Kobe Bryant Could’ve Tied Jordan’s Six Rings

Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal made a lot of headlines this week. The two future Hall of Famers put their differences aside and appeared on O’Neal’s podcast together with plenty of interesting quotes from both Los Angeles Lakers legends.

Although the highlights of the podcast were somewhat revealing about the feud between the two and the journey to three straight championships in Los Angeles, O’Neal made an interesting statement on The Rich Eisen Show this week. O’Neal claims that had he and Kobe figured things out, they probably would’ve tied or surpassed Michael Jordan’s ring total of six:

“I think we could have probably tied Mike, or surpassed Mike. I guess six. Everybody talks about Bill Russell’s 11; no player will ever come along that will win 11 championships unless they reduce the league to 10 teams. So you shouldn’t even bring Bill up. So now Mike, when you talk about the pinnacles of championships you always gotta go with Mike. So Mike has six. I think we could have either tied that or got that.

“But if “if” was a fifth we’d all be drunk, Susan.”

Many seem to believe that if Bryant and O’Neal were able to make it more about basketball rather than ego they would’ve gone on to win a few more titles together in Los Angeles. Obviously, there’s no way of ever knowing how it would’ve all played out, but there’s no doubt these two would’ve been in contention to threaten Jordan’s total.

As arguably the best one-two punch in NBA history, or at least in the conversation for that distinction, the Lakers were near unstoppable during their three-peat. Shaq was clearly starting to decline before he was dealt to the Miami Heat in 2004, but he still went on to win a title alongside Dwyane Wade and remained a serious force to be reckoned with in the paint for a few years after departing Los Angeles.

Shaq saying the pair would’ve tied or surpassed Jordan with six or more titles isn’t ridiculous, but the basketball world will never know if that was possible and is just another hypothetical scenario from the four-time champion. Bryant went on two win two more without O’Neal as his running mate in Los Angeles, so having an engaged Shaq alongside Kobe in his prime might’ve been a scary sight.