MLK
Day inspires Kobe-Shaq truce
Patrick Hodgson
Why can’t we all just get along?
It was these words of Rodney King on Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.’s Day that perhaps made
Shaquille O’Neal expostulate whether
he would end his elongated feud with his former
comrade Kobe Bryant. Well, not exactly. It
was actually the influence of 11-time NBA champion
and all-time great Bill Russell that finally
got through
to the mulish O’Neal.
Shaq and Kobe put a symbolic end to the NBA’s highest profile feud with
handshakes and hugs before the game.
They shook hands during pregame stretching, then embraced at the captains meeting
with the referees and again when the teams were lining up for the opening jump
ball.
O’Neal had come across the news that Bryant and wife Vanessa are
expecting another daughter and approached Bryant as they prepared for the Miami
Heat-Los Angeles Lakers game last Monday.
O’Neal
offered best wishes’and shared that his wife, Shaunie, is expecting in
May. It might feel like a dynasty ago, but there was once a time when Shaq and
Kobe were over at one another’s house and even discussed how much the game
meant to them.
O’Neal said he was prompted to reconcile with Bryant by former Celtics
great Russell, who essentially advised him to consider Kobe a rival, not an enemy,
as Russell had done with Wilt Chamberlain, and Shaq took the Hall of Famer’s
advice. Kobe apparently was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
It seemed wrong, he said, for two African-American men to be so at odds with
each other on MLK Day.
Kobe never told the truth more than he did when he said that. If we analyze the
situation, O’Neal and Bryant are probably two of the most idolized individuals
in the black community by children and their display on a day that celebrated
King and his efforts for peace is a prime example of how feuds should be resolved.
The two will continue to make headlines, feud or not. Kobe, who is filling up
the stats sheet every night, recently had 81 points in a game with 60 percent
shooting this past weekend.
This pentacle of success has not been displayed since
Chamberlain almost half a century ago. Shaq is still news because he is getting
himself in shape for a second half surge in an attempt to reestablish the Heat
as a premier team in the NBA after a lethargic start to the season.
At the end of the day, the truce of Shaq and Kobe on a special day proved maybe
we all can get along if we work at.
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