February 23, 2021 • 38 mins
The creation story of the 2008 Redeem Team begins in the residue of the 1992 Dream Team, as does the redemption story of Kobe Bryant, who played such an important role when he later not just joined the Redeem Team but played the pivotal role of "team energizer." Hosts Jack McCallum and J.A Adande examine the young Kobe — fresh out of high school, clueless in many ways about the NBA baskeTball game — and, with a lot of Zen Master insight from guest (and winningest coach in NBA history) Phil Jackson — follow Kobe through the highs of championship glory, the painful lows of a sexual assault charge, and the dismantling of a mini-dynasty.
FROM THE EPISODE:
We asked Phil Jackson to summarize his relationship with Kobe Bryant and he made it sound like something from a work of literature:
PHIL JACKSON: I think it's almost like a Prodigal Son story. There I go into a father limination illustration. There's a conflict and there’s a willfulness and there's selfishness and there's “I could do this on my own” type of thing. And then there's a the second life or second opportunity that really brings back tenderness, yielding. It really took two of us to have that complicated relationship early on, trying to both be willful or directed, and Kobe’s was to establish himself.
His identity and maybe to establish what a team had to do to win, the direction that teams have to have: this unselfish behavior. And bending that will I think was done, sometimes, in unusual ways. Like one time, I arrived at the facility where I had a parking spot that was designated as mine, and there was Kobe’s car in my parking spot; things like that. Just to know that he was going to irritate me and me not reacting to it at all, just going on about the day, not taking on umbrage. So we forged something that was harmonious and that was one of the joys of our life. My former pal and partner Jeanie Buss says that we raised him as a son of our own.
J.A. ADANDE: So you can see why we had to clear the way for this. Much like Kobe isolating on the wing so he could go one-on-one — although I'd say Kobe's ability to steal the spotlight is part of The Lakers and the way they steal the spotlight. There's something about that franchise…
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Dream Team Tapes Season two, Kobe Lebron and the
redeem Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts, an association
with I Heart Radio Diversion Podcasts. Welcome to episode two
(00:27):
of The Dream Team Tapes Season two, Kobe Lebron and
the Redeemed Team. We're calling this Kobe's first Quarter. And
as you listen to the details and descriptions of the
ups and downs of Kobe Bryant's first eight seasons in
the NBA, keep in mind that all of this transpires
through the time he was aged twenty five years old.
Quarter of a century. That's it. I'm j A. Dande
(00:51):
and I got an up close look at the Kobe
show while covering the Lakers for ten years at the
l A Times and ten years at ESPN. And I'm
joined by Jack McCallum, who made plenty of trips to
l A when a chronicle of the NBA for Sports Illustrated.
And Jack, I'm wondering, did you ever come to l
A with one story in mind only to have Kobe
take it over? I'll tell you what most prominently it
(01:11):
was during a strange summer of two thousand three, which
you're going to be concentrating on If you recall, the
same weekend that the news about Kobe's alleged sexual assault
in Colorado broke, was the same weekend that the Lakers
were proclaiming they had the new super team of the century.
They had acquired Carl Malone and Gary the Glove Peyton
(01:33):
to go with a you know, already great lineup with
Kobe and Shack. And that week I had arranged to
fly out with Carl Malone. He had hired a private
plane to take him to l A. When I got
to the small town where he was hiding out, Jim Hill,
by the way, the great l A sportscaster, were there,
and it looked like, Hey, this is gonna be a
great story about a super team. And next thing, you know,
(01:56):
the Kobe Bryant news that happened in Colorado had broke.
I never did get to use the stuff from the
Carl Malone plane ride. Yeah, that was probably the the
ultimate example while Kobe was alive, of him just taking
over and dominating the news. It would happen all the time. Though.
I went up to cover the NFC Championship in two
(02:16):
thousand six up in Seattle, and usually the NFL's Championship Sunday,
right the two conference championship games is the big story. Loan,
Behold what happens? Kobe drops eighty one points on the
Toronto Raptors and sort of takes over that storyline as well.
