On the Court With... Kobe Bryant

by Matt Christopher

  “It was the most fun shot I’ve ever hit,” Bryant later commented.

  And it wasn’t the last game-saver he made that night. As the overtime wound down into the final seconds, Los Angeles trailed Phoenix by one. When the Suns’ Steve Nash got possession of the ball, the game seemed over. Then, incredibly, Laker Luke Walton stole the ball!

  Once again, Kobe Bryant was the go-to man. As the clock ticked down to the final second, he tossed up a jumper from seventeen feet away. It hit! The Lakers won, 99-98.

  Los Angeles was up three games to one in a series marked by its rough-and-tumble play. They needed only one more to eliminate the Suns. They didn’t get it.

  Instead, Phoenix annihilated them, winning-the final three games—the last by a margin of 31 points! Kobe delivered a disappointing performance that outing, adding only a single point in the second half and shooting only three times.

  “They stepped up to the challenge and kept coming at us in waves,” he said after the elimination. “We just didn’t have enough in the tank to hold on.”

  Still, Kobe had much to celebrate at the end of his tenth NBA season. He had his best-ever points-per game average, with 35.4, making him the league leader in that category. He had six 50-or-better point games, including his amazing 81-point game. Thanks to “the Shot"—the overtime buzzer-beater that handed the Lakers the win in Game Four of the 2006 playoffs—he had a place in basketball film history.

  As gratifying as such moments were, however, they meant nothing to Bryant unless they factored into the greatest moment of all: victory in the NBA Finals. That was a moment that had eluded Kobe since 2002. It was one he wanted to relive again—soon.

  But would the 2006-2007 season give him what he longed for, or would it end in disappointment as the previous four had?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  2006-2007

  Chasing the Championship

  Soon after the 2006 postseason ended, Kobe Bryant underwent surgery to correct problems with his right knee. He was still recovering from the operation when the Lakers’ regular season began on October 31. He watched from the sidelines as his team beat the Phoenix Suns, 114-106, and then won again the next night against the Golden State Warriors. Two nights later, he rejoined the starting lineup.

  When he first took to the floor, spectators noticed a difference even before he touched a basketball. His jersey number was no longer number 8; it was number 24, his original number in high school. His reasons for making the switch were never clear, but some believed it was his way of acknowledging that he was entering a new phase of his career, one that saw him passing as much as shooting.

  The next thing watchful observers saw was that the knee surgery had been a success. While he wasn’t the team’s high scorer—that honor went to Lamar Odom—he did drain 23 points, rip down 4 rebounds, and help out with 6 assists in the 118-112 win over the Seattle SuperSonics. Sure, it wasn’t his best game ever, but it felt good to Bryant.

  “In the first half I jumped off the leg for a reverse lay-up,” he said later. “That was something I didn’t do at all last year.”

  What also felt good was the fact that the Lakers won ten of their first fifteen games. The last of those, a 132-102 pasting of the Utah Jazz, saw Kobe exploding for a high of 52 points!

  Bryant and the Lakers continued to play well through the rest of 2006, although Kobe was forced to sit out one game early in December after spraining his right ankle. The injury didn’t slow him down that much, however. Three times that month, he posted games of 40 or more points. He was undoubtedly pleased to have performed so well—and just as undoubtedly, would have wished the final results of those games were better, for two of the three ended in losses.

  Fortunately, Los Angeles was winning more than they were losing. Going into 2007, their record stood at 20 wins, 11 losses. Bryant was the team’s scoring machine, but other Lakers were equally important. 20-year-old center Andrew Bynum was steadily improving under the basket. Small forward Luke Walton regularly posted double digits in points and high figures in rebounds and assists, as did point guard Smush Parker. Under Phil Jackson’s careful coaching, the team appeared to be moving ahead at full steam.

  Kobe had another terrific month in January. With the exception of one single-digit-scoring game early on, he chalked up 20-, 30-, and 40-plus point totals night after night. Those points added up to yet another milestone for the superstar. On January 26, 2007, he tossed in his 18,000th point. At 28 years, 156 days old, he beat out Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan to become the youngest player ever to reach that number.

