Kobe's 1st Quarter

the Redeemed Team. We're calling this Kobe's first Quarter. And as you listen to the details and descriptions of the ups and downs of Kobe Bryant's first eight seasons in the NBA, keep in mind that all of this transpires through the time he was aged twenty five years old. Quarter of a century. That's it. I'm j A. Dande and I got an up close look at the Kobe show while covering the Lakers for ten years at the

l A Times and ten years at ESPN. And I'm joined by Jack McCallum, who made plenty of trips to l A when a chronicle of the NBA for Sports Illustrated. And Jack, I'm wondering, did you ever come to l A with one story in mind only to have Kobe

take it over? I'll tell you what most prominently it was during a strange summer of two thousand three, which you're going to be concentrating on If you recall, the same weekend that the news about Kobe's alleged sexual assault in Colorado broke, was the same weekend that the Lakers were proclaiming they had the new super team of the century. They had acquired Carl Malone and Gary the Glove Peyton to go with a you know, already great lineup with Kobe and Shack. And that week I had arranged to

fly out with Carl Malone. He had hired a private plane to take him to l A. When I got to the small town where he was hiding out, Jim Hill, by the way, the great l A sportscaster, were there, and it looked like, Hey, this is gonna be a great story about a super team. And next thing, you know, the Kobe Bryant news that happened in Colorado had broke. I never did get to use the stuff from the

Carl Malone plane ride. Yeah, that was probably the the ultimate example while Kobe was alive, of him just taking over and dominating the news. It would happen all the time. Though. I went up to cover the NFC Championship in two thousand six up in Seattle, and usually the NFL's Championship Sunday, right the two conference championship games is the big story. Loan, Behold what happens? Kobe drops eighty one points on the Toronto Raptors and sort of takes over that storyline as well.

It would happen again and again where Kobe would just come and and dominate the news and Jack even in the after lafe he could dominate the news. Following the tragic helicopter crash in January, Kobe Bryant dominated All Star Game in Chicago, and he even took over what should have been a tribute to David Stern right he had passed away on January one, and All Star Weekend was

really his creation. Under his tenure as a commissioner of the NBA went from just one game to this weekend filled with events and parties and all that, and it became the Kobe Show of Kobe celebration. All the players wore Kobe's twenty four or his daughter Gianna's number two in their jerseys during the game. He actually provided the news in Adam Silver's news conference, we are renaming our All Star m v P Trophy the Kobe Bryant m

v P Award. Along those lines, Kobe has really taken over this entire episode, and that wasn't the original plan, as we outlined the ark of this series, but really the accelerant in that shift was our interview with Phil Jackson, who was Kobe's coach from Ton with a notable one year break in the two thousand four oh five season. And Jack when we talked to Phil, he just really took us through this incredible journey of his time together with Kobe. He could be a little elusive, but when

you got him, it was never predictable. You know, he never took you out on what you Hey, a lot of times you go in interview with somebody and I'm collecting the quotes to support what my thesis is. And there's guys that are really good at doing that. You know what they're gonna say, but they're still really great at saying it. But Phil always did something that set

you off on another path. And you know, I think it's pretty obvious that when Kobe died, as was the case with many people, but certainly Phil as much as anybody you know, really started deeply thinking about these times with Kobe and some of the things he said to us were among the best. You know, I've been doing this for fifty years, and uh, it was really some of the best stuff that I had ever heard a

coach talking about a player. Yeah, at the end of our time with him, we asked him to summarize his relationship with Kobe, and he made it sound like something from a work of literature. Here he is, well, I think it's it's almost like a prodigal son story. And there we go into father elimination illustration that you know, there's a conflict, and there's wilfulness, and there's selfishness, and there's um, I can do this on my own type of thing, and then there's you know, the second life

or second opportunity that really brings back tenderness, yielding. You know, it took two of us to have that complicated relationship early on, you know, trying to both be wilful or directed, and his was to establish himself and his identity, and me to establish what a team had to do to win and the direction that teams have to have to have this unselfish behavior and bending that will I think

was done. You know, sometimes in you know, in usual ways, like one time coming to the facility and I had a place that I parking spot that was designated mine and there was Kobe's car in my parking spot. You know, things like that, just you know, know that he was gonna entertain me and me not reacting to it at all, you know, just going on about the day, you know, not taking on bridge at anything. And so we forged something that was harmonious and that that was one of

the joys of our life. And you know, my former repel and partner Jamie Buss, says that, you know, we raised him as a son of our own, So I guess there's something in that together. So you can see why we had to clear the way for this, much like Kobe isolating on the wings so he could go one on one. Although I'd say Kobe's ability to steal the spotlight also as part of the Lakers and the way they steal the spotlight, there's something about that franchise.

