So, Shaq is preparing to release a new memoir about his life called Shaq Uncut: My Story. And, not surprisingly, the book—which drops on November 15—already sounds like it's going to be entertaining as hell. Why, you ask? Well, for one, it seems like it features Shaq taking a ton of shots at his former Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant. Deadspin got their hands on a copy yesterday and posted a few of the best excerpts involving Shaq and Kobe's sour relationship. Here is our favorite about an incident that happened back in 2003 around the time KB24 was accused of raping a girl in Colorado:
"So I'm on edge because I don't have a new deal, and Kobe is on edge because he might be going to jail, so we're taking it out on each other. Just before the start of the '03-'04 season the coaching staff called us in and said, 'No more public sparring or you'll get fined.'...Phil [Jackson] was tired of it. Karl Malone and Gary Payton were sick of it...So what happens? Immediately after that Kobe runs right out to Jim Gray and does this interview where he lets me have it. He said I was fat and out of shape. He said I was milking my toe injury for more time off, and the injury wasn't even that serious. (Yeah, right. It only ended my damn career.) He said I was "lobbying for a contract extension when we have two Hall of Famers playing pretty much for free." I'm sitting there watching the interview and I'm gonna explode. Hours earlier we had just promised our coach we'd stop. It was a truce broken. I let the guys know, 'I'm going to kill him.'
Kobe stands up and goes face-to-face with me and says, 'You always said you're my big brother, you'd do anything for me, and then this Colorado thing happens and you never even called me.' I did call him...So here we are now, and we find out he really was hurt that we didn't stand behind him. That was something new. I didn't think he gave a rat's ass about us either way. 'Well, I thought you'd publicly support me, at least,' Kobe said. 'You're supposed to be my friend.'
Brian Shaw chimed in with, 'Kobe, why would you think that? Shaq had all these parties and you never showed up for any of them. We invited you to dinner on the road and you didn't come. Shaq invited you to his wedding and you weren't there. Then you got married and didn't invite any of us. And now you are in the middle of this problem, this sensitive situation, and now you want all of us to step up for you. We don't even know you...
Everyone was starting to calm down when I told Kobe, 'If you ever say anything like what you said to Jim Gray ever again, I will kill you.'"
Yikes. It sounds like there's definitely still no love lost between these two, huh? [via Ball Don't Lie]