  “It’s always special,” Bryant said of the achievement. “Things like that really don’t sink in until the end of your career.”

  But not every game was to find Bryant earning top marks for his playing. Two nights after hitting that milestone, he hit something else—another player.

  The game was between Los Angeles and San Antonio. Late in the fourth quarter, the Lakers had a nine-point lead. But as the clock ticked down, they saw that lead dwindle as the Spurs’ Manu Ginobili swished two three-pointers and his teammates added four more. The Lakers responded with five of their own, but the Spurs matched them point for point, until the score was tied at 80 apiece.

  Then, with 2.7 seconds left on the clock, Bryant got his hands on the ball 20 feet from the hoop. He drew up and jumped for the game-winning shot.

  Manu Ginobili jumped too. As Kobe released the ball, Manu blocked the shot. At the same moment, Kobe’s arm slashed in an odd motion. His elbow caught Manu right in the face!

  When Kobe’s shot missed, the game went into overtime. The Spurs eventually won, 96 – 94. Kobe was disappointed at the outcome. But that disappointment was nothing compared to what he felt two days later. That’s when league officials ruled that that Kobe’s elbow motion was “unnatural;” in their view, he had hit Ginobili on purpose.

  Bryant vehemently denied that he had meant to hurt his opponent. But it didn’t make a difference. He was suspended for one game.

  “I’m surprised. Shocked, by it, actually,” Bryant said. “You unintentionally catch people with elbows every once in a while.”

  Interestingly, Kobe connected with two. other players with similar arm motions later in the season. The first also resulted in another single game suspension. The second was ruled a flagrant foul. Whether Bryant had meant any or all of the blows remains unclear, but regrettably, those incidents made some people consider him a dirty player.

  If Bryant was having his share of problems, so too were the Lakers. After a promising start to the season, they suddenly went into a tailspin. February saw them losing six games in a row. In March, they were defeated seven consecutive times, including one game that found them losing by 36 points! By the end of that month, their record stood at 38-34.

  Kobe was doing everything he could to get his team back on top. In one stretch at the end of March, he became the second player in NBA history after Wilt Chamberlain to post point totals of 50 or more in four consecutive games, with 65, 50, 60, and 50. All those games resulted in wins.

  Other times, such as the match on April 2, he backed off from the basket and worked on helping his teammates rack up the points instead.

  “I like seeing my teammates being in a rhythm. I like seeing their confidence. I like seeing them smile,” Bryant said after that night’s 126-103 victory over the Sacramento Kings.

  The next game, it was Kobe who was smiling. Halfway into the third quarter, he sank a free throw to make his 26th point of the game. To his surprise, the crowd erupted into cheers.

  “I didn’t know what the people were clapping about until I got in the trainer’s room,” he said later. What he didn’t realize was that that shot brought his career total to 19,000 points, boosting him over Michael Jordan as the youngest player to reach that mark!

  The Lakers finished out their regular season schedule two weeks later. Kobe’s final point average of 31.6 was the highest in the NBA, the second year in a row he was
the league’s top scorer. He was proud of the achievement, as well as the fact that with ten 50-plus point games he had tied Wilt Chamberlain’s single-season record.

  But of course, those records didn’t add up to the ultimate goal: another NBA championship.

  With a record of 40 wins and 42 losses, the Lakers just squeaked into the playoffs. Their opponents? The Phoenix Suns.

  The Suns had beaten the Lakers ten times in their last twelve regular season meetings. In the previous year’s postseason, the Lakers had jumped ahead in the first round three games to one, only to be routed by the Suns in the final three games. This year, Los Angeles hoped the results would be much different.

  They weren’t. The Suns took the first game 95-87. They took the second by an even bigger margin, 126-98. The third game—a 45-point, 6-rebound, 6-assist effort by Kobe Bryant—ended in the Lakers’ only victory of the series. Phoenix rode roughshod over Los Angeles in the final two matches to advance to the next round.

