Shaquille O’Neal is one of the greatest players to ever wear a Los Angeles Lakers uniform, and he made the franchise relevant again when he signed with it as a free agent in 1996 after it had struggled for five years following Magic Johnson’s first retirement.
Along with Kobe Bryant, he led the Lakers to three straight NBA championships in the early 2000s. Even though he made several negative comments about Bryant after he was traded in 2004, O’Neal is generally still well-liked by the team’s fan base today.
He recently gave his list of the 10 greatest players in NBA history. Johnson came in at No. 4, current Lakers superstar LeBron James occupies the third spot and Bryant holds the No. 2 spot.
While many people these days seem to consider James one of the two to three greatest players ever, there is plenty of debate about where Bryant should rank. A few former players have ranked him very high on their lists, but a considerable number of people have him on the bottom half of their top 10 players, and some even have him significantly lower.
Bryant, of course, went on to stay with the Purple and Gold after O’Neal’s departure, even though the first three seasons without the dominant center were very rough for the franchise. He would win two more world championships back-to-back in 2009 and 2010, including one over the archrival Boston Celtics, and those titles seemed to reinforce his legacy as one of the greatest athletes and winners ever.
He retired with averages of 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.7 assists a game, and he’s fourth on the NBA’s all-time career scoring list with 33.643 points. No other guard in league history has scored as many points as he did.
Bryant, of course, tragically died in January 2020 along with his daughter Gianna and seven others in a tragic helicopter crash in Calabasas, Calif., about half an hour away from downtown Los Angeles.
This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Shaq puts Kobe, LeBron very high on his list of greatest NBA players
Reporting by Robert Marvi, LeBron Wire / LeBron Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
