- [Narrator] Five years after he lost
his championship co-star, Kobe Bryant silenced doubters
by winning it all without Shaq, Twice.
Kobe earned his first Finals MVP in 2009,
as the Lakers took down Dwight Howard
and the Orlando Magic in five games.
That was also Coach Phil Jackson's 10th championship,
pushing him ahead of Red Auerbach's record.
And while Kobe had become LA's undisputed star,
he did have a strong veteran supporting cast.
Built by GM Mitch Kupchak,
Clever Spanish big man Pau Gasol, stout point guard
Derek Fisher and the savvy adaptable Lamar Odom.
That cast only improved following the O9' championship.
Young center Andrew Bynum still had knee problems,
but had better luck fighting through them.
And newcomer Ron Artest provided the boost LA needed
to roll back to the finals in 2010.
And exact revenge against the Boston Celtics
who had beaten them in 08'.
Now with two Finals MVP trophies to go with his
two Shaq-less championship trophies,
Kobe's on court legacy was secure but not necessarily done.
Bryant had just signed an extension
to stay in purple and gold well into his 30s.
What would that final chapter of his
glorious career look like?
Would he find continued success with the same group?
Would he recruit stars to form a new super team?
Would he bring LA even more championship banners
before saying goodbye? Well.
After a title repeat, the first order of business
was Phil Jackson's future.
The 65 year old coach had pondered
going back into retirement,
but decided to stick around one more season
because a prophecy told him
that was the right thing to do. Cool.
The second order of business was Kobe's health.
Bryant had been bothered by soreness in his shooting hand
and in his surgically repaired right knee all season.
And in July, he got another operation on the knee.
The championship hangover was real.
Kobe rarely practiced with the team,
in an attempt to preserve his knee.
Gasol felt the weight of big minutes,
and Odom was extra fatigued because of a summer spent
with Team USA.
This all bred frustration, which boiled over at times,
like when the Lakers suffered an embarrassing Christmas Day
loss to the Heat, and Kobe called out his teammates.
Nevertheless, LA won 57 games.
Same as the prior season, and marched
into the playoffs a two seed.
They handled their business in the first round,
eliminating New Orleans in what would be
Chris Paul's final games as a hornet.
The second round didn't go so hot.
The Lakers blew leads in games one and three
against the Mavericks, and got blown out in game four.
The closest they came to putting up a fight
was occasionally attacking JJ Barea.
Despite ending the season with a playoff sweep,
the first of his coaching career, Phil followed through
on his promise to retire.
In retiring, Jackson shed some light
on LA's unique front office.
The man who'd been a Lakers fixture for most of the decade,
said he had minimal relationship with management
and didn't expect them to consult him going forward.
Jackson was not referring to Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak.
He was talking about members of the Buss family,
longtime franchise owner Jerry Buss and his children,
several of whom had significant executive roles.
Jim Buss was in charge of basketball operations.
Jeanie Buss was in charge of the business side
and to add another wrinkle was Phil's girlfriend.
So Yeah, these people who each felt very differently
about the departing extremely successful coach
now had to replace him.
Kobe had expressed approval for longtime
Jackson assistant Brian Shaw,
but Kupchak and the Busses made a point
of not consulting players on the decision.
They passed over all the in house candidates
for a newcomer, Mike Brown.
The coach who'd worn out his welcome
with LeBron and the Cavs.
Kobe maybe wasn't thrilled with that hire,
but he had to be excited when following
the 2011 NBA lockout,
the Lakers agreed to a monumental trade,
Kobe would lose his best two co stars with
Gasol going to the Rockets and Odom to the Hornets.
But he'd gain the best young point guard in the NBA,
and probably his best co star since Shaq, Chris Paul,
Just one problem.
The NBA technically had control of the Hornets franchise
and after lots of whining from other teams,
Commissioner David Stern vetoed the trade
for what he called basketball reasons.
While Paul ended up in a different LA jersey,
the Lakers had to figure out how to handle
two important players, who were now pretty bummed
that their employer had tried to dump them.
Odom was upset enough that LA considered the bridge burned
and hurried to find a new home for him.
They traded the reigning sixth Man of the Year to Dallas
for just a protected first round draft pick.
