Los Angeles Lakers legends Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal won three NBA titles together during their playing careers.

Despite not always seeing eye to eye during their careers, Bryant and O’Neal clearly had remained close friends up until Bryant’s tragic death earlier this year.

In Jeff Pearlman’s new book, , he details a time that O’Neal slapped Bryant across the face during a heated argument.

“On one particular day, both O’Neal and Bryant arrived at Southwest College, ready to play. It was the first week of January, not long after the Kobe-is-the-next-Jordan piece ran in L.A. Magazine,” Pearlman wrote. “Some other Lakers were in attendance, as was Olden Polynice, the veteran center who’d spent the preceding four and a half seasons with Sacramento.

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