How Shaquille O'Neal Accidentally Mended The Friendship Between Two NBA Legends

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

You're probably never going to see Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov (or Dustin Poirier, for that matter) laughing and joking with each other over a few shots of Proper No. Twelve, at least not in the near future. But sporting history has some examples of ostensibly bitter rivals who actually had a good friendship behind the scenes, such as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird after that Converse commercial from the mid-'80s broke the ice between the two feuding superstars. Years prior to that, Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell also were the fiercest of rivals as the NBA's top two centers of their era. They were, however, good friends who bonded over their shared status as Black NBA superstars in an era defined by racial unrest, with the league far from being as popular as it is today.

"I mean, [Russell would] come past my house on Thanksgiving, eat my food, sleep in my bed, and the next day, whip my butt," Chamberlain told Bob Costas in a 1997 interview, as quoted by Jackie MacMullan in an article for The Ringer covering her "Icons Club" podcast. "Now my mother would say, 'Now, Wilt, we shouldn't feed Bill so well next time."

As further explained by MacMullan, it didn't bother Russell that Chamberlain was, by far, the more dominant scorer and the guy who ended up on more All-NBA First Teams. The Boston Celtics big man was all about championship bling, and entering the 1969 NBA Finals, Russell had 10 championships to Chamberlain's two.

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