It would happen again and again where Kobe would just
come and and dominate the news and Jack even in
(02:38):
the after lafe he could dominate the news. Following the
tragic helicopter crash in January, Kobe Bryant dominated All Star
Game in Chicago, and he even took over what should
have been a tribute to David Stern right he had
passed away on January one, and All Star Weekend was
really his creation. Under his tenure as a commissioner of
the NBA went from just one game to this weekend
(03:00):
filled with events and parties and all that, and it
became the Kobe Show of Kobe celebration. All the players
wore Kobe's twenty four or his daughter Gianna's number two
in their jerseys during the game. He actually provided the
news in Adam Silver's news conference, we are renaming our
All Star m v P Trophy the Kobe Bryant m
(03:22):
v P Award. Along those lines, Kobe has really taken
over this entire episode, and that wasn't the original plan,
as we outlined the ark of this series, but really
the accelerant in that shift was our interview with Phil Jackson,
who was Kobe's coach from Ton with a notable one
year break in the two thousand four oh five season.
(03:42):
And Jack when we talked to Phil, he just really
took us through this incredible journey of his time together
with Kobe. He could be a little elusive, but when
you got him, it was never predictable. You know, he
never took you out on what you Hey, a lot
of times you go in interview with somebody and I'm
collecting the quotes to support what my thesis is. And
(04:05):
there's guys that are really good at doing that. You
know what they're gonna say, but they're still really great
at saying it. But Phil always did something that set
you off on another path. And you know, I think
it's pretty obvious that when Kobe died, as was the
case with many people, but certainly Phil as much as
(04:26):
anybody you know, really started deeply thinking about these times
with Kobe and some of the things he said to
us were among the best. You know, I've been doing
this for fifty years, and uh, it was really some
of the best stuff that I had ever heard a
coach talking about a player. Yeah, at the end of
our time with him, we asked him to summarize his
(04:47):
relationship with Kobe, and he made it sound like something
from a work of literature. Here he is, well, I
think it's it's almost like a prodigal son story. And
there we go into father elimination illustration that you know,
there's a conflict, and there's wilfulness, and there's selfishness, and
(05:09):
there's um, I can do this on my own type
of thing, and then there's you know, the second life
or second opportunity that really brings back tenderness, yielding. You know,
it took two of us to have that complicated relationship
early on, you know, trying to both be wilful or directed,
(05:32):
and his was to establish himself and his identity, and
me to establish what a team had to do to
win and the direction that teams have to have to
have this unselfish behavior and bending that will I think
was done. You know, sometimes in you know, in usual ways,
(05:54):
like one time coming to the facility and I had
a place that I parking spot that was designated mine
and there was Kobe's car in my parking spot. You know,
things like that, just you know, know that he was
gonna entertain me and me not reacting to it at all,
you know, just going on about the day, you know,
not taking on bridge at anything. And so we forged
(06:16):
something that was harmonious and that that was one of
the joys of our life. And you know, my former
repel and partner Jamie Buss, says that, you know, we
raised him as a son of our own, So I
guess there's something in that together. So you can see
why we had to clear the way for this, much
like Kobe isolating on the wings so he could go
(06:38):
one on one. Although I'd say Kobe's ability to steal
the spotlight also as part of the Lakers and the
way they steal the spotlight, there's something about that franchise.
And a great example as we get back to the
context of USA Basketball came in the Olympics, and USA
Basketball executive Sean Ford told us that when they first
got to Georgia ahead of the Olympic Games and they
(06:59):
get to the hotel els around midnight and they credentialed
everyone on the team and then the traveling party and
then he's told at two am that he has to
drive Shaquille O'Neil to the Weston Hotel and he didn't
ask why, and then drive through Atlanta and he gets
to the West End. As as they're pulling up, he
discovered the reason. Get out and Jerry West is waiting
for him at the Lakers and uh he was that
(07:20):
That's when he signed his contract with the Lakers. So Jack,
if you remember that free agent signing when Shack left
the Orlando Magic, it oversattled the start of the Olympics. Absolutely.
I mean it did, as you said, overshadow the games.
But that's kind of understandable. Shack was at the height
of his powers back then and Jerry West signing of him.