Despite losing Odom LA's first season under Mike Brown
was pretty uneventful on the court.
Kobe, Pau, and Bynum all played well,
The Lakers made the playoffs as a three seed,
and won a tough first round against the Nuggets.
But they once again fell in the second round
to the eventual Western champ.
This time it was the mighty OKC Thunder.
Perhaps more important long term was LA's work off the court
like at the 2012 trade deadline.
They didn't like their point guard situation
after the Paul trade fell through,
So they sent Fisher and the first round draft pick away
for big man Jordan Hill, then traded more picks
to bring in promising young point guard Ramon Sessions.
Sessions wasn't that good in LA
and he left in free agency that summer.
So that was a bunch of assets including multiple
first round draft picks dealt for very little.
This was the same season in which Lakers management
came under fire from Kobe for their treatment of Gasol.
They came under further fire for Jim Buss's
wild careless shuffling of the staff around Kupchak,
his attempts to completely scrub the team
of Phil's fingerprints.
And remember that was his sister's boyfriend.
CBS's Ken Berger called the Lakers
"a steaming pool of nepotism and nincompoops."
Well, the steaming pool was about to have
a pretty big summer.
In July, the Lakers acquired aging star point guard,
Steve Nash, losing a few more draft picks in the process.
In August, a long rumored move finally went down.
A massive 4-team trade that, among other things,
sent Bynum to Philadelphia and brought the Lakers
Dwight Howard, a superstar center with an expiring contract.
Forget the future, with a 38 year old point guard
and a soon to be free agent center,
The Lakers were going for it immediately.
Basketball experts were thrilled.
And SI put LA on their season preview cover,
promising fun.
Well, Howard missed a lot of camp and preseason
recovering from back surgery, that's not fun.
The brittle Nash fractured his leg in his second game,
not fun, Brown's attempts at installing a Princeton offense
were eclipsed by how badly the Lakers defended
to open the season.
Jim Buss wondered aloud if Brown's system was flawed,
and fired him after just five games,
necessitating a hasty mid season hire, not fun.
Jeanie Buss assumed the Lakers would bring her pal Phil
out of retirement, but Jim stunned and, in her eyes,
betrayed Jeannie by going with another star coach,
LA's former rival, Mike D'Antoni.
without the benefit of a training camp to get familiar,
D'Antoni struggled to run his own system on the fly.
Players missed time with injuries, egos clashed,
and the awkwardness of the Howard-Gasol pairing
led to Pau's occasional benching,
which only led to more egos clashing.
And speaking of which friction between the Buss children
got further complicated when their father Jerry
passed away in February 2013 at the age of 80.
Man, None of this fun.
When the Lakers finally began to turn it around
after the all star break, Kobe tore his Achilles tendon.
LA had won enough to slip into the playoffs,
but promptly got swept by the Spurs.
LA's first opening round exit since 2007.
Entering the summer with no first round draft picks,
and minimal space to build,
the Lakers prepared to run it back.
D'Antoni would get to coach a season from its beginning
and when Kobe got healthy, maybe the Lakers could coalesce
and improve internally.
One issue, Howard was a free agent,
and he hadn't exactly loved his season
with D'Antoni and Kobe.
The Lakers could offer Dwight more money
than anyone else could, and did what they could
to woo him back, but Howard bailed,
signing with the Houston Rockets.
The Lakers knew they were boned.
LA legend Magic Johnson, communicating via Bill Simmons'
Twitter account for some reason,
was already looking ahead to the summer of 2014,
when they'd have some cap space,
LA waived their 2010 finals hero who'd since
changed his name to Metta World Peace.
Metta responded as only Metta can.
The Lakers made some minor signings, Swaggy P among them,
and otherwise buckled down for a season that started okay
but got super rough when Kobe messed up his knee
like a week after returning from the Achilles stuff.
That injury and many more sunk LA to 27 and 55,
their worst record yet.
Those 27 wins included a game in which the Lakers
were so depleted by injuries, that Chris Kaman
had enough room to treat the bench like a bed.
The 55 losses included a 48 point defeat to the Clippers
who, with Paul, had taken over as LA's superior team.
