Shaquille O'Neal didn't work at it; Kobe Bryant did. Shaq didn't have to work at it; Kobe did.
Multiple media outlets reported Friday that former coach Phil Jackson shed light on the rift between the two Los Angeles Lakers stars that led to O'Neal's departure after the 2004 season and the premature end to what could've been one of the greatest 1-2 tandems in the NBA.
Two issues were at work that drove the players in opposite directions, according to Jackson, who coached the duo to consecutive NBA championships from 2000-02 and then returned to the Lakers to help Bryant win two more titles from 2009-10.
Both were born out of the same underlying theme: O'Neal's laziness.
USA TODAY Sports' For the Win reported Jackson telling an audience at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on Friday that O'Neal's goof-off personality clashed with Bryant's will to win, which fueled the feud.
"Shaq had a clown role he had to play," Jackson said at the conference. "So that was part of the rift."
Jackson said the game came too easy to O'Neal, and he wasn't like Bryant, who was constantly trying to improve his game, like the Chicago Bulls' Michael Jordan before him.
"Shaq didn't work at it," Jackson said. "Michael was able to succeed despite all kinds of limitations in his game. He couldn't hit an outside shot. He couldn't defend. But all of that went away because of his work ethic. Kobe saw that as a pinnacle that he had to reach, and he took it to a whole new level."
Lakers Nation, however, posted a tweet from Basketball Insiders' Steve Kyler, which mentioned O'Neal's apparent unwillingness to undergo foot surgery in the fall of 2002.
From @stevekylerNBA: "Jackson said that the rift between Shaq and Kobe came down to Shaq opting for surgery before camp and in Kobe's mind it cost them 4th title"
O'Neal's explanation why he didn't he didn't have offseason foot surgery earlier riled Bryant.
"I got hurt on company time, Shaq said. "So I'll rehab on company time."
Bryant wasn't completely blameless for the Lakers' 11-19 record to start the season, either. In the summer of 2003, Bryant was accused of sexual assault, which forced him to miss time while attending the trial in Denver.
But Kyler reported that Bryant thought O'Neal procrastination on surgery cost the Lakers a chance for a fourth consecutive NBA title, something that Jordan never had accomplished.
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