Twenty years ago, the Suns wanted to draft Kobe Bryant.
Phoenix held the 15th overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft, but by the time the calendar flipped to June 26, Bryant’s stock had risen to the point where the Suns knew they couldn’t bank on him falling into their lap. Their efforts to trade up for Charlotte’s pick (13th overall) were trumped by a Lakers’ offer centered around center Vlade Divac.
Instead, Phoenix drafted a small, Santa Clara point guard named Steve Nash at No. 15. The selection prompted the loudest chorus of boos from Suns fans gathered for a draft since Dan Majerle went 14th overall in 1988. They would wind up as two of the most popular players in Suns history.
As for Bryant, a 17-year-old who had as many question marks as exclamation points in his game coming out of high school, he was officially traded to Los Angeles on July 11, 1996.
That was the first time the comet known as Kobe passed through the Suns’ universe. But it wouldn’t be the last.
NBA front office personnel and scouts weren’t even sure what position Bryant played. Much of Phoenix’s draft-day affection for the prep prospect rested in the idea of him succeeding point guard Kevin Johnson, who had declared he would retire after one more season.
“He’s a terrific ball-handler,” former Suns scout Dick Percudani said at the time.
If there was one consensus about Bryant leading up to the summer of 1996 it was this: be patient.
“I don’t think he’s going to make an impact right away,” said one former front-office executive.
Again, it was moot. Phoenix was happy with Nash. Fortuitous circumstance, however, made the “Canadian Kid” a luxury just a few months later. All-NBA point guard Jason Kidd, still just 23-years old, was unhappy in Dallas. “Why wait for the point guard of the future if he can be had now,” Phoenix asked itself, before trading for Kidd that December.
It’s fair to wonder, then, if the past could have included a Suns backcourt of Kidd and Bryant, had the latter been drafted by Phoenix.
Instead, Kidd was the Suns’ lone representative on the Western Conference All-Star team the following season. On the roster alongside him? The now-19-year-old Laker guard. The hypothetical teammates now represented the best young talent for two division rivals.
“The combination of skill and flair that Kobe Bryant brings to the game,” said TV play-by-play man Bob Costas at tip-off, “has already captivated the country.”
Kidd and Bryant represented the best of the NBA’s guard talent at the turn of the century, even starting together in the 2000 All-Star Game. Three months later, they would meet again, only this time on a bigger stage in the NBA Playoffs.
Kidd, however, was compromised after an early return from late-season ankle surgery. And as talented as Bryant was, he was still the second punch to the mammoth-sized fist that was Shaquille O’Neal. In short, the Valley’s first postseason encounter with Bryant was a tiny appetizer compared to the headlines that would run half a decade later.
No one could have predicted those at the time. The Lakers were on their way to the first of three consecutive championships. Even as they were peaking, the Suns were descending into their first prolonged spell of mediocrity since the mid-1980s.
Kidd was traded one year later, Phoenix continued to decline and the Lakers – highlighted by Bryant’s made-for-stardom smile – continued to shine.
Wedged in this era is one interesting nugget from none other than former Lakers Head Coach Phil Jackson: in 2000, apparently disenchanted with Bryant’s approach, the “Zen Master” tried to trade his young star guard to Phoenix for Kidd and Suns forward Shawn Marion.
Entering the 2004 NBA Finals, no one could have predicted the Suns and Lakers were about to swap their respective fortunes. Los Angeles was making its fourth NBA Finals appearance in five years, while Phoenix had just wrapped up its worst season since 1987-88.
Two colossal dominoes reversed the food chain in the Pacific Division. First, the Lakers were upset by a far less star-studded Detroit Pistons team in the Finals, which led to the trading of Shaq and the breakup of one of the most dominant one-two punches in league history.
While Los Angeles was dealing away star talent, the Suns were set on acquiring it. In an incredible repeat of the 1996 draft, Phoenix initially set its sights on Bryant, reportedly preparing to offer him a long-term deal with the bulk of their cap space. That interest however, shifted to a different backcourt target.