It was a year long embarrassment, and crucially,
D'Antoni and Gasol still didn't get along.
In the offseason, both of them left.
Besides falling into a lottery pick.
The primary lasting impact of that dismal 2013, 2014 season
was that despite his declining health and inclining age,
the last player standing from those championship teams
would be a significant part of the future.
Weeks before his season ending knee injury,
Kobe had signed a two year contract extension.
The Buss family once again felt pressure
to build quickly around their aging legend.
Pressure only complicated by the fact that
Jeannie had taken a bigger role since her father's death
and had publicly expressed her displeasure with Jim.
Jim knew that he and the GM, Kupchak,
needed to turn things around,
and he publicly raised the stakes of not doing so.
He said if he didn't bring the Lakers back to contention
in the next three or four years, he'd leave.
So, onward, with their 7th pick in the 2014 draft,
the Lakers snagged burly, versatile,
Kentucky forward, Julius Randle.
With that cap space Magic had been so excited about,
the Lakers pursued a number of big names.
Here was the best chance for Buss and Kupchak
to fix the Lakers fast.
They wanted free agent LeBron James,
but he chose to return home to Cleveland.
They wanted to trade for Kevin Love,
but he ended up with LeBron.
They met with free agent Carmelo Anthony,
but he eventually decided to return to the Knicks.
So The Lakers did what they could in the open market,
making Jeremy Lin and Carlos Boozer
their foremost offseason acquisitions.
They hired former Laker Byron Scott to coach the team
and enter the season with a roster of Kobe,
whatever remained of Nash, a potential future star
in Randle, and a bunch of weirdos and youngsters.
Then Randle broke his leg and his first ever NBA game.
Then a struggling Kobe needed shoulder surgery.
Then Nash who hadn't played all season retired,
Scott's Lakers started the season losing,
and never looked back.
They outdid the prior years record
with a franchise worst 61 losses.
So it would be another offseason with a lottery pick,
which LA used on Ohio State point guard D'Angelo Russel.
And once again, the Lakers aspired to add some big names.
LA badly wanted a new front court of Lamarcus Aldridge,
and DeAndre Jordan, however difficult
that might be to assemble.
They brought out the big guns to recruit Aldridge.
Yes, that's Adam Levine wearing a backward custom jersey.
But Aldridge really just wanted to play for a winner,
and the Lakers weren't that, not anymore.
Jordan had his own whole thing going on,
but suffice it to say he didn't join the Lakers.
Once again, LA had to scramble for alternatives
and ended up with an offseason haul of Roy Hibbert,
Lou Williams and Brandon Bass.
Yet again, Byron Scott was left to coach a roster
of old Kobe, young newcomers and a bunch of weirdos.
Yet again, it went terribly, And this time,
after a two and 13 start, Kobe announced
he wasn't going to extend his contract again.
It was time to retire.
That 2015-2016 season would produce
Kobe's preposterous final game, and in spite of that,
yet another rock bottom record for the Lakers, 17 and 65.
Kobe's farewell meant one important thing.
The Lakers didn't have to mess around with
ambitious short term pursuits anymore,
They could rebuild for real.
Losing, and youth, and space begat more losing, and youth,
and space, which begat after years of failing
to attract stars a couple of huge additions.
None of that, however, happened quickly
or convincingly enough to make people forget
the promise Jim buss had made in 2014
to make the Lakers a contender just a few years.
Jeanie certainly didn't forget, and in 2017,
she fired Kupchak, accepted the resignation
of her older brother, and moved forward
with a management group of Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka,
before that too fell apart.
The group of people hoping to lead LA out of the lottery
has minimal overlap with the group of people
who got them there in the first place.
So, what happened to the Lakers during Kobe's final chapter?
Well, first, the West caught up to them.
They wisely tried to trade their old championship core
for a new one, but that got shot down
in a way that generated hurt feelings and desperate moves.
And while Kobe stuck around, his health deteriorated,
and a very messy front office whiffed on attempts
to attract sidekicks for him.
Kobe's departure didn't fix that messiness,
but it did allow for an organic rebuild,
which allowed for a dramatic one.
The time in between was pretty grim.
But the first peak was probably worth the valley
and Lakers fans hope more peaks lie ahead.