Kobe Bryant spent 20 years with the Los Angeles Lakers, but even the Mamba wanted to leave the organization high and dry.
There are a plethora of aspects that fans admire about the late NBA legend. Be it his hard work ethic or simply his lethal scoring. In fact, many praised the 5x NBA champion for spending his entire career with the Purple and Gold.
However, even Kobe was frustrated with the Lakers’ inability to get him a good supporting cast after Shaquille O’Neal’s departure to the Miami Heat.
After O’Neal’s departure, the Lakers struggled to compete in the league. They missed the postseason in 2005 and had two consecutive first-round exits in the next two seasons. As a result, things went over the boiling point for Kobe ahead of the 2007-08 NBA season.
So much so that the Basketball Hall of Famer not only publicly demanded a trade in 2007, but also claimed he would rather play on Pluto than in Los Angeles.
“I would like to be traded, yeah,” Kobe said, per ESPN. “Tough as it is to come to that conclusion, there’s no other alternative, you know? [The Lakers] obviously want to move in a different direction in terms of rebuilding.”
At the time, the Chicago Bulls were the leaders to land the services of the Mamba as he was clearly frustrated with a lack of success in L.A.
“Three years ago when I was re-signing they should have told me they wanted to rebuild. At this point, I’ll go play on Pluto,” he added.
The Lakers had bet all their hopes on Bryant to be the cornerstone of the franchise for the foreseeable future. Keeping that in mind, his departure could have instantly sent the franchise into a rebuilding phase.
The Lakers narrowly avoided losing Bryant following a blockbuster trade to acquire Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies. Gasol’s arrival changed the dynamics of the organization. Kobe proved his worth by leading the Purple and Gold to two consecutive NBA championships in 2009 and 2010.
In fact, Bryant would go on to spend his entire career with the iconic franchise. He retired from the league in 2016 but left an unforgettable legacy for the Laker nation.
How would Bryant’s career have panned out had he been traded to the Bulls in 2007? Well, that remains one of the biggest what-ifs in the modern NBA.
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