You know, I talked to Jerry how many years after
(07:41):
that is now, you know, twenty five years later, with
however many signings Jerry has done, including you know, drafting Kobe,
he still gets excited when he when he talks about
that Shack signing. It's very It's really an interesting phenomenon.
Remember at the time he compared it to the bird
to his children, and it was that monumental an event
(08:02):
for him. And what we didn't realize though, was that
he was equally as excited about his Draft day trade
for Kobe Bryant, And initially I don't think we gave
that enough attention. There was still there was curiosity about Kobe. Um.
You know, high school players going straight to the NBA
was was still a novelty. The year before, Chemi Garnett
(08:23):
had become the first player to skip straight to the
pros and twenty years and with Kobe was the first
time that a guard had done it, So there was
that new aspect of it. And I went up to
the Lakers first road game of the season. I was
working in washing d C at the time. It took
the train up to Penn Station in New York City
and went up stairs and Madison Square Garden, and there
was so much demand for young Kobe and one of
(08:44):
his first games as a pro, that they actually did
a separate press conference for him before their game against
the Knicks. You know, back then, obviously people knew about Kobe.
Clips were not passed back virally back and forth. I
don't remember, maybe you do, but I don't remember a
thousand Kobe clips at you know, Lower Merion High School
(09:05):
being passed back and forth. Now in the next episode,
we're gonna be talking about Lebron. By that time, it
was different. You know, eight years later, everybody who was
a basketball fan had seen Lebron, and Kobe really didn't
play in any of these as I recall any of
these super games, you know, I get matched like Lebron
events Carmelo and stuff like that. So Kobe, as you said,
(09:28):
was still still a little bit of a secret. I
mean not not a full secret, but a little bit. Yeah,
And we we talked to Eric Aldridge, who was the
Lakers assistant PR director at the time. He was actually
the guy that picked up Kobe at the airport to
drive into his now legendary pre jaft workout with the
Lakers at the inglewood Y m c A. And he
he spoke on that aspect. Jack, A big part of
(09:50):
the mystique of Kobe was we didn't really know who
he was. I mean again, this was pre social media.
It was a lot of word of mouth. But once
the Laker fans got to see Kobe for themselves, starting
in the Summer League game and then early with this
time with the Lakers, they really formed a quick bond.
(10:12):
As authors noticed, Well, I think from my perspective, what
I saw was, you know, people love your watching brilliance.
If you think about you know, Tiger Woods, you think
about athletes who were so good so young, and then
you you're watching it unfold in front of your eyes.
(10:33):
I mean, it's almost like watching your own kid. You know,
you you see it, you see the potential, but he's
not there yet. It was clear that he wasn't there yet,
but you could see it. But not only could you
see it, you can see him working towards it. And
I think that's the thing that connected him with the
fan base. And then Robert Dory was traded to the
Lakers during Kobe's rookie season, and from his first practice
(10:56):
with the team, he noticed that Kobe was working towards
it even when the fans and the TV cameras weren't around.
I remember Cole was just like, everybody's going like a
third of a speed and Kobe's going one hund and
shoot around, Like does this guy know this is a
shoot around? And he was like, you know, I gotta
go hard because I'm trying to start I'm like, dude,
it shoot around, nobody goes hard. And he just had
(11:20):
all his energy and I said, that's that's an eighteen
year old for you. You You know, that's you're gonna have
all that energy. And when you wait waited this age
m game, grinding hits, you're gonna slow down. And it
was just one of those things. He was just trying
to learn the game. And he was just one of
those guys that was in the gym constantly trying to
get better. I mean every play he was going hard.
(11:40):
So Kobe had his formula for greatness on the court,
but he didn't have a pathway to bonding with his teammates.
