As Kobe Bryant Memorial Nears, Shaquille O’Neal Says: ‘I’m Hurting’

N.B.A. commissioner Adam Silver, in an appearance last Sunday on NBA TV, acknowledged feeling “the heaviness” at every league gathering in Chicago. Yet he asserted that “there is something cathartic about coming together and being able to talk about these things.”

O’Neal hopes Silver is right about the benefits of communal grieving. He and Harris will both attend Monday’s service, along with an array of current and retired luminaries from around the league.

“I’ve never seen nothing like this before,” O’Neal, the Hall of Fame center-turned-Turner Sports analyst, said last week when we crossed All-Star paths. “All the greats I grew up watching, I got to see them grow old.

“Dr. J is a good friend of mine,” O’Neal continued, referring to the legendary former Nets and Philadelphia 76ers highflier Julius Erving. Of Wilt Chamberlain, O’Neal added: “I only met Wilt once, but I met him.

“These are things,” O’Neal said of Bryant’s sudden death, “that you never imagine happening.”

Bryant was just 4 when Harris met him in Houston while serving as the last N.B.A. coach for Kobe’s father, Joe Bryant. Since the crash, Harris has found himself consuming all sorts of Kobe video footage, from his last game at Lower Merion High School outside of Philadelphia to a talk show sit-down last November with Kelly Clarkson.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/sports/basketball/kobe-bryant-shaquille-oneal.html