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Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant Rob Schumacher/The Republic via Imagn Content Services, LLC

Lakers ‘Should’ve Won 10 Championships’ with Kobe and Shaq, Says Former LA Staffer

Originally posted on Los Angeles Lakers on SI
By Alex Kirschenbaum | Last updated Aug 30, 2025 1:00 PM ET

The Los Angeles Lakers of the early 21st century represented one of the most dominant squads in the decorated franchise's storied history.

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Armed with future Hall of Famers Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, plus Hall of Fame head coach Phil Jackson and a variety of elite role players like floor-spacing forward Robert Horry, wing Rick Fox, former Chicago Bulls stars Horace Grant and Ron Harper, and guards Derek Fisher and Brian Shaw, L.A. keyed in and became the class of the Western Conference in 1999-2000. The Lakers marched to three consecutive NBA Finals from 2000-02, winning all three.

After falling to the San Antonio Spurs in the 2003 playoffs, Los Angeles made some tweaks, bringing in aging future Hall of Famers Karl Malone and Gary Payton on discount deals for the 2003-04 season. Although the Lakers returned to the NBA Finals for the fourth time in five years, they got annihilated by the Detroit Pistons in five games. That summer, with chemistry issues between O'Neal and Bryant at an all-time nadir, Los Angeles went with youth, offloading O'Neal to the Miami Heat.

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At the 2008 midseason trade deadline, L.A. brought in another future Hall of Fame big man, power forward/center Pau Gasol, and subsequently appeared in another three straight NBA Finals, winning in 2009 and 2010.

While chatting with former three-time Lakers champion shooting guard Byron Scott and his co-host Kid Jay on the former's podcast, "Byron Scott's Fastbreak," longtime former Lakers trainer Gary Vitti asserted that those first three titles Los Angeles won in three seasons with O'Neal and Bryant should have been just the beginning.

That, of course, was not the case.

"A team is like a family," Vitti said. "And you may get mad at somebody in your family. You might get angry with your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister. But you don't stop loving them. And that's the difference. In that era, we stopped loving each other. And when that happened, people started choosing sides. This really bothers me, 'cause we should've won 10 championships. It's easy to blame Kobe, it's easy to blame Shaq."

As a player, Scott overlapped with O'Neal and Bryant for just one season, 1996-97, before hanging up his sneakers for good.

Bryant frequently took umbrage with the oft-hurt O'Neal for his perceived lack of commitment to fitness, while Bryant's off-court problems had boiled over and become a nightmare during that fateful final season in 2003-04.

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"What about the rest of us, including me? People chose sides. Players chose sides. Coaches chose sides. The fans chose sides. It was divisive, and the whole thing crumbled. And it didn't have to. I think that I'm as guilty as everyone else. Shaq was hurt, doesn't mean he shouldn't have played," Vitti said.

Ultimately, both players enjoyed lengthy careers even beyond their separation. How far they could have gone had their personal issues not boiled over remains to be seen, but O'Neal was still an All-Star-level player through 2008-09 while Bryant was still in his prime through 2012, and both still won championships without each other (O'Neal with Miami in 2006, and Bryant next to Gasol in L.A. in '09 and '10). So it certainly seems possible that they could have won more.