Shaq's ready to kiss Steve Kerr's feet 😂 pic.twitter.com/uRK1pQt51K
— ESPN (@espn) July 16, 2019
You are not hallucinating. You did not wake up in an alternate reality. Shaquille O’Neal and Steve Kerr are joking about O’Neal kissing Steve Kerr’s feet… with some cheese on top. It’s quite a time to be alive.
This all dates back to 2004, when O’Neal and Kobe Bryant were in their final year together and gearing up to face the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals, where the Lakers would go on to lose. It was the Lakers’ fourth appearance in the Finals in five years after the Lakers three-peated as championship winners from 2000 to 2002 and lost to the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals in 2003.
O’Neal was discussing the team’s and head coach Phil Jackson’s legacy, and in typical O’Neal hyperbolic fashion, he said he would kiss the feet of any NBA head coach (“with cheese on em”) who made four out of five-straight NBA Finals on Fear Factor. Remember, this was 2004, so Fear Factor was Fear Factor.
He said in the interview, “If a coach takes a team to the Finals four out of five years, I’ll kiss his feet on Fear Factor. With cheese on em. I will. It’ll never be done again.”
Former Warriors forward David West apparently sent the video to Kerr, who tagged O’Neal on Twitter, saying, “I’m going to do us both a favor and pretend that [David West] didn’t send this to me this morning.”
O’Neal responded in kind, saying, “I guess I’ll c u in fear factor, and make sure it’s kraft cheese lol.”
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