And a great example as we get back to the context of USA Basketball came in the Olympics, and USA Basketball executive Sean Ford told us that when they first got to Georgia ahead of the Olympic Games and they get to the hotel els around midnight and they credentialed everyone on the team and then the traveling party and then he's told at two am that he has to drive Shaquille O'Neil to the Weston Hotel and he didn't ask why, and then drive through Atlanta and he gets

to the West End. As as they're pulling up, he discovered the reason. Get out and Jerry West is waiting for him at the Lakers and uh he was that That's when he signed his contract with the Lakers. So Jack, if you remember that free agent signing when Shack left the Orlando Magic, it oversattled the start of the Olympics. Absolutely. I mean it did, as you said, overshadow the games. But that's kind of understandable. Shack was at the height of his powers back then and Jerry West signing of him.

You know, I talked to Jerry how many years after that is now, you know, twenty five years later, with however many signings Jerry has done, including you know, drafting Kobe, he still gets excited when he when he talks about that Shack signing. It's very It's really an interesting phenomenon. Remember at the time he compared it to the bird to his children, and it was that monumental an event

for him. And what we didn't realize though, was that he was equally as excited about his Draft day trade for Kobe Bryant, And initially I don't think we gave that enough attention. There was still there was curiosity about Kobe. Um. You know, high school players going straight to the NBA was was still a novelty. The year before, Chemi Garnett had become the first player to skip straight to the pros and twenty years and with Kobe was the first time that a guard had done it, So there was

that new aspect of it. And I went up to the Lakers first road game of the season. I was working in washing d C at the time. It took the train up to Penn Station in New York City and went up stairs and Madison Square Garden, and there was so much demand for young Kobe and one of his first games as a pro, that they actually did a separate press conference for him before their game against the Knicks. You know, back then, obviously people knew about Kobe.

Clips were not passed back virally back and forth. I don't remember, maybe you do, but I don't remember a thousand Kobe clips at you know, Lower Merion High School being passed back and forth. Now in the next episode, we're gonna be talking about Lebron. By that time, it was different. You know, eight years later, everybody who was a basketball fan had seen Lebron, and Kobe really didn't play in any of these as I recall any of these super games, you know, I get matched like Lebron

events Carmelo and stuff like that. So Kobe, as you said, was still still a little bit of a secret. I mean not not a full secret, but a little bit. Yeah, And we we talked to Eric Aldridge, who was the Lakers assistant PR director at the time. He was actually the guy that picked up Kobe at the airport to drive into his now legendary pre jaft workout with the Lakers at the inglewood Y m c A. And he he spoke on that aspect. Jack, A big part of the mystique of Kobe was we didn't really know who

he was. I mean again, this was pre social media. It was a lot of word of mouth. But once the Laker fans got to see Kobe for themselves, starting in the Summer League game and then early with this time with the Lakers, they really formed a quick bond. As authors noticed, Well, I think from my perspective, what I saw was, you know, people love your watching brilliance.

If you think about you know, Tiger Woods, you think about athletes who were so good so young, and then you you're watching it unfold in front of your eyes. I mean, it's almost like watching your own kid. You know, you you see it, you see the potential, but he's not there yet. It was clear that he wasn't there yet, but you could see it. But not only could you see it, you can see him working towards it. And I think that's the thing that connected him with the

fan base. And then Robert Dory was traded to the Lakers during Kobe's rookie season, and from his first practice with the team, he noticed that Kobe was working towards it even when the fans and the TV cameras weren't around. I remember Cole was just like, everybody's going like a third of a speed and Kobe's going one hund and shoot around, Like does this guy know this is a shoot around? And he was like, you know, I gotta go hard because I'm trying to start I'm like, dude,

it shoot around, nobody goes hard. And he just had all his energy and I said, that's that's an eighteen year old for you. You You know, that's you're gonna have all that energy. And when you wait waited this age m game, grinding hits, you're gonna slow down. And it was just one of those things. He was just trying to learn the game. And he was just one of those guys that was in the gym constantly trying to get better. I mean every play he was going hard.

