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'This game has to be personal'
By David DuPree, USA TODAY
Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant joined the Los Angeles Lakers seven days apart in the summer of 1996. O'Neal was an All-Star free agent from the Orlando Magic, Bryant a bright-eyed high schooler who was traded by the team that had drafted him a month earlier, the then-Charlotte Hornets.
Kobe Bryant, left, and Shaquille O'Neal have not spoken since O'Neal was traded to Miami.
By Ann Heisenfelt, AP
O'Neal gave himself the title and role of big brother. He would take Bryant under his wing, and together they would lead the Lakers franchise back to greatness after a nine-year drought since an NBA championship.
After eight years, three NBA titles and a bucket full of trying times that led to an irreparable rift, O'Neal has flown the coop, and Bryant has discovered what basketball is like playing without the shadow.
So far the ebullient O'Neal has enjoyed greater success as the two prepare to meet for the first time as opponents, in a Christmas Day game in Los Angeles between the Lakers and the Miami Heat (ABC, 3 p.m. ET).
For Saturday's game, the roles have been clearly defined: Bryant is the villain, O'Neal the hero. The 13-11 Lakers are struggling and even getting booed off their court.
O'Neal, who sat out Tuesday's victory against the Boston Celtics with a bruised calf, returns with a new understudy, Dwyane Wade, with whom O'Neal finds he has more in common than he did with Bryant. Wade also relishes having the big brother.
Together they have carried the Heat to a comfortable lead atop the Eastern Conference and have established Miami as a legitimate NBA title contender with the league's fourth-best record (20-7).
There probably has never been a more anticipated regular-season NBA game.
"Won't everybody be watching?" Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James says.
Former coach Phil Jackson's recent tell-all diary about the Lakers' downfall, The Last Season: A Team In Search Of Its Soul, spelled out many of the problems he had with Bryant and that Bryant and O'Neal had with each other.
Jackson wrote that Bryant wanted the team to be his and was tired of taking a supporting role. Lakers management chose to keep Bryant, who could have left as a free agent at the end of last season; cut Jackson loose; traded O'Neal; and, in essence, said, "Kobe, you are the man."
As if that and the Colorado rape case last season didn't tarnish his image enough, Bryant has had a public spat this season with former teammate Karl Malone and accused Malone of making a pass at his wife, Vanessa, 22.
So as O'Neal has been anointed unofficial King of South Beach, Bryant has been embroiled in one unflattering situation after another as his image keeps taking hits.
"If we were trying to decide who's winning or who has won, Shaq would be on top," says Morris Reid, managing director of Westin Rinehart, Washington, D.C.-based image consultants.
"He has gone from the big announcement of his arrival in Miami to delivering the goods. He certainly has turned that franchise around, not only in ticket sales but winning. It seems that Kobe is in this vicious downward spiral. ... He's become a laughingstock of the league.
"When you play a sport, you generally rally around the people that rally around you. You go to battle together," Reid says. Bryant "has turned on those people. First it was Shaq, now it's Malone. I don't think his brand is dead, but I don't think he's going to get the A-list endorsements anymore."
Adds Roy Clark, CEO of Dallas-based The Marketing Arm, which handles athlete endorsements: "Kobe Bryant is currently persona non grata to the endorsement party. Shaquille O'Neal remains an affable leader who continues to win and reinvent himself. Endorsement opportunities will only increase for him" as the Heat succeed.
'Just another game'
O'Neal says he knows why most people like him.
"That just comes from being humble and being real," he says. "I am one of the only superstars who is liked all over the world. When you see me, I don't have an entourage. I don't have 50 bodyguards. I can go to any projects in the world and not get messed with. I can wear anything I want and not get robbed."
As of Tuesday, Bryant and O'Neal hadn't spoken since the breakup. Bryant, however, said if he had the chance he would sit down with O'Neal and apologize for involving O'Neal when he was preparing for his rape trial. That refers to statements Bryant gave to Colorado police, saying O'Neal had paid money to various women to keep quiet about encounters with him — widening the rift between the players.
Bryant said after Monday's loss to Memphis that he had tried to no avail to contact O'Neal recently. "I called him," Bryant said. "It went straight to voice mail." He said he didn't leave a message.
Both say that, for the most part, Saturday's meeting is just another game.
"If we win, we win. If I lose, I'm not going to take a can of rat" poison, O'Neal says. "I don't have to go out there to make a point. I'm George Bush. I'm the president. I've been there already, so I don't have to make a point. I'll just go in there and play. I've always been a nice guy, and I've always done what I'm supposed to do, so I'm not going into that game to make points. I think that would take us out of what we try to do."