Since being traded to Dallas, Nash had blossomed into an All-Star point guard, something Phoenix desperately needed to complement talented young forwards Amar’e Stoudemire and Shawn Marion. The Suns made it clear he was their man. Without the same message from the Mavericks, Nash decided to go back to the Valley of the Sun.
In the blink of an offseason eye, the Suns became Western Conference contenders behind a superstar everyone liked, while the Lakers toiled in lottery futility behind an image-shaken Bryant. The 2004-05 season became just the second time in the teams’ joint history that Phoenix or L.A. became a playoff team the same season the other ceased to be one (1976-77 was the other).
Bryant and the Lakers watched as the Suns became a 60-win juggernaut and Nash – the player drafted two picks after him – won his first MVP trophy.
Bryant’s colossal talent did not leave the Lakers in the lottery for long. His landmark offensive season in 2005-06 (35.4 ppg) helped L.A. claw its way to a seventh seed in the Western Conference playoffs. It was an effort that had some thinking he deserved his first-ever MVP award.
Instead he was passed over for Nash – the friendly, pass-first face of the league – for the second straight year.
That season’s vote represented a clash of basketball philosophies. Nash had ensured that Phoenix remain a 50-win team and conference contender despite the season-long loss of All-NBA forward Amar’e Stoudemire. He did so by lifting teammates like Boris Diaw, Leandro Barbosa and Raja Bell to unforeseen career years.
Bryant was viewed as the opposite extreme. Instead of lifting teammates to greater feats, he did all the heavy lifting himself. Was this better? Was it worse? Was there a way to know for sure?
The answer arrived as a gift to salivating fans both local and national. When the dust settled at the end of the regular season, the playoff bracket showed the Suns and Lakers facing off in the first round. It was the ultimate clash of me-first vs. team first.
Except Bryant altered the script. In Games 1 through 4, he became disarmingly willing to share with his teammates. More appalling to Suns fans, it was working. The seventh-seeded Lakers were winning with their less heralded (but still bigger than Phoenix’s) big men. Bryant was picking and choosing his spots, electing carefully and consciously when and where to place his perfectly arched daggers.
None drew more blood than a pair of buzzer-beaters in Game 4. One came at the end of regulation to tie the game, the second in overtime to win it. Bigger than the value of the shots themselves was the symbolism thereof. The regulation shot came after a Nash turnover. The overtime shot occurred after a physical tie-up with Nash that forced a jump ball.
Laker fans crowed that the suddenly iconic moments were proof of Bryant’s supremacy over the two-time MVP. Nash backers – including teammates – wondered why a Most Valuable Player merited so little protection from officials and, more importantly, whether he would offer up a response with his team facing elimination in the first round of the playoffs.
Phoenix won Game 5 by 17 points, but the outcome was overshadowed by one of the most symbolic moments in the history of the Suns-Lakers rivalry. Bryant and Suns defensive guard Raja Bell had been embroiled in an increasingly physical matchup through the series, and it boiled over in the fourth quarter.
Steaming over a previous elbow from Bryant, Bell sent a message by clotheslining his driving adversary and forcefully sending him to the floor. He was immediately ejected, even as Bryant brushed off his shoulders as an indication that the play had not affected him.
That was likely true, but there was no denying Bell’s instantly infamous clothesline sent a new tenor through the series. From Games 1 through 4, the Lakers had been the aggressors. Now, despite having their collective back to the wall, the Suns had proven they were more than willing to push back – literally and figuratively.
Despite the win and renewed spirit, many – including former Suns MVP Charles Barkley – predicted that Bryant and the Lakers would finish them off in Game 6. Even with Nash producing an otherworldly 32 points and 13 assists, it looked like Kobe would settle the debate once and for all when his running bank shot but the Lakers up by three with 29 seconds left.
Incredibly, Nash missed a wide-open retort from the left corner. Bryant watched from the left block as the rebound caromed to Shawn Marion. He watched as Marion whipped it out to Tim Thomas, as Kwame Brown jumped vainly past Thomas’s pump fake, as Thomas’s game-tying three-pointer hit nothing but net with 6.3 seconds remaining.