So Kobe had his formula for greatness on the court, but he didn't have a pathway to bonding with his teammates. And part of it was the age gap. Kobe was born in ninety eight. The next youngest player on the team was born in nineteen seventy four. And put it this way, how much time did you spend hanging out with seniors during your freshman year in college? And of course Kobe never had any of that college experience. You know, that transition time when you're away from home, every's an

equal footing. You're in the dorms, you're sharing sleeping quarters with the roommate. You've all got this community bathroom, down the down the hall, and its altres put it. He just didn't have those social skills built up yet. So altre also members of time. Early in Kobe's career, when he and some of the players went to a TGI Fridays after a preseason game in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Kobe walks in the restaurant. He didn't even join them

at first. That was a rookie faux pa. And when he finally came over, he's astounded that the players are drinking, Like he couldn't believe they had a game to play the next night and they're drinking alcohol. And Robert Rory was one of the players at the table and he recalled that night it was all about bonding, And I think he didn't understand that it's it's about coming together and bonding, because if you think about it, it was I always believe that it was a disconnect because you're

just eight year old. What do you have in common with the a t O in twenty just probably video games at the time video games were like the level they r now. Um, So it was it was a disconnect them. And and I think when he turned twenty one, he was like, okay, I'm a part of crewing them. But to disconnect was did the wall. I should say it was up so hard. It was kind of to reconnect. We'll be back with more Kobe, Lebron and the redeem team after this. So then in there's a huge new

personality added to the mix, Bill Jackson. There had been a series of playoff disappointments with the Lakers and that led to the firing coach Del Harris, and then the Lakers didn't think his replacement, Kurt Rambis was up to the task, and Phil Jackson was available. The reason why I was covered pretty extensively in the last Dance and the Lakers signed filled with a five year, thirty million dollar contract and jack that was really big bucks for a coach at the time. It was sort of a

little version of what had happened in Chicago. Jordan was very very close to Doug Collins. He had gotten them to a certain point, and you know, you don't know whether Phil is back there studying the situation and going okay, I think it's time, you know. And it's obviously a combination of taking over a team when they're ready to mature. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But it's also Phil's got a little bit of a magic touch that he was able to add and next thing, you know,

three titles in a row. Yeah, and Phil, when he took over in Chicago, A he was coming from inside. He wasn't coming from the outside. But the advantage he had when he came to the Lakers was that he was minted with six championships, and so they had to respect him. He commanded their respect, and I think in part it was a message to the star players that they had to get serious or they could be the

ones out the next time. And they responded. As Robert Ori noted from the first DAID training camp, when they get there and he sees that Kobe's bulked up and shock and slimmed down. It's almost like they were skin of field and they got in the best shape of their lives. They were looking good, and they were like, oh, we gotta be ready for his upcoming season. And so Kobe was so eager to learn from Phil Jackson, his idol, Michael Jordan's coach, that he went to meet with Phil

before his introductory press conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Meanwhile, Shack cross passed with Phil that summer at Jackson's getaway cabin in Montana. He was riding around the bay on some jet skis that he had borrowed from neighbors. As far as you could see, people were standing out on

their docks and looking at him. And he'd been jumping on the trampoline that was in my yard, and my neighbors kept seeing this figure show up above the boat house and Jack was jumping on the trampoline, and then he went off to the dock and he did he dove in the dock, and then he borrowed some jet skis and went around. So the big, fun loving guy, you know, was somebody I knew already. And in that story you can hear the affection for Shock and Phil's voice.

