SACRAMENTO – This bone spur in Kobe Bryant’s left foot?

He has had it for years.

Years.

He has played through it for years without publicizing it and the challenges it has prompted him to overcome. Think about that the next time anyone says Bryant’s toughness, focus or drive for greatness is overdramatized.

Whether Bryant now chooses to detail the specifics of the bone spur, it’s incredibly appropriate that on his latest historic night – passing Wilt Chamberlain for No. 4 on the NBA all-time scoring list Saturday in Sacramento – he played all but 22.6 seconds of the game just two days after the bone spur prompted a wheelchair to be requested for him to leave Milwaukee’s Bradley Center. (He didn’t use it.)

Bryant could still have offseason surgery to remove the spur, but bear in mind this is the guy who never did have surgery on that mangled right pinky finger in 2008 or that arthritic right index finger in 2010. He figures out a way around it and goes to the ends of the earth to analyze the best course of treatment with the least time on the court lost – so he can maximize his job performance (and championship odds).

This is all a roundabout way to get to the Lakers’ next man of the hour: Shaquille O’Neal, who will be rightly honored Tuesday night at Staples Center with the retirement of his No. 34 Lakers jersey.

A truly amazing force of Lakers glory, for sure. That’s why Jerry Buss called O’Neal on his retirement day in 2011 to promise No. 34 would soon be retired by the Lakers, and even though Buss didn’t survive to see it, the Lakers scheduled it for this season instead of waiting until O’Neal makes the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, their customary procedure for retiring numbers.

Just as Phil Jackson hoped and expected, Bryant and O’Neal have reached a peace in their relationship. There truly were some stretches when they got along well – real behind-the-scenes moments such as a night in Phoenix postgame when O’Neal called out to Bryant to wait for him so they could walk out toward the bus together, another day in Minneapolis when O’Neal beamed under his new yellow cap with “Wilt Chamberneezy” – the hip-hop nickname Bryant gave him – stitched on the front in purple.

Asked about O’Neal’s upcoming honor, Bryant said Saturday night: “It’s going to be great. It’s beyond well-deserved. I’m very, very happy for him, proud of him and everything that he’s accomplished and the smooth transition that he’s had now from player to commentator.”

If the Lakers are lucky, Bryant will allow O’Neal’s moment Tuesday night to serve as a reminder about how critical it was for Bryant to get space, even if not guidance, from an oft-reluctant O’Neal. That’s because Bryant now needs to give Dwight Howard enough space to grow, too, for the Lakers’ greater good.

But bear in mind that while O’Neal is a living legend, Bryant remains a playing legend. Cheer for one guy on this special occasion for his time served while realizing that the other guy is still grinding stone and making magic.

Aging gracefully? More like aging ferociously.

When O’Neal was 34, as old as Bryant is now, he had already fallen off the cliff. O’Neal won his post-Kobe title at age 33 (despite shooting 37 percent on free throws over the 23-game playoffs; fortunately for Shaq, Dwyane Wade shot 80.8 percent). The next year, O’Neal played only 40 games while making $20 million from Miami, and the Heat got swept by Chicago in the first round – the first time that happened to a defending champion in 50 years. Despite vowing never to hang on as a fringe player, O’Neal then bounced around Miami, Phoenix, Cleveland and Boston over the course of his final five seasons.

O’Neal wound up No. 5 on the all-time scoring list, passed by Bryant last season.

Even with Bryant not yet done playing, this is as good a time as any for the final word on the Shaq-Kobe era.

O’Neal underachieved. Bryant overachieved.

And whatever immature or selfish things Bryant did along the way as he fought for more, O’Neal did even more of them trying to guard his turf. Anyone who takes O’Neal’s side or respects him more for what he has done in this game is simply a fool.

Everyone on the list of the NBA’s top scorers besides Michael Jordan and Bryant, both 6-foot-6, is at least 6-9: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Chamberlain, O’Neal, Moses Malone, Elvin Hayes, Hakeem Olajuwon. It’s a game geared for big men, and no one else on that list had the epic confluence of height, power and athleticism that O’Neal did.

Yet by not sweating the details, not taking care of his body, not truly embracing Bryant’s rising star when they could’ve won much more together, O’Neal left a lot on the table … unclaimed, unearned.

“The thing I’m most proud of is being able to play for so many years and still be playing at a very, very high level,” said Bryant, who is recording a video message for O’Neal’s halftime ceremony, which will feature Jackson and Jeanie Buss. “That’s the thing that I’m most proud of.

“Michael and I have obviously had two completely different career paths, but the common denominator, the thing that we both share, is our passion for the game and our commitment to the game.”

Tim Grover, personal trainer first to Jordan and then Bryant, wrote in his soon-to-be-released book, “Relentless” about Jordan: “Interesting how the guy with the most talent and success spent more time working out than anyone else.

“Kobe is the same; he’s insatiable in his desire to work. Some days we’ll go back to the gym twice a day and once more at night, trying different things, working on certain issues, always looking for that extra edge. At his level of excellence, there’s no room for error, and no one – no one – in the game today works harder or invests more in his body and surrounds himself with the right people to keep it in peak condition.”

For Lakers fans, the fact that Bryant has played through the bone spur for so long should be a relief on some level. He knows his way around it, and he said it flared up so much because of the maniacal compression treatment he did to accelerate the healing of his recent severe left ankle sprain.

If Bryant, as he has suggested he might, retires after next season, he will have played 18 seasons. O’Neal played 19 and crammed a lot of training in right at the end, losing a ton of weight as he tried to keep going in Boston. His Achilles’ tendon, however, remembered all those previous years of mistreatment and denied him.

Bryant stands in a very different position – and he has earned this view.

Catching Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, maybe in four more years? Not unless “I change my mind and decide to play a little bit longer,” Bryant said, mentioning the possibility of downshifting to where he averages 20 points and 12 assists in future years, his phone sitting next to him with the wallpaper of him and his two young daughters all wearing goofy glasses and smiling.

“It’s really just if I want to play. I could play. … It’s just a matter if I want to play. That’s all.”

For all the power that Bryant and O’Neal struggled over back in the day, therein lies the lesson now, as activist Elie Weisel once said:

“Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.”