Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal still trading barbs

Former Lakers duo Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal continue to take heavy shots at each other despite finishing their careers a long time ago.

Fifteen years after they were last Lakers teammates, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal are still taking digs at one another.

Bryant, who won three NBA championships with Shaq and two without him, recently said he’d have more than double that number of titles if the centre stayed in shape.

“I wish he was in the gym. I would’ve had f***ing 12 rings,” Bryant said. “My God, yeah. Wouldn’t even be close.”

That was part of Bryant’s response to a question during an interview with Valuetainment founder Patrick Bet-David, who asked who O’Neal would be if he had Bryant’s work ethic.

“He’d be the greatest of all time,” Bryant said. “He’d be the first to tell you that, for sure. This guy was a force like I have never seen. It was crazy. Generally guys at that size are a little timid and they don’t want to be tall, they don’t want to be big. Man, this dude, he did not care. He was mean, he was nasty, he was competitive, he was vindictive.”

Kobe and Shaq celebrate one of the championships they won together.

Bryant added that he tells O’Neal all the time what they could’ve accomplished “if your lazy ass was in shape.”

Still, the outspoken O’Neal responded on Instagram.

“U woulda had twelve if u passed the ball more especially in the finals against the pistons #facts,” Shaq wrote. “You don’t get statues by not working hard.”

There’s a statue of Shaq outside Staples Center.

Bryant said there likely would’ve been less feuding between he and O’Neal if his co-star had the same level of commitment that he did.

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A lot of their contention, Bryant said, came from Shaq complaining about Kobe not throwing him the ball — as Shaq mentioned in his Instagram retort.

At one point that led to a fistfight between the two, which Bryant’s teammates thought he was crazy for.

“After that day they told me, ‘OK, Kobe, you’re certifiable,’” Bryant said.

Shaq eventually moved on from the Lakers and became an NBA journeyman.

Bryant was cocky enough as an 18-year-old rookie that during a game in Phoenix his first year in the NBA, he says he stopped passing Shaq the ball in post-ups because Shaq kept getting fouled and proceeded to miss a bunch of free throws.

So Bryant kept shooting, despite Shaq’s repeated requests to get the ball.

“Man, f**k that, get it off the rebound if I miss, bro,” Bryant says he told Shaq. “Eighteen years old, and I must’ve been out of my damn mind.”

Despite the noise however it appears the alleged beef between the two superstars was overblown with Bryant taking to twitter to clarify the comments.

“There is no beef with @SHAQ I know most media want to see it but it ain’t gonna happen. Ain’t nothin but love there and we too old to beef anyway #3peat,” Bryant tweeted.

O’Neal not only responded, but took a dig at returning Lakers big man Dwight Howard. A player he’s had a long history of not seeing eye-to-eye with.

It’s all good bro, when I saw the interview, I thought you were talking about Dwite, is that how u spell his name lol

— SHAQ (@SHAQ) August 28, 2019

This article originally appeared on the NY Post and was reproduced with permission.