During Monday night’s loss to the Philadelphia 76ers Kobe Bryant surpassed Shaquille O’Neal on the all-time NBA scoring list. Bryant, who is the all-time leading scorer in Lakers history, passed the player whom he teamed up with for three NBA championships a decade ago.
Following Bryant’s milestone O’Neal himself took to Twitter to congratulate Bryant, and acknowledge the success they had as teammates with the Lakers.
Congrats to Kobe for being the greatest laker ever thanks for making us the greatest laker one two punch ever and congrats on passin me up 2
— SHAQ (@SHAQ) February 7, 2012
After the game O’Neal also told ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith how much he respected Bryant and appreciated what he has done during his career.
“I want to personally congratulate Kobe on being the greatest Laker ever. His accomplishment is great and well deserved, and I’m really proud of him. He told me when he was 18 years old that he’d go down as the greatest Laker ever, and one of the greatest players of all time. And he wasn’t lying.”
In the past there has been far too much attention on the difficulties Bryant and O’Neal have had in their careers, but it seems that at this moment O’Neal is legitimately proud of Bryant. While I have to feel that no player really enjoys seeing their records broken, it’s nice to see O’Neal take the high road and congratulate his former protege on his tremendous accomplishment.