Former Los Angeles Lakers teammates and one-time bitter rivals Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant have buried the hatchet in an online podcast released on Monday where both men addressed their long-running feud.
O’Neal and Bryant’s tense relationship was a staple of NBA debate for years during the Lakers’ successful period of dominance in the early 2000s, when the team won three championships and lost a fourth. O’Neal eventually moved to the Miami Heat in 2004, while Bryant remained at the Lakers, where he continues to play as his career draws to a close.
In a lengthy discussion on O’Neal’s “The Big Podcast with Shaq,” both men expressed regret at the way their bickering often spilled into public view.
“I just want people to know that I don’t hate you, I know you don’t hate me,” O’Neal, 43, told Bryant on the podcast. “I call it today a ‘work beef,’ is what we had. I was young, you was young, but then as I look at it, we won three [championships] out of four so I don’t really think a lot was done wrong.”
“We had a lot of disagreements, we had a lot of arguments, but I think it fueled us both,” O’Neal said.
Meanwhile, Bryant, 37, said he wished the frequent rows with O’Neal could have been kept private.
“To me, the most important thing is you keep your mouth shut. There’s no need to go to the press. You keep it internal,” Bryant said.
“Having our debates within the press was something I wished would been avoided,” Bryant added.
Bryant also recalled an exchange where he almost came to blows as a 21-year-old with the older, bigger O’Neal.
“And I realized that I probably had a couple of screws loose, because I nearly got into a fistfight and I actually was willing to get into a fight with this man,” Bryant said.
“I went home and I was like, ‘Dude, I’ve either got to be the dumbest or the most courageous kid on the face of the Earth,’” Bryant added.
O’Neal said he had actually been left impressed by Bryant’s nerve in standing up to him.
“That just showed me ‘You know what, this kid ain’t going to back down to nobody,’” O’Neal said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but