And part of it was the age gap. Kobe was
born in ninety eight. The next youngest player on the
team was born in nineteen seventy four. And put it
this way, how much time did you spend hanging out
with seniors during your freshman year in college? And of
course Kobe never had any of that college experience. You know,
(12:01):
that transition time when you're away from home, every's an
equal footing. You're in the dorms, you're sharing sleeping quarters
with the roommate. You've all got this community bathroom, down
the down the hall, and its altres put it. He
just didn't have those social skills built up yet. So
altre also members of time. Early in Kobe's career, when
he and some of the players went to a TGI
Fridays after a preseason game in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and
(12:23):
Kobe walks in the restaurant. He didn't even join them
at first. That was a rookie faux pa. And when
he finally came over, he's astounded that the players are drinking,
Like he couldn't believe they had a game to play
the next night and they're drinking alcohol. And Robert Rory
was one of the players at the table and he
recalled that night it was all about bonding, And I
think he didn't understand that it's it's about coming together
(12:44):
and bonding, because if you think about it, it was
I always believe that it was a disconnect because you're
just eight year old. What do you have in common
with the a t O in twenty just probably video
games at the time video games were like the level
they r now. Um, So it was it was a
disconnect them. And and I think when he turned twenty one,
he was like, okay, I'm a part of crewing them.
(13:06):
But to disconnect was did the wall. I should say
it was up so hard. It was kind of to reconnect.
We'll be back with more Kobe, Lebron and the redeem
team after this. So then in there's a huge new
(13:27):
personality added to the mix, Bill Jackson. There had been
a series of playoff disappointments with the Lakers and that
led to the firing coach Del Harris, and then the
Lakers didn't think his replacement, Kurt Rambis was up to
the task, and Phil Jackson was available. The reason why
I was covered pretty extensively in the last Dance and
the Lakers signed filled with a five year, thirty million
dollar contract and jack that was really big bucks for
(13:48):
a coach at the time. It was sort of a
little version of what had happened in Chicago. Jordan was
very very close to Doug Collins. He had gotten them
to a certain point, and you know, you don't know
whether Phil is back there studying the situation and going okay,
I think it's time, you know. And it's obviously a
(14:09):
combination of taking over a team when they're ready to mature.
I don't think there's any doubt about that. But it's
also Phil's got a little bit of a magic touch
that he was able to add and next thing, you know,
three titles in a row. Yeah, and Phil, when he
took over in Chicago, A he was coming from inside.
He wasn't coming from the outside. But the advantage he
(14:29):
had when he came to the Lakers was that he
was minted with six championships, and so they had to
respect him. He commanded their respect, and I think in
part it was a message to the star players that
they had to get serious or they could be the
ones out the next time. And they responded. As Robert
Ori noted from the first DAID training camp, when they
get there and he sees that Kobe's bulked up and
(14:50):
shock and slimmed down. It's almost like they were skin
of field and they got in the best shape of
their lives. They were looking good, and they were like, oh,
we gotta be ready for his upcoming season. And so
Kobe was so eager to learn from Phil Jackson, his idol,
Michael Jordan's coach, that he went to meet with Phil
before his introductory press conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Meanwhile,
(15:11):
Shack cross passed with Phil that summer at Jackson's getaway
cabin in Montana. He was riding around the bay on
some jet skis that he had borrowed from neighbors. As
far as you could see, people were standing out on
their docks and looking at him. And he'd been jumping
on the trampoline that was in my yard, and my
neighbors kept seeing this figure show up above the boat
(15:34):
house and Jack was jumping on the trampoline, and then
he went off to the dock and he did he
dove in the dock, and then he borrowed some jet
skis and went around. So the big, fun loving guy,
you know, was somebody I knew already. And in that
story you can hear the affection for Shock and Phil's voice.
And he was also intrigued by the chance to coach
(15:54):
a dominant center, and that was the one element he
didn't have with the Chicago teams. And so acts and
made Shack the focal point of the offense. But Kobe
didn't always follow the plan. He would just go rogue,
and I pulled him the sideline and saying it's not
the time to try and take over the game. Yet, Yeah,
I'll get back to it, and he go back and
(16:15):
run the offense for a little bit. But you know,
everything was predicated to going through Shack a lot at
that time, because that's what I said, that's what we're
gonna do. So how we're gonna attack this team and
this game. And uh, you know, Kobe got tired of
doing that. But Kobe was capable of playing and of
working alongside Shack. And there's three championship banners and Staples
(16:36):
Center to prove it. When Kobe and Shack joined forces
at the top, their combined powers were unbeatable. And what's
interesting to me is that Phil Jackson singled out the
same moment that I always referenced as the display of
Kobe and Shack at their collaborative best, and it's to
play near the end of Game seven and the two
thousand Western Conference Finals, when Kobe crossed up Scottie Pippen.