And he was also intrigued by the chance to coach a dominant center, and that was the one element he didn't have with the Chicago teams. And so acts and made Shack the focal point of the offense. But Kobe didn't always follow the plan. He would just go rogue, and I pulled him the sideline and saying it's not the time to try and take over the game. Yet, Yeah, I'll get back to it, and he go back and

run the offense for a little bit. But you know, everything was predicated to going through Shack a lot at that time, because that's what I said, that's what we're gonna do. So how we're gonna attack this team and this game. And uh, you know, Kobe got tired of doing that. But Kobe was capable of playing and of working alongside Shack. And there's three championship banners and Staples Center to prove it. When Kobe and Shack joined forces

at the top, their combined powers were unbeatable. And what's interesting to me is that Phil Jackson singled out the same moment that I always referenced as the display of Kobe and Shack at their collaborative best, and it's to play near the end of Game seven and the two thousand Western Conference Finals, when Kobe crossed up Scottie Pippen. Then he threw a lob to Shack and that's the one that finished off the comeback against the Portland Trail Blazers and it sent them on to the NBA Finals.

I think it was solidified when jack understood that Kobe knew how to win what was necessary to win, and was able to do the things that created the winds, and that he would give up the ball at the

right time to create this. Well, the demonstrating moments was that dunk against Portland in the game the seventh game of that series, when you know, all of a sudden, you know, there was a movement which everybody was expecting Kobe to make some kind of a shot or whatever, and he just put the ball up there for Shock to to ram it down through the hoop. And I think that was really a moment that kind of solidified everything, and they kind of understood then that they were gonna

do whatever it took to win. It felt like the Lakers would keep winning championships for the foreseeable future. Jack

was Kobe. This was his version of college graduation, and that was an element that the Lakers, who had pretty much stayed set for throughout their three championships, and they just weren't ready for that element, and and losing that, of course, uh led to that drastic change that you mentioned earlier when they brought in Gary Payton and Karl Malone and they said, okay, we need to upgrade, and

they majorly upgraded. But meanwhile, the mileage of all those deep playoff runs had had really worn down Kobe's knee, and unbeknownst to the Lakers, he went to Eagle, Colorado to get surgery. He just did it out of the blue. The club was totally surprised at the incident and everything

and all hell broke loose after that. And while he was in Colorado, Kobe had a sexual encounter with the hotel employee and she later accused him of sexual assault, and all that led to the most surreal press conference I've ever attended, and it featured Kobe, his wife Vanessa, and his attorney, Pamela Mackie, who was voice so here first from in the clip from that day, Toby Bryant is innocent of the charges that were filed at as him today, I'm innacent. I didn't force her to do

anything against her will. I'm innocent. In that case just loomed over the whole season, even despite the additions of those two future Hall of Fame players, and it also increased the tension between Shaq and Kobe. Shack had learned that Kobe brought Shack's name into the statement that he gave police and one thing it did was create even more distance between Phil and Kobe. And at the time that Kobe probably could have used more support and advice,

Phil's approach was to give Kobe more space. And Phil just didn't know what to make of Kobe's presence on the team. He just felt the anger emanating out of his being. I don't know who. He's angry at himself, He's angry at the situation, He's angry at the public exposure. There's a lot of things. I never felt really comfortable with it, and I just decided to be hands off and situation. It felt like a personal upfront to me to keep in mind all the other things that play.

Bill Jackson was in the last year of his contract. He was trying to get an extension. Shack had another year left on his contract, but he wanted an extension, and Kobe this was the key could become a free agent after the season, and for the first time he was in a position to flex his leverage. And I don't know if Kobe ever gave Lakers owner Jerry Buss an ultimatum that he would leave unless Bus got rid of Shock and Phil, But I do know I can't explain how. But trust me, I do know that Bus

really didn't think Jackson should keep coaching that team. And he also realized that he couldn't keep both Shack and Kobe, that one of them was going to have to go. They couldn't co exist any longer. That was his mindset. I don't know the extent that Kobe influenced, but I'm really confident that that was Jerry Buss's mentality at the time.

