Kobe Bryant — who’s still in the NBA, you might need reminding — and Shaquille O’Neal, who isn’t, got together again recently. The occasion? Kobe sat for Shaq’s popular podcast called — what else? – The Big Podcast. Both men brought a maturity to the dialogue they admit they didn’t quite have when they went toe-to-toe over control of the Lakers back at the beginning of the century. (Shaq left, Kobe’s still there — maybe it was because Shaq’s toe always bothered him?)
The Big Podcast airs Monday, but early reports about the show — which may as well be titled BYGONES — are impressed by how Kobe admits being “an idiot” when he was young. And how both men express regrets about how things went down in Tinseltown. (People love a reconciliation almost as much as they love a fight.) But being young and “idiotic” is probably impossible to separate from being fierce and hungry. This is the right time for the old stars to hang up their grievances, even if Kobe still plans to compete one more season. If they’d gotten mellow sooner, they would have stopped winning much faster. (Think Shaq wins his Miami title without a big Kobe chip on his shoulder?)
