
Read also | Why Ron Artest never messed up Kobe Bryant at the Lakers
In reality, it was Kobe who reminded me of this story. I was in Orlando (during the 1995-1996 season), and he and his family came to the locker room after a game. He asked Penny (Hardaway) for an autograph, and I think Penny gave him some kind of wind or something. In any case, this is what Kobe told me.
And then he told me that he came to see me and that I had been really nice to him. But I never knew it was him until he told me about it during his rookie season. He was there: “Do you remember? ” ” Nope. “I came to the locker room …” And I was there: “Ah, yes, it was you! “
Despite his relative celebrity as a sensation of the high school circuit, Kobe had not necessarily caught the attention of his future teammate a few months before their meeting in LA But if the latter and Penny Hardaway abused it a bit, they quickly got to know the guy once they got to know him on NBA floors.
Before being chosen in 13th position in Draft ’96 and joining Shaquille O’Neal in the Lakers, Kobe Bryant had therefore received from Big Diesel the treatment reserved for any fan who enters an NBA locker room. The anecdote is enough to make you smile when you know the rest of the story between the two icons.
–
