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The Kobe Bryant era for the Los Angeles Lakers was one full of highs and lows from the very start.
After coming back from a wrist injury, Bryant was unhappy coming off the bench and called Jerry West to discuss how to score more consistently on a nightly basis as well as to request a trade. At the time, Phil Jackson actually considered an intriguing trade offer on the table from the Detroit Pistons.
Per Charley Rosen of TodaysFastbreak:
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“A couple of weeks later, we're still winning and Shaq is completely motivated. But Kobe was only averaging about 19 points per game. So Kobe called Jerry West and wanted to know how Jerry and Elgin Baylor both averaged 30 points. Kobe also said that he wanted to be traded. Of course, Jerry told me about the conversation. And, for a few minutes I thought about taking the Pistons up on an offer they made to trade Kobe for Grant Hill. Make that a few seconds.
“The thing was that Kobe already saw himself as being one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA. I thought that, in time, he would indeed reach that goal.
“Anyway, he was not going to be traded. So we'd talk about being patient, and letting the game come to him. But Kobe would sometimes still go off on his own, disregarding the offense and trying to single-handedly take over the game. When I called him on this, he'd say that for us to keep on winning, there was a lot for him to do.
Could you imagine if Bryant and Grant Hill swapped places? Hill had an injury-riddled career, and Bryant may have led the Pistons to a couple of titles in Detroit. Oh, what could have been…
