Memphis Grizzlies legend Kobe Bryant?
It doesn’t quite have the same ring as Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant.
But it nearly could have been the case if it wasn’t for another Lakers legend in 2004.
Jerry West, who was actually the Grizzles’ general manager at the time, pointed Bryant away from Memphis and told him he belonged in the Los Angeles area instead.
And the reason?
Not so much because West was loyal to his Lakers roots.
“I guess in some sense, that might have been tampering. But I didn’t look at it as tampering because he was at our house all the time. He ate at my house all the time,” West said on an episode of the “Podcast P with Paul George.”
“I felt more like a father figure with him. I had a wonderful relationship with him.”
Bryant’s free agency in 2004 was one of the biggest in NBA history at the time. LeBron James had just completed his rookie season, and Michael Jordan retired after his third NBA stint in 2003.
Bryant and the Lakers – featuring Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone and Gary Payton – had just lost in the 2004 NBA Finals to the Detroit Pistons, and Bryant pondered a change.
Bryant entertained the idea of playing for the Los Angeles Clippers in 2004, but re-signed after O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat. Bryant later requested a trade to the Chicago Bulls in 2007.
“He became a free agent, OK? And he called me, and his agent then was Rob Pelinka. And so I met them in Orange County in a hotel room, and he said he wanted to come to Memphis and play basketball,” West said.
“And I looked at him, I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ And he said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Kobe, no, no. It’s just, you belong somewhere out here.’ And even though he would have never played there, I just want to reassure him that don’t feel like you have any obligation with me or the Grizzlies to play here. Because he would have never played there – it wasn’t gonna happen.”
Bryant played 20 seasons in the NBA before retiring in 2016. He died at 41 following a helicopter crash in January 2020.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kobe Bryant, Grizzlies? Jerry West said he talked legend out of it