Just when you think that, maybe, just maybe, you might understand the extent of Kobe Bryant’s obsession with Michael Jordan, you find out you’re wrong.
Here’s to being wrong.
Kobe’s unhappiness with the Los Angeles Lakers shortly after they traded Shaquille O’Neal is well documented. He wanted out, because, well, the Lakers weren’t good enough. Even his distaste for a trade that would have sent him to the Detroit Pistons at that time is basically common knowledge. That he wanted to join the Chicago Bulls is brand-spanking new.
During ESPN’s The Grantland Basketball Hour on Sunday night, Bryant copped to the trade demand and then said the Bulls topped his list of preferred trade destinations. Here’s the transcription courtesy of ProBasketballTalk:
I said, “I gave you a list of teams I’m comfortable being traded to. That wasn’t one of them. So, no.”
Chicago was my No. 1 choice.
Wham. Bam. Boom.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate how bizarre, yet not-so-bizarre this is. Kobe’s affinity for Jordan is nothing new. He’s mirrored his moves and a lot about his play style. Their approach to the game—kill, kill, kill—is eerily similar, too.
But this is a whole new degree of yearn. That Kobe actually wanted play for the Bulls, in the house that Jordan built, is further proof of this infatuation.
Fortunately for Kobe and Lakers fans, he stayed, winning two more championships. But this is an interesting “What if?” to consider. That 2007-08 Bulls team wasn’t very good. Joakim Noah turned out to be a stud, but there’s wasn’t much else in the way of preeminent talent—assuming, of course, Luol Deng would have been shipped out in any Kobe trade.
Another element to all this: The Bulls, against all odds, won the draft lottery that summer, eventually selecting Derrick Rose, an inevitable MVP winner. Would Kobe have vaulted the Bulls into the playoffs and out of the running for Rose? Would he have wound up playing beside Rose? Might LeBron James have joined the Bulls in 2010, knowing Kobe was there?
There are so many things to ponder here, not the least of which is how Kobe would have been remembered. Truth told, he’s probably better off never having played in Chicago. Never mind the championships, he would have been chasing Jordan’s ghost even more than he actually did. Talk about your distractions.
Which brings me to a closing question, directed at Bulls fans: Knowing what you know now, would you have wanted the Bulls to trade for Kobe?
Feel free to lose yourself in the Land of What Could Have Been or What Thankfully Never Was.
