Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal and the late great Kobe Bryant formed one of the most dominant tandems in NBA history during the early 2000s, winning three consecutive championships before a breakup sent the ESPN analyst to the Miami Heat. Before his trade request in 2004, O’Neal revealed how Bryant made him better, and vice versa.

O’Neal reflected on his feud with Bryant and what led to the split. For Shaq, his relationship with Kobe came to a head after the Lakers’ three-peat, when their respective egos clashed, he said, per NBA Courtside’s X, formerly Twitter.

“They pit us with useless titles. For example, it’s your team. What does that really mean? It ain’t my f****** team. It’s Jerry Buss’ team. It ain’t my team,” O’Neal said. “When you’re on a team, everybody wants to be that guy. When I got there, they said, hey, we need you to lead us. I was anointed.

“Then, you got another guy who was coming up, and I used to egg him on a lot because I knew he wanted the spot. But I’m like, you’re not getting the spot, and I knew that would piss him off. And when you piss off a dog, he’s always going to bite. I needed him to bite to help me get three.”

Shaquille O’Neal would eventually request a trade from the Lakers after those three championships, which he knows he couldn’t have achieved without Kobe Bryant.

“I’m not dumb. I know I got 3 in a row because of him. He knew he got three in a row because of me. We never disrespected each other,” O’Neal added. “People think I left because we were fighting. No, I left because they wanted to pay the younger guy more than me. — I like we were the most dominant, Controversial one-two punch ever created and never to be duplicated again. There will be a bunch of Mike and Scottie’s, Magic and Kareem, but there will never be another effective Kobe and Shaq, and I like that.”

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O’Neal would go on to win a fourth championship alongside Dwyane Wade and the Heat in 2006. Bryant, who spent his entire career with the Lakers, won back-to-back titles against the Orlando Magic and the Boston Celtics in 2010 after reaching three consecutive NBA Finals appearances since 2008.