Then he threw a lob to Shack and that's the
(16:57):
one that finished off the comeback against the Portland Trail
Blazers and it sent them on to the NBA Finals.
I think it was solidified when jack understood that Kobe
knew how to win what was necessary to win, and
was able to do the things that created the winds,
and that he would give up the ball at the
(17:19):
right time to create this. Well, the demonstrating moments was
that dunk against Portland in the game the seventh game
of that series, when you know, all of a sudden,
you know, there was a movement which everybody was expecting
Kobe to make some kind of a shot or whatever,
and he just put the ball up there for Shock
to to ram it down through the hoop. And I
(17:41):
think that was really a moment that kind of solidified everything,
and they kind of understood then that they were gonna
do whatever it took to win. It felt like the
Lakers would keep winning championships for the foreseeable future. Jack
was Kobe. This was his version of college graduation, and
that was an element that the Lakers, who had pretty
much stayed set for throughout their three championships, and they
(18:05):
just weren't ready for that element, and and losing that,
of course, uh led to that drastic change that you
mentioned earlier when they brought in Gary Payton and Karl
Malone and they said, okay, we need to upgrade, and
they majorly upgraded. But meanwhile, the mileage of all those
deep playoff runs had had really worn down Kobe's knee,
and unbeknownst to the Lakers, he went to Eagle, Colorado
(18:25):
to get surgery. He just did it out of the blue.
The club was totally surprised at the incident and everything
and all hell broke loose after that. And while he
was in Colorado, Kobe had a sexual encounter with the
hotel employee and she later accused him of sexual assault,
and all that led to the most surreal press conference
(18:45):
I've ever attended, and it featured Kobe, his wife Vanessa,
and his attorney, Pamela Mackie, who was voice so here
first from in the clip from that day, Toby Bryant
is innocent of the charges that were filed at as
him today, I'm innacent. I didn't force her to do
anything against her will. I'm innocent. In that case just
(19:11):
loomed over the whole season, even despite the additions of
those two future Hall of Fame players, and it also
increased the tension between Shaq and Kobe. Shack had learned
that Kobe brought Shack's name into the statement that he
gave police and one thing it did was create even
more distance between Phil and Kobe. And at the time
that Kobe probably could have used more support and advice,
(19:34):
Phil's approach was to give Kobe more space. And Phil
just didn't know what to make of Kobe's presence on
the team. He just felt the anger emanating out of
his being. I don't know who. He's angry at himself,
He's angry at the situation, He's angry at the public exposure.
There's a lot of things. I never felt really comfortable
(19:55):
with it, and I just decided to be hands off
and situation. It felt like a personal upfront to me
to keep in mind all the other things that play.
Bill Jackson was in the last year of his contract.
He was trying to get an extension. Shack had another
year left on his contract, but he wanted an extension,
and Kobe this was the key could become a free
(20:16):
agent after the season, and for the first time he
was in a position to flex his leverage. And I
don't know if Kobe ever gave Lakers owner Jerry Buss
an ultimatum that he would leave unless Bus got rid
of Shock and Phil, But I do know I can't
explain how. But trust me, I do know that Bus
really didn't think Jackson should keep coaching that team. And
(20:38):
he also realized that he couldn't keep both Shack and Kobe,
that one of them was going to have to go.
They couldn't co exist any longer. That was his mindset.
I don't know the extent that Kobe influenced, but I'm
really confident that that was Jerry Buss's mentality at the time.
I'm interested. You were out there, and uh, I always
have this this theory, and when you say something is
(20:58):
the theory, that means it doesn't have to be correct it.
