Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest Lakers of all time, a total killer on the court and one of the most loyal players in the history of the game. He spent his entire NBA career with the Lakers, winning five championships with two Finals MVP, becoming a total legend in Los Angeles. However, Kobe was close to leaving the Lakers a couple of times, and in 2007, the Dallas Mavericks had a good shot to land the player.
While Shaq was ruling the East with the Miami Heat, Kobe was struggling with the Lakers, seeing the San Antonio Spurs take over the West. Mark Cuban revealed a couple of months ago that the Dallas Mavericks tried to lure Bryant away from Los Angeles to pair Kobe and Dirk Nowitzki. Cuban joined JJ Redick’s podcast a couple of months ago to talk about the trade that never happened, explaining how things went down.
“I thought we had traded for Kobe. I thought we had a deal for Josh Howard, Jason Terry, and a couple of firsts and I went out to Jerry Buss with the Lakers and we agreed upon it. Dirk called me and said ‘look if you need to trade me for Kobe, I would make that deal in a heartbeat’.”
What or who made Kobe dismiss the trade? The Logo, Jerry West.
“It obviously fell apart. Jerry West called Kobe and said you can’t do this and that killed the deal”.
Imagine what would’ve been if that trade went through. Kobe was looking for that partner he was missing since Shaq was traded to Miami in 2004 and Dirk was going through a sweet moment at that time. They both together would’ve damaged the plans for the San Antonio Spurs, the Boston Celtics and more teams. We saw what Kobe was able to do with Pau Gasol by his side. Just imagine an association between the Black Mamba and Dirk. Total madness for the Mavs.