Previously, O'Neal had said he was going to help ABC "hype the game up because I'm the master marketer, but really to me, it is just another game. It will be a very different game, but hopefully we can show we're a better team. Hopefully, I still have fans in L.A. and they will be pulling for me."
Bryant expects to hear a lot of cheers for O'Neal, too.
"There's going to be a lot of energy in the building. Obviously, it's a game that a lot of people have been waiting for," says Bryant, adding he doesn't expect the crowd to be torn between O'Neal and the Lakers.
"They shouldn't be," he says. "I mean, we had great years here. I think people should just keep everything in perspective. We did win three championships together, so they should give it up to him."
When asked what will be going through his mind when he finally steps onto the court to face O'Neal, Bryant says the showdown really isn't that big of a deal to him.
"I can understand the hype around it," he says. "I really can. But for us in here, it's just about going and playing that game."
How will fans react?
Former NBA star Charles Barkley, now of TNT, isn't buying the "just another game" line.
"If they're saying it's just another game, they're lying," Barkley says. "There is too much ego for it to be just another game. Each wants to outshine the other. Normally, you don't want to make games personal. But with all the things that went on last year and the things that have been said since, this game has to be personal."
Lamar Odom, who went to the Lakers from Miami in the trade that sent O'Neal to the Heat, expects the fans to treat O'Neal like a returning hero. "I'm pretty sure they will be a pro-Shaq crowd," Odom says. "They have good reason to be. They won three championships while he was here, and I don't think they've forgotten that."
Odom also remembers when he was playing for the Clippers and O'Neal scored a career-high 61 points — and said it was payback because the Clippers had given his friends lousy seats to the game.
"You don't want to get the big fella too mad," Odom says.
As much as he loved Lakers fans, O'Neal says he misses no one in the organization.
"Anybody who had something to do with me has been fired or traded, for real, or cut," O'Neal says.
He also says he hasn't had this much fun playing basketball since Jackson's first season as Lakers coach, 1999-2000.
"The team wins," O'Neal says of the Heat. "It's how they do stuff. It's the players, the city. It's all cool. I have to give (Heat President) Pat Riley thumbs up, because he brought good character people in here, and that goes a long way. You have to do it on the court, but you still have to have respectful people in your organization."
By David DuPree, USA TODAY
Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant joined the Los Angeles Lakers seven days apart in the summer of 1996. O'Neal was an All-Star free agent from the Orlando Magic, Bryant a bright-eyed high schooler who was traded by the team that had drafted him a month earlier, the then-Charlotte Hornets.
O'Neal gave himself the title and role of big brother. He would take Bryant under his wing, and together they would lead the Lakers franchise back to greatness after a nine-year drought since an NBA championship.
After eight years, three NBA titles and a bucket full of trying times that led to an irreparable rift, O'Neal has flown the coop, and Bryant has discovered what basketball is like playing without the shadow.
So far the ebullient O'Neal has enjoyed greater success as the two prepare to meet for the first time as opponents, in a Christmas Day game in Los Angeles between the Lakers and the Miami Heat (ABC, 3 p.m. ET).
For Saturday's game, the roles have been clearly defined: Bryant is the villain, O'Neal the hero. The 13-11 Lakers are struggling and even getting booed off their court.
O'Neal, who sat out Tuesday's victory against the Boston Celtics with a bruised calf, returns with a new understudy, Dwyane Wade, with whom O'Neal finds he has more in common than he did with Bryant. Wade also relishes having the big brother.
Together they have carried the Heat to a comfortable lead atop the Eastern Conference and have established Miami as a legitimate NBA title contender with the league's fourth-best record (20-7).
There probably has never been a more anticipated regular-season NBA game.
"Won't everybody be watching?" Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James says.
Former coach Phil Jackson's recent tell-all diary about the Lakers' downfall, The Last Season: A Team In Search Of Its Soul, spelled out many of the problems he had with Bryant and that Bryant and O'Neal had with each other.
Jackson wrote that Bryant wanted the team to be his and was tired of taking a supporting role. Lakers management chose to keep Bryant, who could have left as a free agent at the end of last season; cut Jackson loose; traded O'Neal; and, in essence, said, "Kobe, you are the man."
As if that and the Colorado rape case last season didn't tarnish his image enough, Bryant has had a public spat this season with former teammate Karl Malone and accused Malone of making a pass at his wife, Vanessa, 22.
So as O'Neal has been anointed unofficial King of South Beach, Bryant has been embroiled in one unflattering situation after another as his image keeps taking hits.