I always thought that it had to be like somebody's team,
not not two guys team, you know, it had to
be one guy's team. And it always was fascinating to
me because Shaq was such a dominant figure. And maybe
it's just because I knew him better. I had worked
(21:18):
on a book with him on in his rookie year,
and I kind of, like, you know, knew I could
always gravitate to him. He as you said, he was
a dominant player. They were still using, you know, feed
the post type of situation and the triangle utilize the
post person so Shack was dominant on the court. But
and you alluded to this, I think there there seemed
(21:41):
to be in l A the affection between Kobe and
the fans seemed to go beyond what the affection was
for Shock and the fans, which is interesting to me
because it's a showman's town and now Kobe was a
showman too, But my god, Shack. So how do you
kind of explain a whose team it was and be
(22:06):
the the incredible affection Kobe had with those Hollywood fans.
Part of it goes back to the old world Chamberlain line, right, Jack,
nobody roots for Goliath. And even though Shack was as
warm and engaging a big man as we've ever seen,
and the Lakers had a tradition and a rich legacy
(22:28):
of big men going back to George, Mike and and
Wilt and Kareem, but those guys were never the favorites, right.
Jerry West and Elton Baylair were fan favorites over Wilt's
Magic was the fan favorite over Kareem. The Laker fans
never really bonded with Kareem the way they did with Magic,
And I think, just again it's part of it. There's
(22:50):
something more relatable. Why is Steph Curry so popular, right,
because he's closer in size to the average fan. And Kobe,
even though he's tall, wasn't a behemoth like Shack And
that was part of it. And you wonder if part
of it also is that the only uniform that Kobe
ever wore was the Lakers were me Maybe he wore
that Charlotte Hornet's cap on Draft night, but you know,
(23:12):
from the time he played his first game, he was
in a Lake uniform where Shaq came from the Magic
and then of course later played on several teams after
he left the Lakers, So that there's there are all
those factors. And I'm guessing after the sexual assault charge,
Kobe became a more complicated figure, a figure of redemption.
So he became a character that people understand in Hollywood
(23:35):
when they're pitching a movie. People understand that, but Check
never really had something like that. Yeah, if anything, that experienced,
that ordeal of the sexual assault case bonded Kobe with
the fans even more and and they zealously defended him
from the get go. And you know, he he never
(23:56):
lost the crowd. It it it never cost him his
standing with the Laker fans. You're listening to Kobe Lebron
and the redeem Team. We'll be back in just a moment.
I remember that press conference, by the way, Jake, because
as I said before, I was supposed to be writing
the the the Wonderful, Feel Good Gary Payton, Carl Malone
(24:20):
joined up for the super Team. And there was this
guy next to me, and uh, he goes, uh, where
are you from? I said, I'm from Sports Illustrated. He
was not impressed. He went up from Celebrity Justice. So
apparently there was a thing I don't know, maybe it
still exists called Celebrity Justice. And I went, oh, ship man,
(24:41):
we're in a different world here it was, and that
that season it was it was Access Hollywood and and
E and and it just became this whole other thing.
And that press conference it felt like a movie, just
because I never thought I would be there for something
like that. For Kobe Riots, it was an outlandist that
(25:03):
an athlete could find himself in his circumstance. But but
Kobe Bryant, it just it seemed unfathomable that he would
stand before is accused of sexual assault and you and
you have the problem of how to. I don't want
to use the word spin because that's not what you're doing.
But when you write a story or when you're broadcasting,
you were writing, were you still writing back then? Or yeah, yeah,
(25:25):
I'm I'm writing. I covered every almost every game of
that season for the l a time. You have to
figure out, you know, which way you're kind of shading it?
Do you express utter disbelief? Um? The one thing you
cannot do is, you know, begin casting as some people do,
you know, begin casting aspersions on the accuser. Uh, you
(25:49):
know right away. And it's a very you know, it's
a very difficult story to write, and to this day
it be you know it. It is a very difficult
thing to deal with and of a no win situation.
