Shaquille O’Neal spoke with the New Orleans Saints last week in the middle of the media firestorm surrounding Drew Brees’ comments on the national anthem. The Big Fella preached a message of unity to the team and advised them to avoid being divided.
“They’re going to try to divide you, just like they divided us with the Lakers! Me and Kobe [Bryant], we had a great thing going, but the media divided our team,” O’Neal said during a virtual team meeting, according to ESPN. “We could have won five more championships! Stay strong. Don’t let the media divide you! Don’t let social media divide you!”
Brees said last week that he would not agree with players not standing for the national anthem. He received immediate backlash from many, including teammates, and issued an apology a day later.
Shaq said on TNT Thursday that many Saints teammates recognized Brees has good character despite making the comment.
“They said, ‘Drew, we know your character. We know you stepped into some stuff that you can’t get out of, but guess what? We want you to do more, more positive things and less talking,'” Shaq said.
Shaq and Kobe won three championships together before they broke apart, with Shaq being traded to Miami and Kobe remaining with the Lakers. The two had some beefs and even hadn’t spoken in years prior to Bryant’s death. But none of that changed how close Shaq felt to Kobe, as he expressed during the funeral and afterwards. O’Neal has experienced first-hand how difficult it is to stay united in the interest of the team and doesn’t want to see that happen with the Saints.
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