Believe it or not, the Los Angeles Lakers nearly traded Kobe Bryant in 2007.
The Lakers were in the middle of a competitive drought in ’07, having not won a title since the three-peat led by Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal from 2000 to 2002.
Around this time, Bryant reportedly requested a trade from the Lakers front office.
That’s when the Dallas Mavericks entered the picture, with owner Mark Cuban negotiating the terms to send Bryant to Dallas.
According to Cuban, who was featured on a new episode of O’Neal’s The Big Podcast with Shaq, Lakers owner Jerry Buss was all-in on trading Bryant to the Mavericks.
“Do you realize how close we were to trading for Kobe in 2007?” Cuban said. “Oh my god. … I talked to Jerry Buss … because Kobe had asked to leave. Jerry said (to Kobe), “Okay if you want to leave, we’ll take care of it,” and so I talked to him.”
“It was going to be Josh Howard, Jason Terry, and picks (for Bryant) … I literally thought it was done. Then Mitch Kupchak obviously stepped up and said, ‘We can’t do this” (and) talked Kobe out of it.”
In hindsight, it’s nearly impossible to imagine Bryant in anything but a Lakers uniform, but it appears that a deal was close to happening.
The real question is, how many titles would a Kobe Bryant-Dirk Nowitzki duo have won in Dallas?
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