I mean, there's a woman who worked at Sports Illustrated,
who I deeply respected, who you know, got really angry
one day because she thought as the years went on,
(26:11):
Now this is years later, you know, maybe it was
when Kobe scored eighty one or Kobe one two in
a row, why are you still glorifying this guy? Why
are you still And you know, my point was, I
can't begin every story with Kobe Bryant Comma who was
accused of an assault in Colorado in July of two
(26:32):
thousand three. You can't begin every story like that. That
a person deserves a chance to go on and grow.
But it's a tough, you know, journalistic lesson, I think
for anybody to handle. You agree, Yeah, And it's made
even more difficult than that. We never got the definitive
declaration of guilt or innocence from a court resolution. Right,
it was dropped before it went to court. Again, he
(26:54):
reached agreement, and that's why I maintain we have to
allow for the possibility that the user saw this resolved
to her satisfaction. You know, there was a large settlement
made and Kobe agreed to apologize and he issued in
basically an apology and an explanation, and the accuser said
(27:15):
she would no longer cooperate with the prosecutors, and that
basically ended the case. And it's possible that that was
enough to satisfy and she felt, you know, justice had
been served in that regard and that she got what
she wanted. We don't know, we've never heard from her,
so maybe she's still upset, maybe she feels like it
(27:35):
was insufficient. But the fact that um we never did
hear from her, and I'm certain you know there was
a degree of silence that was part of the agreement
that was reached, but we've never heard otherwise. So that's
one thing I've taken into consideration. And again a lot
of this came up again after Kobe died, is that
how much of his story should we allocate for this
(27:59):
and uh, should it dominate as you said, should it
be in the lead paragraph, but in his obituary, I'm
not certain. And it's especially you do have to allow
for for growth. And then we'll hear from Phil Jackson
over the course of this series, the growth that he
made in his relationship, the steps that Kobe took in
order to for them to have a productive working relationship
for the latter part of Phil's career in the second
(28:20):
half of Kobe's career, and we look at Kobe what
he went on to do and become such an advocate
for women's sports um which is what he almost became
known for, and in particular his daughter and and at
the time of his passing, he had really become a
champion for the w n b A. So so all
of those things came into play by the end. Yeah,
(28:41):
it's unusual. You know, a lot of sports figures or
celebrities have their great falling at the end, you know,
I mean what he Hayes went for years when his
behavior was like sort of right on the edge. But
Kobe was different. You know, as you said, I'm not
excusing his age. By the way, he was certainly old enough,
you know, not to to to know that extramarital sex
(29:03):
was wrong. Whatever happened. But all this, this happened so
early in his career, and he had so much of
his life to live, and as much as he had
time to be derided by fans Ford, he also had
the time to change exacting. But Jack, getting back to
that notion that his his age, and as we've titled
(29:25):
this episode, it was the first quarter, and in a
way that benefited him because it allowed for him to
make the comeback. So he still had the prime of
his career to come. And one thing that we've learned
in sports is that if you win, if you if
you get back to the top, much is forgiven. And
so one of the reasons that the Kobe Bryant story
(29:46):
is told in the manner it is is that he
went on to win two more championships after this low point,
and certainly two thousand three four is the absolute low point,
but he pulls himself back from that. But at the
time it was so different, and it's hard to believe
that Phil Jackson that you heard at the top of
this episode and the affection that he had for Kobe Bryant,
(30:08):
that certainly wasn't the case in oh three oh four.
And Phil actually at that point wanted complete separation from Kobe.
He even went to the front office and asked to
get Kobe traded. And we know this because he wrote
about it in his Diary of the season it came
out that summer, and also because he told it to
us once again when we spoke to him for this podcast.
And I just went in and talked to the management
(30:29):
and said, Yo, I don't think this is the right
time right now. I think Kobe is uncoachable at this
particular time in his life. And uh, I don't know
what your direction is, but I think I think you
have to really assess whether you want to sign Kobe
for more or how you want to deal with this situation.