Suns fans still feared the worst in those remaining seconds of regulation. They saw the worst unfold as Bryant dribbled toward the right elbow, the same area from which he had driven two stakes into their hearts in Game 4. His shot was over an eerily similar double team that so often seemed to not even exist to Kobe Bean Bryant.
Air ball.
Basic shot charts show Bryant doing his best to will his team to victory in overtime, scoring a whopping 12 points in the extra frame. A closer look reveals Nash doing the same amount of damage with three assists and four free throws. Phoenix won, 126-118.
The argument of “We vs. Me” was over-scrutinized in the aftermath. Bryant’s 50-point performance in Game 6 was no doubt legendary, but the end result made many wonder whether it was right – and if it wasn’t, why not? Was Bryant wrong to dominate when his teammates failed to simply hold serve? Should he be more like Nash?
What better stage could exist on which to answer those questions than a Game 7? Regardless of the answer, it was sure to be climactic.
Maybe Bryant was tired after playing more minutes and scoring more points that season than any other in his career. Maybe the Suns’ home-court advantage was as overwhelming to him as it seemed to anyone present or watching. Maybe Phoenix’s 32-15 first-quarter blitz was every bit the knockout punch it appeared.
Or maybe, just maybe, Kobe Bryant quit.
There is no confirming the answer, but there is no denying that the question existed after one of the most deflating individual Game 7 performances in NBA history.
The box score shows Bryant scoring 24 points on 50 percent shooting. What it doesn’t show is the second half footage of Bryant, the ultimate gunner and greatest scorer of his generation, passing along the ball again and again and again, then standing between the half-court line and three-point line for the rest of the possession.
Several times in the second half broadcast, TNT color commentator Doug Collins remarked on Bryant’s alarming passivity.
“When is Kobe going to start becoming aggressive?” Collins wondered in the middle of the third quarter.
The answer would not arrive that night. Bryant took just three shots after halftime as the Suns steamrolled toward a 121-90 win.
Three games after Bryant’s fan base had crowed on behalf of their hero, they, Bryant and the Lakers were silent.
The Suns and Lakers met in the playoffs again the very next year. There were no dramatics or comebacks this time, however. Nash & Co. easily dispatched Kobe and the Bryants in five games.
Later in the summer of 2007, Los Angeles drafted a preps-to-pros prospect, Andrew Bynum. The thought of wasting his prime on behalf of a rebuilding project gnawed at Bryant’s keen competitive edge, which Phoenix had blunted two years straight.
That summer, he asked the Lakers to trade him to one of three teams. Ironically, Phoenix was one of them, he told ESPN earlier this season.
“At that time, the Lakers had to do something. I was just losing faith in what they were trying to do. It was like I was a meal ticket,” Bryant told ESPN’s Baxter Holmes in late 2015. “‘You come out and score 40, 50 points, fill the seats, we’re going to keep the payroll at a minimum, generate revenue.’ It’s like, ‘Look, listen, I am not with that, dude. I have to win without Shaq. I’ve got to do it. We’ve got to do something.'”
Ultimately, that something did not include the Suns, who felt their weakness was not on the perimeter, but inside. Rather than unite Nash and Bryant for the price of a frontcourt talent, Phoenix dealt for Bryant’s former teammate in Shaquille O’Neal from Miami a few months later.
That trade was partly due to the repeated postseason beatings suffered at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs, but it was also a response to the Lakers’ in-season activity. Bryant’s summer demands were heard. Los Angeles did indeed do something. But instead of dealing their own star away, they acquired another one in the form of All-Star big man Pau Gasol.
The deals featured yet another role reversal in the history between Bryant and Phoenix. Suddenly the Lakers were contenders again. They made the Finals that season – and the next two years after that, winning two NBA Championships.
The Suns answer of O’Neal did not work out nearly as well. They were ousted in the first round of the playoffs that year, then failed to make the postseason altogether in 2009. Bryant was back on top of the world, while Nash and the Suns appeared to be setting.
In a vacuum, giving Shaq’s roster spot to Channing Frye is not an upgrade. For Phoenix, however, it was the best choice they could have made in the summer of 2009. It meant a restoration of Suns basketball as directed by Nash. Back to the flowing offense in which it thrived, Phoenix returned to its winning ways in the 2009-10 season.
