Vanessa Bryant brought strength and grace to the podium, as she delivered a powerful tribute to her late husband and their daughter Gianna. Shaquille O’Neal brought that too, but he also brought some laughs.

In the midst of a powerful and emotional memorializing of his teammate and friend, Kobe Bryant. Shaq brought smiles to faces and fingers to dump buttons all over the country after telling a hilarious story about Kobe, punctuated by an F-bomb.

During their early days together on the Lakers, some of Kobe and Shaq’s teammates complained that Bryant wasn’t passing the ball enough. Shaq took it upon himself to speak to Kobe about the issue.

“There’s no I in team,” O’Neal told Bryant.

“Yeah,” Bryant responded, “but there is an M-E in that m*th*rf*ck*r.”

shaq is a legend for this. pic.twitter.com/SyNrNWpMAQ — TheWarriorsTalk (@TheWarriorsTalk) February 24, 2020

The joke was perfectly timed and delivered. The complaint about Kobe not passing enough would become a constant refrain throughout Bryant’s career. A fact which only added to the hilarity of the joke.

Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn