Kobe Bryant Discussion: Mamba Out!

a neat little story from a fun guy

 

Let them know Kobe!

 

doesn't sound like a Fun Guy tho

 

I remember the days on CL when we were talking about LO + Bynum + 1st for KG. Seeing this confirms some strange part of discussing all those rumors back the in the day.



Alternate universe: what if Kobe picked up the phone??

 

It’s hard to believe that happened that way, and now nobody is here to dispute that version of the story.

 

i doubt a KG trade to LA would've ever happened with mchale calling the shots in minny. no way he was going to help out the lakers instead of his buddy ainge

 

Lurch would have rather sacrifice his first born before he would trade us KG.

 

In his 17 th season. Damn you Mike DamnPhoney

 

Let’s play out this alternate universe scenerio...

If KG ended up being traded in the summer of 2007 for LO/Bynum/pick, the Lakers roster depth chart going into the season opener would have been something like:

fisher/farmar
Kobe/Mo Evans/Sasha
Radmonavic/Walton/Ariza
KG/Turiaf/Cook
Kwame/DJ Mbenga/Mihm


God our depth was so horrible that season lol. However, the 2007-08 season was when Boston won it.... if this trade went down, it would have probably been a Lakers vs Cavs or Detroit finals, where the Lakers take it.

The Lakers probably would have 3peated from 2008-2011, and face the same implosion the 2012 Lakers had with a aging KG.

But here’s another crazy alternate universe thought, Pau Gasol was traded to the Lakers at the trade deadline during the 2007-2008 season for Kwame Brown and Aaron Mckie’s contract.

Now imagine if that still went down and we add Pau to KG/Kobe.......

 

If we could have gotten KG and to do so, he really would've had to cause a stink and force McHale's hand, that would've been an easy 3-peat and the most feared duo in the league. Boston never would've been a thing (who do they get?...Amare or JO?)

Kobe and KG would've been arguably the greatest defensive duo, even if only for a short window. Pau and KG could have been something special, too. Each allowing the other to shine on one end of the court.

Also imagine the defensive tenacity of KG, Kobe, and Ron Ron.

 

It's tough playing these what-ifs scenarios, but my take is that if KG had come here instead of Boston, and assuming the Pau trade doesn't take place, we would've had a devastating duo in KG and Kobe (DPOY and MVP) in 2008, and very importantly, it means there is no Boston Big Three, so no one to really stop Kobe. 2008 would be ours, even if missing Lamar compared to what really happened does hurt our depth a lot.

While in reality 2009 was our "easiest" championship, I would call this one our hardest one. We're in an alternate universe, so everything could easily change, but in reality, KG actually injured during the Playoffs, so if same thing had happened here, then 2009 looks tough for us. I somehow feel Kobe could've done it at the time though, since I remember his Playoffs series that year, but now there's no KG, no Lamar (traded), no Bynum (traded). We probably would've signed some center during the summer though in this scenario. God knows who.

Then 2010 would've been another good year for us. KG was okay for this one so no KG injury card here. Again, we have a Kobe-KG duo. And while KG at this point was already kinda slowing down on offense, he was still a great defender, and while slowed down still a force in offense, and as always, a great overall player. We also know have Ron making our defense for this year pretty stupid. Again, I feel we get this one no problem.

Let's assume we don't get that 2009 title and the Nuggets do (I feel the Nuggets were the strongest rival that year). We're still at 2 titles during these years, but more important, Boston would now be at 0 in those years, so in a way it's still like an extra title in our race to the top. I consider every Boston title a -1 to our titles, so to speak.

Also, another fun year to think about is 2011. I love Pau, he was a fantastic player in his time with us, he was and still is an incredible person and his dynamic with Kobe was just fun. But his defense on 2011 was pretty damn bad. We were absolutely destroyed by Nowitzki that year (all the props to him though. Amazing year for the dutch) who decimated both Lamar and Pau. Now let's go to our alternate universe, and we suddenly have KG defending Nowitzki.... This changes things A LOT. KG is like the perfect defender against Nowitzki. Big guy with excellent perimeter defense. Even if Kobe was not at his best during these Playoffs, the change in the Nowitzki matchup is huge for the series, and I think that could've given us the series. Not sure what would've happened against OKC. Dirk also destroyed that team. KG was in no capacity to do what Dirk did offensively and I believe Kobe was dealing with an injury through the PO. That series would've been tough for us, it would've depended on Kobe getting used to his injury probably. Finals would've been a breeze. LeBron was horrible on that Finals, and injury or not, with guys like Kobe, Ron and KG, we would've destroyed Miami that year.

And yes, we definitely explode in 2012. KG's decline was quite noticeable at this point, Phil is now gone and if our coaching decisions are still the same. We're going up against a wall pretty much the same way.

The most important thing is that in this alternate universe I think we have a serious chance of sitting above Boston in titles (or at least tied).

Had we gotten Pau AND KG, then that's a 4-peat I think. No way we're losing between 2008 and 2011.

All of that said, can't complain much about our reality during those years. Kobe and Pau were fantastic and Lamar thrived being a third priority instead of a second one. A more close-to-home alternate universe I would want is one were Ariza isn't injured in 2008 and Bynum isn't injured in 2000-always. I think that also nets us 2008-2010 at least.

 

i still wonder what happened to pau in the 2011 playoffs. he just folded and was never the same player after that

was he just burned out from 3 straight finals runs and and the olympics? were those rumors about his GF having a thing with shannon brown true? he didn't even show up for that dallas series