For the first time since 1991, the Suns and Lakers were contenders in the same season. They marched through the playoffs to the tune of their respective styles – Phoenix with pick-and-roll and run-and-gun, Los Angeles behind Bryant’s brilliance and its frontcourt dominance.
Those paths converged in the Western Conference Finals, the first time Bryant faced the Suns in the postseason since his back-to-back humiliations in 2006 and 2007. He had not forgotten. He did not forgive. When asked whether seeing the Suns again would be extra special, he responded with scowls and sarcasm.
“What do you think?” Bryant sneered. “You already know.”
If Phoenix didn’t know then, they soon found out. Bryant scored 40 points in Game 1, but also got the help he didn’t have in 2006 and 2007 from Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. Game 2 was similarly one-sided, with Bryant turning in a Nash-like 13 assists along with 21 points. Phoenix, it seemed, had no answer to the problem: Bryant + help.
But something happened in the next two games in the desert. Phoenix found its mojo and an added edge. Nash looked rejuvenated, Stoudemire reborn (42 points in Game 3) and the Suns’ reserves (54 points in Game 4) were more than a counter to super sixth man Lamar Odom.
Kobe was as terrifying as ever (72 points, 28-of-46 FG in Games 3 and 4), but somehow the Suns still tied the series. The stars indeed appeared aligned in Game 5, when a brilliant Nash performance (29 points, 11 assists) and a bank-shot three from Jason Richardson tied the game with 3.5 seconds left.
Suns fans were once again forced to face their collective demon as Bryant took the inbounds pass and hoisted a double-teamed three-pointer from the right side. It didn’t go in. It didn’t even hit the rim – the same result as Bryant’s would-be game-winner in Game 6 of 2006.
Except the Lakers didn’t let Phoenix celebrate that fact. Instead Bryant’s teammates – so often the subject of debate of how Bryant should play his game – bailed him out. The air ball was tracked successfully only by Laker forward Ron Artest, who darted to where it fell and, as the clock expired, banked in an off-balance putback for the win.
Half a decade after incredulously analyzing the Lakers’ playoff defeats at the Suns’ hands, TNT analyst Doug Collins could only laughingly observe, “…the Lakers, finding a way to win on a Kobe Bryant airball.”
It was, perhaps, the least intentional and most pivotal “assist” in NBA playoff history. After Phoenix lost Game 6, it also marked the last meaningful on-court chapter between Bryant and the team that nearly drafted him, signed him, and could have traded for him.
By 2012, the dual decline of the Lakers and Suns was already taking place. The Suns (33-32) were further along in that regard when they faced Bryant and the Lakers (40-25) in Los Angeles on Jan. 10, 2012. Phoenix suffered a vintage performance from the man nicknamed “Black Mamba,” who went off for 48 points on 18-of-31 shooting.
After the game, Bryant was asked about his feelings toward the Suns, and it was clear that neither time nor the 2010 NBA Playoffs had healed the wounds inflicted in 2006 and 2007.
“I don’t like them,” Bryant deadpanned about the Suns. “I don’t like them. It’s plain and simple. I do not like them. They used to whip us pretty good and they used to let us know about. I will not forget that.”
The reporter persisted. “Even though most of the guys from that team are gone?”
Bryant nearly cut him off in answering.
“I don’t care. I won’t let it go.”
The feeling is mutual. Suns fans won’t let Phoenix’s triumphs over him go. They won’t let go of the viciously good feelings produced by Bell’s clothesline. They won’t let go of Bryant getting lucky on an airball.
In the general language of sports, such feelings are compliments. Phoenix earned Bryant’s dislike with triumph. Bryant did the same to Phoenix. In the end, everyone benefitted from the fireworks created by those sparks.
After 18 years, it’s difficult to picture NBA life without Bryant playing the villain in Lakers purple and gold. It’s even harder to imagine him playing the hero in purple-and-orange, a role he could have earned in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2007. That’s four times – four! – that Bryant nearly went from being basketball’s equivalent of Satan to Savior.
Something tells me that Phoenix – and Bryant – are okay with the former.
