In 2004, Miami Heat coaching legend Pat Riley met with the Los Angeles Lakers about succeeding Phil Jackson as head coach of the talented Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant-led team. However, due to Shaq and Kobe’s well-documented issues, and the team’s refusal to discuss the problem, Riley chose not to take the job. From Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel:
“We sat and we talked about the team,” Riley says. “And I remember the one conversation that came up and I asked them the question, I said, ‘What about Shaquille and Kobe?’ And they said . . . ”
Riley pauses, as if conjuring the tension of two decades earlier between O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
“They really didn’t want to talk about it,” he says of the meeting with the since-deceased Lakers owner. “And I said the only way that I could come and coach the team is they give me a chance to put these two back together, to build this relationship and to keep this thing going forward, because I thought with their team, and what they had just accomplished, that they could win more championships together in Los Angeles.
“And right after that, we all went upstairs to dinner and that was the last I heard about them wanting me to coach — but they definitely would like to make a trade with us. So I don’t know if he brought me out there to really coach the team, or if he brought me out there to speculate on whether or not we would trade Wade and Caron Butler and everything else. And I said no. But when they called back, when Mitch [Kupchak, the Lakers’ general manager] called back, there is no doubt we had interest and that then formulated into an offer and then a trade that was made for Caron and Lamar [Odom] and Brian Grant with the first-round pick. And we ended up getting Shaq and we ended up getting the championship.”
This situation ended up working out well for both parties; Riley traded for Shaq in what he says was the greatest acquisition in franchise history. As for the Lakers, they retained Jackson as coach, acquired a new dominant big in Pau Gasol, and won a couple more championships before it was all said and done.
Shaq and Kobe staying together under Riley is a great NBA “what if?” for the hypotheticals crowd, though. Would they have further imploded, or found a way to make things work?