I'm interested. You were out there, and uh, I always have this this theory, and when you say something is the theory, that means it doesn't have to be correct it. I always thought that it had to be like somebody's team, not not two guys team, you know, it had to be one guy's team. And it always was fascinating to me because Shaq was such a dominant figure. And maybe

it's just because I knew him better. I had worked on a book with him on in his rookie year, and I kind of, like, you know, knew I could always gravitate to him. He as you said, he was a dominant player. They were still using, you know, feed the post type of situation and the triangle utilize the

post person so Shack was dominant on the court. But and you alluded to this, I think there there seemed to be in l A the affection between Kobe and the fans seemed to go beyond what the affection was for Shock and the fans, which is interesting to me because it's a showman's town and now Kobe was a showman too, But my god, Shack. So how do you kind of explain a whose team it was and be the the incredible affection Kobe had with those Hollywood fans.

Part of it goes back to the old world Chamberlain line, right, Jack, nobody roots for Goliath. And even though Shack was as warm and engaging a big man as we've ever seen, and the Lakers had a tradition and a rich legacy of big men going back to George, Mike and and Wilt and Kareem, but those guys were never the favorites, right. Jerry West and Elton Baylair were fan favorites over Wilt's

Magic was the fan favorite over Kareem. The Laker fans never really bonded with Kareem the way they did with Magic, And I think, just again it's part of it. There's something more relatable. Why is Steph Curry so popular, right, because he's closer in size to the average fan. And Kobe, even though he's tall, wasn't a behemoth like Shack And

that was part of it. And you wonder if part of it also is that the only uniform that Kobe ever wore was the Lakers were me Maybe he wore that Charlotte Hornet's cap on Draft night, but you know, from the time he played his first game, he was in a Lake uniform where Shaq came from the Magic and then of course later played on several teams after he left the Lakers, So that there's there are all

those factors. And I'm guessing after the sexual assault charge, Kobe became a more complicated figure, a figure of redemption. So he became a character that people understand in Hollywood when they're pitching a movie. People understand that, but Check never really had something like that. Yeah, if anything, that experienced, that ordeal of the sexual assault case bonded Kobe with the fans even more and and they zealously defended him from the get go. And you know, he he never

lost the crowd. It it it never cost him his standing with the Laker fans. You're listening to Kobe Lebron and the redeem Team. We'll be back in just a moment. I remember that press conference, by the way, Jake, because as I said before, I was supposed to be writing the the the Wonderful, Feel Good Gary Payton, Carl Malone joined up for the super Team. And there was this guy next to me, and uh, he goes, uh, where are you from? I said, I'm from Sports Illustrated. He

was not impressed. He went up from Celebrity Justice. So apparently there was a thing I don't know, maybe it still exists called Celebrity Justice. And I went, oh, ship man, we're in a different world here it was, and that that season it was it was Access Hollywood and and E and and it just became this whole other thing. And that press conference it felt like a movie, just because I never thought I would be there for something like that. For Kobe Riots, it was an outlandist that

an athlete could find himself in his circumstance. But but Kobe Bryant, it just it seemed unfathomable that he would stand before is accused of sexual assault and you and you have the problem of how to. I don't want to use the word spin because that's not what you're doing. But when you write a story or when you're broadcasting, you were writing, were you still writing back then? Or yeah, yeah, I'm I'm writing. I covered every almost every game of

that season for the l a time. You have to figure out, you know, which way you're kind of shading it? Do you express utter disbelief? Um? The one thing you cannot do is, you know, begin casting as some people do, you know, begin casting aspersions on the accuser. Uh, you know right away. And it's a very you know, it's a very difficult story to write, and to this day it be you know it. It is a very difficult thing to deal with and of a no win situation.

I mean, there's a woman who worked at Sports Illustrated, who I deeply respected, who you know, got really angry one day because she thought as the years went on, Now this is years later, you know, maybe it was when Kobe scored eighty one or Kobe one two in a row, why are you still glorifying this guy? Why are you still And you know, my point was, I can't begin every story with Kobe Bryant Comma who was accused of an assault in Colorado in July of two

thousand three. You can't begin every story like that. That a person deserves a chance to go on and grow. But it's a tough, you know, journalistic lesson, I think for anybody to handle. You agree, Yeah, And it's made even more difficult than that. We never got the definitive declaration of guilt or innocence from a court resolution. Right,

