The late great Kobe Bryant spent his entire 20-year NBA career with the Los Angeles Lakers, but there was a real chance that things would have panned out differently. Bryant had famously handed in a trade request in 2007, and the Dallas Mavericks were one of the teams seriously interested in bringing him in.
Mark Cuban was the Mavericks’ majority owner at the time, and he spoke about their failed pursuit of Bryant on the Club 520 Podcast.
“Kobe was ready to get out,” Cuban said. “And I was on Dancing with the Stars. Google me. I didn’t win. But in any event, there was a dude named Elvis who was a production assistant. And he was just Kobe love everything. Kobe, Kobe, Kobe, Kobe. And in between breaks, I’d be like, ‘Elvis, I need a quiet spot,’ and I would talk to Rob Pelinka, his agent at the time, and he’s like, ‘Okay, if you can get Dr. [Jerry] Buss to approve.’
“And I talked to Dr. Buss, and he was ready to do it,” Cuban continued. “It was like two firsts, Josh Howard and Jason Terry for Kobe. And I thought, ‘Okay, this is done.’ And I told Elvis, ‘This is done.’ And I went to practice… And then we got a call from Rob that… Mitch Kupchak had talked Kobe out of it.
“That close,” Cuban added. “And I was telling Dirk [Nowitzki] the whole time… He goes, ‘You can trade me. I would trade me for Kobe, too.'”
Now, keep in mind that Dirk Nowitzki had just won MVP for his outstanding play in the 2006-07 season with the Mavericks. For Nowitzki to tell Cuban he wouldn’t take issue with being traded tells you just how good Bryant was. These two would have made quite the duo, but it wasn’t to be.
Then-Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak managed to convince Bryant to stay. Then, in February 2008, Kupchak acquired Pau Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies to give the guard the co-star he so desperately wanted.
Bryant and Gasol would lead the Lakers to three straight NBA Finals from 2008 to 2010. They would lose to the Boston Celtics in 2008, but bounced back by beating the Orlando Magic in 2009. Then in 2010, we got a rematch of the 2008 NBA Finals, but this time it was the Lakers who won in seven games.
You’d imagine Cuban would have been distraught watching Bryant win back-to-back titles with the Lakers. Sure, Gasol was a great power forward, but he was no Nowitzki. Bryant and the German would have been an even more dominant duo.
Cuban wouldn’t have to wait too long to taste ultimate glory himself, though. The Mavericks would stun the basketball world by going on one of the greatest playoff runs in modern NBA history to win the championship in 2011. Along the way, they swept Bryant and Gasol’s Lakers in the Western Conference Semifinals. That would have felt pretty sweet.
While Cuban says a deal for Bryant was nearly done, not everyone agrees. NBA insider Marc Stein reported that the deal was not as close to completion as the billionaire had sensed.
Stein says the Lakers only took one trade offer that summer, from the Detroit Pistons. They only did so to gauge Bryant’s willingness to waive his no-trade clause. He vetoed the trade and ended up staying.