"If we were trying to decide who's winning or who has won, Shaq would be on top," says Morris Reid, managing director of Westin Rinehart, Washington, D.C.-based image consultants.
"He has gone from the big announcement of his arrival in Miami to delivering the goods. He certainly has turned that franchise around, not only in ticket sales but winning. It seems that Kobe is in this vicious downward spiral. ... He's become a laughingstock of the league.
"When you play a sport, you generally rally around the people that rally around you. You go to battle together," Reid says. Bryant "has turned on those people. First it was Shaq, now it's Malone. I don't think his brand is dead, but I don't think he's going to get the A-list endorsements anymore."
Adds Roy Clark, CEO of Dallas-based The Marketing Arm, which handles athlete endorsements: "Kobe Bryant is currently persona non grata to the endorsement party. Shaquille O'Neal remains an affable leader who continues to win and reinvent himself. Endorsement opportunities will only increase for him" as the Heat succeed.
'Just another game'
O'Neal says he knows why most people like him.
"That just comes from being humble and being real," he says. "I am one of the only superstars who is liked all over the world. When you see me, I don't have an entourage. I don't have 50 bodyguards. I can go to any projects in the world and not get messed with. I can wear anything I want and not get robbed."
As of Tuesday, Bryant and O'Neal hadn't spoken since the breakup. Bryant, however, said if he had the chance he would sit down with O'Neal and apologize for involving O'Neal when he was preparing for his rape trial. That refers to statements Bryant gave to Colorado police, saying O'Neal had paid money to various women to keep quiet about encounters with him — widening the rift between the players.
Bryant said after Monday's loss to Memphis that he had tried to no avail to contact O'Neal recently. "I called him," Bryant said. "It went straight to voice mail." He said he didn't leave a message.
Both say that, for the most part, Saturday's meeting is just another game.
"If we win, we win. If I lose, I'm not going to take a can of rat" poison, O'Neal says. "I don't have to go out there to make a point. I'm George Bush. I'm the president. I've been there already, so I don't have to make a point. I'll just go in there and play. I've always been a nice guy, and I've always done what I'm supposed to do, so I'm not going into that game to make points. I think that would take us out of what we try to do."
Previously, O'Neal had said he was going to help ABC "hype the game up because I'm the master marketer, but really to me, it is just another game. It will be a very different game, but hopefully we can show we're a better team. Hopefully, I still have fans in L.A. and they will be pulling for me."
Bryant expects to hear a lot of cheers for O'Neal, too.
"There's going to be a lot of energy in the building. Obviously, it's a game that a lot of people have been waiting for," says Bryant, adding he doesn't expect the crowd to be torn between O'Neal and the Lakers.
"They shouldn't be," he says. "I mean, we had great years here. I think people should just keep everything in perspective. We did win three championships together, so they should give it up to him."
When asked what will be going through his mind when he finally steps onto the court to face O'Neal, Bryant says the showdown really isn't that big of a deal to him.
"I can understand the hype around it," he says. "I really can. But for us in here, it's just about going and playing that game."
How will fans react?
Former NBA star Charles Barkley, now of TNT, isn't buying the "just another game" line.
"If they're saying it's just another game, they're lying," Barkley says. "There is too much ego for it to be just another game. Each wants to outshine the other. Normally, you don't want to make games personal. But with all the things that went on last year and the things that have been said since, this game has to be personal."
Lamar Odom, who went to the Lakers from Miami in the trade that sent O'Neal to the Heat, expects the fans to treat O'Neal like a returning hero. "I'm pretty sure they will be a pro-Shaq crowd," Odom says. "They have good reason to be. They won three championships while he was here, and I don't think they've forgotten that."
Odom also remembers when he was playing for the Clippers and O'Neal scored a career-high 61 points — and said it was payback because the Clippers had given his friends lousy seats to the game.
"You don't want to get the big fella too mad," Odom says.
As much as he loved Lakers fans, O'Neal says he misses no one in the organization.
"Anybody who had something to do with me has been fired or traded, for real, or cut," O'Neal says.
He also says he hasn't had this much fun playing basketball since Jackson's first season as Lakers coach, 1999-2000.
"The team wins," O'Neal says of the Heat. "It's how they do stuff. It's the players, the city. It's all cool. I have to give (Heat President) Pat Riley thumbs up, because he brought good character people in here, and that goes a long way. You have to do it on the court, but you still have to have respectful people in your organization."
What a great Christmas gathering. Thank you, Miami Heat. You just made it even better!!
