A Look Back… Before The Lakers Won the Western Conference

Published by lakers-fan.com on May 30th, 2008 | Tagged lakers

“I want to be traded”.

Five little words uttered by hundreds of disgruntled athletes to even more disgruntled owners, none of which took capture of our attention more than Kobe Bryant’s off-season request for relocation that nearly destroyed this year’s dominant run through the Western Conference Playoffs before it even began.

Exactly one year ago to today’s date, Kobe told ESPN’s Steven A. Smith on his radio program, that he desired a trade and that any future NBA title aspirations would come in colors other than the Lakers purple and gold, almost dooming Los Angeles fans to suffer through a rebuilding year instead of now waiting on the cusp of the Lakers‘ record-setting 29th appearance in the Finals.

“There’s obviously a better way I could have said it,” said Kobe. “I was dead serious about being traded and would have still gone through with it, but I just wanted to be in a place where I could win. It just happened to work out, but if you would have told me that we would be here [the Finals] a year ago, honestly, I would have laughed at you.”

No one was laughing last year, especially head coach Phil Jackson who is just one championship ring away from one for each finger, breathed a collective sigh of relief along with Jack Nicholson and all other loyal Lakers fans, as the 26-year old veteran would retract the statement the following day, but,unfortunately for Bryant, the damage was done.

Being a superstar in a town littered in the remains of the fallen and once beloved, Kobe followed the local L.A. fad and went into rehab.

No, not rehab for drugs and alcohol like the majority of his neighboring Hollywood elite/skanks, but to repair a shattered public image due to dismissed rape charges and single-handily being blamed for the demise of the early Shaq/Kobe Lakers team that earned him his first three titles.

While his trial was an off-court personal matter and damaging in its own right, his supposed inability to coexist with others of those championship Lakers teams had a much more damning effect on the court, tagging Bryant as an egotistical superstar, unable to work with other teammates.

The 10-time All Star, however, has done all he can this season to refute that rumor.

While the supporting cast is closer in age to Bryant than the championship teams where Kobe played sidekick to Shaq’s MVP seasons, the obvious camaraderie amongst this year’s team has shown that he can be just as good a teammate as he is at driving to the hoop and making solid defenders look silly.

Kobe, who grew up in Italy and speaks the language fluently, seems to be in a more comfortable situation amongst the international make up of a Lakers roster that looks more like a United Nations meeting, boasting players from Yugoslavia, France, Spain and even the Congo, than a championship title contender.

Going from overall pre-season crankiness, calling out the Lakers front office, and demanding trades to now jumping moving vehicles in commercials, joking with teammates on the bench, and hoisting MVP hardware for the first time in his 10 year tenure in the NBA, the “new” Kobe swears nothing has changed but does place most of this year’s success on their close-nit interaction among teammates.

“You know that’s just who i am; the joking, smiling happy guy you see is me,” said Bryant. “If you saw anything different it’s because we weren’t winning.”

While the Lakers are 3-1 in NBA Finals with Kobe, they have yet to win it without the ominous shadow of the O’Neal which many have stated is fuel for Bryant are just four wins away from proving that the Lakers brass knew what they were doing when they let the Big Diesel hit the beaches of South Beach and giving Kobe the lead part on the L.A stage.

For Kobe Bryant, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

- Eric May

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