  Soon after the final loss, Kobe Bryant made a public plea to the Lakers’ front office. The team was solid, but changes to the roster needed to be made if they were to regain their championship status. “Do it and do it now,” he said, adding that he was “beyond frustration” with the year’s results.

  He didn’t know it then, but things were about to get much, much worse.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  2007-2008

  MVP?

  On Tuesday, May 29, 2007, the Philadelphia Inquirer published a report in their newspaper about Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. The article quoted an anonymous source inside the Los Angeles organization as saying that “it was Bryant’s insistence on getting away from Shaquille O’Neal [in 2004]” that ultimately lead to Shaq being traded.

  When Kobe learned of the article, he was infuriated. The reason why was simple: the source was dead wrong. The next day, he set the record straight by doing an interview with radio personality Stephen A. Smith.

  Bryant told listeners of a meeting he’d had with team owner Dr. Jerry Buss midway through the 2004 season. The meeting was between Buss and Bryant only and included some news that shocked Bryant.

  “I am not going to re-sign Shaq,” Buss said. He believed Shaq was too expensive and too old. Then he reassured Bryant that the decision had nothing to do with the supposed feud between the two players. “This is my decision. It’s independent of you. My mind is made up.”

  According to Kobe, Buss also stated that he planned to focus the team’s efforts around Bryant, and that he wasn’t thinking of rebuilding. That latter statement proved to be false, for in the years afterward, rebuilding is just what the team had set out do.

  Kobe had never told anyone of this meeting mainly because he didn’t want to add to the media’s obsession with the troubles between himself and Shaq. But when the 2007 article appeared, he felt he had no choice but to come forward with the real story—a story that Shaq himself said he believed one hundred percent.

  Smith must have heard the bitterness in Kobe’s voice in the interview for he took the conversation in a new direction. “What are your feelings about the Los Angeles Lakers organization right now?” Smith asked.

  Kobe answered by saying how much he had always loved the Lakers as a kid growing up and as a player. But now he felt he had been betrayed.

  “I just don’t see how you can rebuild that trust,” he said wearily. “I just don’t know how you can move forward in that type of situation.”

  “Are you saying… that you want to be traded?” Smith asked.

  Kobe didn’t hesitate with his answer. “Yeah, I would like to be traded, yeah.”

  That reply sent shock waves through the basketball world. Bryant was barraged with questions from reporters. At times, he seemed to back away from his statement; other times, he seemed to confirm it. In the end, one message came through loud and clear: Kobe wanted to remain a Laker, but unless the organization was willing to make some changes, he would go.

  Rumors of trade talks circulated wildly in the following weeks. The Los Angeles Clippers and the Chicago Bulls were the teams most often mentioned. But by mid-summer, the story had begun to fade. Kobe himself said that he had put it out of his mind in order to focus on his play for Team USA and their drive to qualify for the 2008 Summer Olympics. With Kobe setting the pace, the squad reached that goal by winning the qualifying tournament in Las Vegas on September 2.

  Then it was on to the Lakers’ preseason—and the rumor mill began pumping out speculation about a Bryant trade once again. Dr. Buss added to those rumors by saying in mid-October that he would listen to any offers for his star player. But as nothing came of such talk, Kobe remained with Los Angeles.

  The preseason found Bryant plagued with other difficulties besides trade talks. He had been bothered with tendonitis in his knee, for one thing. Then, a week before the regular season began, he was forced to the sidelines with a wrist injury.

  The wrist healed quickly, however, and Kobe was cleared to play in the team’s opening day game against the Houston Rockets. He was loudly booed by the home crowd when he first took to the floor. But he quickly turned those jeers into cheers with an amazing 45-point performance. Those points added up to almost half of the team’s total score. Unfortunately for Laker fans, that total was two less than the points racked up by the Rockets.

