Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol make up one of the greatest Lakers duos to date. They won championships in 2009 and 2010, and they were well-known for their amazing chemistry with one another.
In episode 1 of Pau Gasol’s documentary on Amazon Prime, Kevin Garnett claimed that Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol should have won more championships on the Los Angeles Lakers. He credited his own Boston Celtics for preventing that from happening.
That combination of Gasol and Kobe, and him and Bynum coming together, that whole synergy, I actually thought they should have won more championships. But there was a Celtics team out there somewhere.
The Boston Celtics won a championship in 2008 against the Los Angeles Lakers in 6 games, with their own big three of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen. Had Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol prevailed in 2008 against the Celtics’ superteam, we could have been talking about another Los Angeles Lakers three-peat today. The Boston Celtics definitely deserve credit for being able to stop Kobe Bryant from winning in those Finals, as stopping the best player in the world at the time couldn’t have been easy.
Even though there was a chance that the Los Angeles Lakers could have won more championships had the Boston Celtics not been present, history is set in stone and cannot be changed. The Kobe Bryant-Pau Gasol Lakers did manage to win two championships in a row, and that should be celebrated. They also managed to avenge their defeat in the 2008 Finals in 2010.
Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol are Los Angeles Lakers legends forever, and when Pau Gasol’s jersey gets retired, they’ll both be immortalized in the rafters next to one another. There is no question that many people have great memories of the pair, and the duo clearly impacted a lot of fans of the purple and gold.
