That would’ve been something
Kobe Bryant has been forced to watch his team suffer without him for the third consecutive season, after suffering a rotator cuff injury in a game against the Pelicans in January. Since then, speculation that next year could be his final year as an NBA player have run amok, but the Black Mamba has insisted that’s not the case. Whatever happens, he will surely go down as one of the greatest if not the greatest Los Angeles Laker that ever lived.
He could’ve easily been painting a similar legacy with the Detroit Pistons.
In an interview with Bill Simmons and Jalen Rose for Grantland‘s “Basketball Hour,” Kobe Bryant revealed that he nixed a trade that would have sent him to the Detroit Pistons in 2007 in exchange for Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince. According to Kobe:
And I said, I gave you a list of teams that I’m comfortable being traded to. That wasn’t one of them, so no.
Simmons: So who was on the list?
Kobe: Not Detroit.
Simmons: Chicago?
Kobe: Chicago. Chicago was my number one choice of destination.
Wow. Well, good thing for Los Angeles, after that trade didn’t happen, Kobe went on to win them two more championships (2009, 2010) with the help of Derek Fisher and Paul Gasol. Still, it’s crazy to imagine what would’ve happened had he been traded to the Eastern Conference. Imagine Kobe vs the Big 3 in the playoffs? Whew.