it was dropped before it went to court. Again, he reached agreement, and that's why I maintain we have to allow for the possibility that the user saw this resolved to her satisfaction. You know, there was a large settlement made and Kobe agreed to apologize and he issued in basically an apology and an explanation, and the accuser said she would no longer cooperate with the prosecutors, and that

basically ended the case. And it's possible that that was enough to satisfy and she felt, you know, justice had been served in that regard and that she got what she wanted. We don't know, we've never heard from her, so maybe she's still upset, maybe she feels like it was insufficient. But the fact that um we never did hear from her, and I'm certain you know there was a degree of silence that was part of the agreement that was reached, but we've never heard otherwise. So that's

one thing I've taken into consideration. And again a lot of this came up again after Kobe died, is that how much of his story should we allocate for this and uh, should it dominate as you said, should it be in the lead paragraph, but in his obituary, I'm not certain. And it's especially you do have to allow

for for growth. And then we'll hear from Phil Jackson over the course of this series, the growth that he made in his relationship, the steps that Kobe took in order to for them to have a productive working relationship for the latter part of Phil's career in the second half of Kobe's career, and we look at Kobe what he went on to do and become such an advocate for women's sports um which is what he almost became known for, and in particular his daughter and and at

the time of his passing, he had really become a champion for the w n b A. So so all of those things came into play by the end. Yeah, it's unusual. You know, a lot of sports figures or celebrities have their great falling at the end, you know, I mean what he Hayes went for years when his behavior was like sort of right on the edge. But Kobe was different. You know, as you said, I'm not excusing his age. By the way, he was certainly old enough, you know, not to to to know that extramarital sex

was wrong. Whatever happened. But all this, this happened so early in his career, and he had so much of his life to live, and as much as he had time to be derided by fans Ford, he also had the time to change exacting. But Jack, getting back to that notion that his his age, and as we've titled this episode, it was the first quarter, and in a way that benefited him because it allowed for him to make the comeback. So he still had the prime of

his career to come. And one thing that we've learned in sports is that if you win, if you if you get back to the top, much is forgiven. And so one of the reasons that the Kobe Bryant story is told in the manner it is is that he went on to win two more championships after this low point, and certainly two thousand three four is the absolute low point,

but he pulls himself back from that. But at the time it was so different, and it's hard to believe that Phil Jackson that you heard at the top of this episode and the affection that he had for Kobe Bryant, that certainly wasn't the case in oh three oh four. And Phil actually at that point wanted complete separation from Kobe. He even went to the front office and asked to

get Kobe traded. And we know this because he wrote about it in his Diary of the season it came out that summer, and also because he told it to us once again when we spoke to him for this podcast. And I just went in and talked to the management and said, Yo, I don't think this is the right time right now. I think Kobe is uncoachable at this

particular time in his life. And uh, I don't know what your direction is, but I think I think you have to really assess whether you want to sign Kobe for more or how you want to deal with this situation. And so that happened. I believe the timeline is in January two thousand four, and then there's various reports about what happened is supposedly a meeting that Kobe had with

Jerry Buss on Super Bowl Sunday. What I do know is that it all spilled out in the open the week right up before the All Star Game, the last game before the All Star Break, the Lakers are in Houston, and they announced that they're pulling their contract extension offer for Phil Jackson off the table, so he's basically going to be a lame duck in the second half of the season. And Shaq was very upset by that. We asked Kobe his reaction. He said, I don't care. That's

three word quote. I don't care. So that's shows where their relationship was. And then it's the All Star Break and we talked about the Lakers overshadowing things. Well, they overshadowed that All Star break. It's in Los Angeles, and I remember people at the NBA were so mad because that's supposed to be their showcase, their time to hype and promote the league, and all anyone that's talking about

is the squabbling between the Lakers and their superstars. Shot did call me after the All Star Game and said, Kobe basically said something that was derogative towards you the All Star Game, and um, I think you should talk to him. And I said, you know, Cobe just is going through difficult time right now. It's hard for him to take directions. He's angry, he feels isolated, and he's drawn into himself. And I think the best thing to do is just let him be. I think that he's

he'll he'll find his way through this. And so I didn't make an issue out of that, but I do know that that the contentious nature was part of his carriage at that time. And um, he was announced to be a free agent, I believe in right before the draft that year, and I was dealing with the extension on a contract at the same time. Jack. The irony is is that basically Kobe set Shack up to be the m v P that All Star Game. After all they've been going through, Kobe kept passing in the ball