  Los Angeles played Phoenix in their next outing— and embarrassed the team that had embarrassed them in the playoffs by winning 119-98. That game, Kobe demonstrated his new role of team facilitator, or the player who spurs on the action with crisp passes, able assists, aggressive rebounds, and pinpoint shooting. For his efforts, he posted 16 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals in 28 minutes of play.

  By the end of November, the Lakers had a record of 9-7. It was not their best showing in years, but it was respectable nonetheless. By the year’s end, they had bettered it to 19-11. Those wins included a December 23 match that saw Kobe Bryant earning an early Christmas present.

  That night, the Los Angeles Lakers played the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden. The Lakers jumped to an early lead, and by halftime were ahead 55-37. Kobe had drained 17 of those points, including two three-pointers. Then, in the first minute of the third quarter, he hit another three-pointer.

  All of a sudden, the crowd erupted with cheers. With that shot, Bryant had made his 20,000th career point! He was the thirty-first player to reach that mark and the youngest in NBA history. The Lakers won the game, thanks in large part to Kobe’s 39 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists.

  Less than a month later, Kobe closed in on another historic record in a thrilling game against the Seattle SuperSonics that was decided in the final four seconds of overtime. The score was tied at 121 points apiece when Bryant got the ball 18 feet from the basket. He turned, shot, and swish! Two points and the win!

  Those points brought his game total to 48, his first 40-plus game of the season—and the 87th of his career. If he had just one more game with more than 40 points, he would tie Elgin Baylor, who had 88, for third place in the NBA record books. Few people doubted he would tie and eventually surpass Baylor, and soon. And that’s exactly what happened.

  On January 25, 2008, he reached 88. On February 1, he made it 89. Nineteen days later, he was up to 90—despite pain in his right pinky, which he had dislocated earlier in the month. On March 2, he posted his 91st 40-plus game with a 52-point effort, his highest point total so far that season. And before March was through, he bested that mark by draining 53 points for his 92nd 40-plus game—and his 23rd 50-plus career game!

  Such performances had some people whispering that this year, Kobe Bryant would finally win an award that had eluded him so far in his career. Despite posting fantastic numbers in most of his eleven seasons, Bryant had never been voted as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player.

  No one disputed the fact that Kobe was a great player, perhaps the best on the court. The trouble was, many were uncertain if he was the best team player. For those voting fo
r MVP, this is what the award represented.

  That Kobe himself recognized this fact became clear in a reply he gave in mid-April when asked if he thought he had a chance to win.

  “The MVP nowadays is not an individual award, you really have to make your teammates better and elevate your ball club. I think for me to be nominated in that race is a tremendous honor because that’s really been one of the criticisms people have had of me, how well I make my teammates better. From that standpoint, I feel like I have already won.”

  But were his efforts enough for him to win MVP votes? Only time would tell. Meanwhile, he still had a job to do—namely, help the Lakers win their way through the playoffs and into the Finals!

  On April 11, the Lakers clinched first place in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference with a nail-biting 107-104 win over the dangerous New Orleans Hornets. Two nights later they beat the reigning NBA champions, the San Antonio Spurs, by a walloping 106-85 to jump ahead to first place in the Western Conference.

  “It’s all about momentum,” Kobe commented.

  That momentum carried the Lakers through their last regular season game, a 124-101 blowout over the Sacramento Kings. Kobe had 20 points that night, most of which were free throws. He also had 5 assists. The second of these marked yet another important milestone in his career.

  Bryant entered the game with 3,998 total career assists in eleven seasons. Within the first minutes of the first quarter, he had added number 3,999. Then, with 7:22 showing on the game clock, he dished the ball to teammate Vladimir Radmanovic, who drove in for a layup. Radmanovic added two points to the Lakers’ score—and Kobe became the sixteenth player in NBA history to have 4,000 career assists, only the third Laker to reach that mark.

  Kobe was pleased to have earned his way into the top ranks of basketball players. But there were still two goals that eluded him, the MVP award and a fourth NBA championship title.