and Chack Win's MVP that All Star Game exactly. You know this. I don't think people understand the day to day totality of how a team is together, like how much they're together, how they can get on each other's nerves. And one of the great things I think about Jerry Buss, you have Phil, a great coach, a great you know, one day we gotta get you know, we gotta get rid of Kobe. Next thing, you know, he's winning championships

with him. And one of the great things about an owner like Jerry Buss who's not involved in this day to day rigamarole is he sits back and goes and has a very clear vision. I think Kobe Bryant is the best guy to win us more titles. It was like what he said with Magic, I don't care if we trade the whole damn team. I want Magic Johnson, you know. And that's one of the things a clear headed owner will do. And that's why, Hey, I'm sure Jerry Buss did some you know, made some stupid decisions

like every other owner. But I'll tell you what. The guy had his eye on the prize and the price eyes out of the aughts was going to be Kobe Bryant, and he saw it. And you know, I'm not sure Jay, what I would have said about it if I had that decision. But he had his decision, that's for sure. And so the way the rest of that season played out, is that they lose. In the NBA post, it had

pretty much been determined. I'm sure that that Jerry Bust decided that Kobe was going to be the guy going forward and he was going to be the centerpiece of this team. And within a few weeks at the end of those NBA Finals, Phil Jackson is out as coach, and then Shaquille O'Neil is traded to Miami and the Lakers as we had known them are no more. And everything wasn't finished for Kobe though, because he still had

to resolve the sexual assault case. He was based in Colorado, and ultimately they reached the resolution of that we discussed earlier, and they settle out of court and the accuser drops the case and will no longer cooperate with the prosecutor. The problem for Kobe, it though, was he had no idea that it was going to play out that way, and so because of that, he couldn't promise USA Basketball, he couldn't make that commitment to play with them for

the Olympic team in Athens that year. And you wonder if that changes the whole course of history. Right going back to the initial allegation in the summer of two thousand three. It's still having an impact here in the summer of two thousand four, and it keeps Kobe off the Olympic team because he just couldn't make that commitment. He didn't know what his what his schedule, what his life was going to be like. You didn't even know if he'd be a free man at the point of

the Olympics. And so you wonder though, if he had been on that team, do they lose, do they finish with the bronze medal, or does Kobe get them to the gold medal as he ends up doing in two thousand and eight, And if they do win the gold medal, do we not have that reboot of the USA basketball program led by Jerry Colangelo? And do we not even have the whole redeemed team and USA basketball as we know it now. That's it's a pretty significant what if hindsight.

But I covered those games, the two thousand four Olympic Games and Athens, and I can tell you this, Jay Uh, I doubt in Game one, when Carlos Royo made the United States look like a JV team, I don't think Kobe would have stood for that ship. So I'm gonna bet that it would have been different. But I'll tell you what. Our episode three coming up is about the other alpha dog on a two thousand eight Redeemed Team,

Lebron James. We're gonna be hearing about his tale and three other players from the Redeemed Team who were in that great two thousand and three draft class, Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. And also an account of those strange two thousand four Olympics when we only came home with a bronze medal. There's no pressure. There's no pressure at all. I've been getting pressure since I was ten years old. I think things could have been different,

but we didn't. We never had time. I mean, we came at the last minute, me and Lebron and did we We We got to call that the last minute and the way that we looked at him like we we just we all here put a rocket film. I'm Jack McCallum, I'm je Thanks for listening to Kobe Lebron and the Redeemed Team. The Dream Team Tapes, Season two. Kobe Lebron and the Redeem Team is a production of Diversion podcasts

in association with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, where wherever you get your podcasts. This season has written and hosted by me, Jack McCallum and j A. Dandee, Executive producer Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast

and Sean's High Tone for I Heart Radio. Our editorial director is John Tuttle, Supervising producer Brian Murphy, legal producer Freddie Overseeghen editing, mixing and sound designed by Mark Frances. Verna Fields is our technical producer, and our director of Marketing and business Development is Jacob Bronstein Diversion Podcasts