And so that happened. I believe the timeline is in
(30:50):
January two thousand four, and then there's various reports about
what happened is supposedly a meeting that Kobe had with
Jerry Buss on Super Bowl Sunday. What I do know
is that it all spilled out in the open the
week right up before the All Star Game, the last
game before the All Star Break, the Lakers are in Houston,
and they announced that they're pulling their contract extension offer
(31:14):
for Phil Jackson off the table, so he's basically going
to be a lame duck in the second half of
the season. And Shaq was very upset by that. We
asked Kobe his reaction. He said, I don't care. That's
three word quote. I don't care. So that's shows where
their relationship was. And then it's the All Star Break
and we talked about the Lakers overshadowing things. Well, they
overshadowed that All Star break. It's in Los Angeles, and
(31:35):
I remember people at the NBA were so mad because
that's supposed to be their showcase, their time to hype
and promote the league, and all anyone that's talking about
is the squabbling between the Lakers and their superstars. Shot
did call me after the All Star Game and said,
Kobe basically said something that was derogative towards you the
All Star Game, and um, I think you should talk
(31:59):
to him. And I said, you know, Cobe just is
going through difficult time right now. It's hard for him
to take directions. He's angry, he feels isolated, and he's
drawn into himself. And I think the best thing to
do is just let him be. I think that he's
he'll he'll find his way through this. And so I
(32:20):
didn't make an issue out of that, but I do
know that that the contentious nature was part of his
carriage at that time. And um, he was announced to
be a free agent, I believe in right before the
draft that year, and I was dealing with the extension
(32:40):
on a contract at the same time. Jack. The irony
is is that basically Kobe set Shack up to be
the m v P that All Star Game. After all
they've been going through, Kobe kept passing in the ball
and Chack Win's MVP that All Star Game exactly. You
know this. I don't think people understand the day to
day totality of how a team is together, like how
(33:05):
much they're together, how they can get on each other's nerves.
And one of the great things I think about Jerry Buss,
you have Phil, a great coach, a great you know,
one day we gotta get you know, we gotta get
rid of Kobe. Next thing, you know, he's winning championships
with him. And one of the great things about an
owner like Jerry Buss who's not involved in this day
(33:25):
to day rigamarole is he sits back and goes and
has a very clear vision. I think Kobe Bryant is
the best guy to win us more titles. It was
like what he said with Magic, I don't care if
we trade the whole damn team. I want Magic Johnson,
you know. And that's one of the things a clear
(33:46):
headed owner will do. And that's why, Hey, I'm sure
Jerry Buss did some you know, made some stupid decisions
like every other owner. But I'll tell you what. The
guy had his eye on the prize and the price
eyes out of the aughts was going to be Kobe Bryant,
and he saw it. And you know, I'm not sure Jay,
(34:08):
what I would have said about it if I had
that decision. But he had his decision, that's for sure.
And so the way the rest of that season played out,
is that they lose. In the NBA post, it had
pretty much been determined. I'm sure that that Jerry Bust
decided that Kobe was going to be the guy going
forward and he was going to be the centerpiece of
this team. And within a few weeks at the end
(34:28):
of those NBA Finals, Phil Jackson is out as coach,
and then Shaquille O'Neil is traded to Miami and the
Lakers as we had known them are no more. And
everything wasn't finished for Kobe though, because he still had
to resolve the sexual assault case. He was based in Colorado,
and ultimately they reached the resolution of that we discussed earlier,
(34:51):
and they settle out of court and the accuser drops
the case and will no longer cooperate with the prosecutor.
The problem for Kobe, it though, was he had no
idea that it was going to play out that way,
and so because of that, he couldn't promise USA Basketball,
he couldn't make that commitment to play with them for
the Olympic team in Athens that year. And you wonder
(35:13):
if that changes the whole course of history. Right going
back to the initial allegation in the summer of two
thousand three. It's still having an impact here in the
summer of two thousand four, and it keeps Kobe off
the Olympic team because he just couldn't make that commitment.
He didn't know what his what his schedule, what his
life was going to be like. You didn't even know
if he'd be a free man at the point of
the Olympics. And so you wonder though, if he had
(35:34):
been on that team, do they lose, do they finish
with the bronze medal, or does Kobe get them to
the gold medal as he ends up doing in two
thousand and eight, And if they do win the gold medal,
do we not have that reboot of the USA basketball
program led by Jerry Colangelo? And do we not even
have the whole redeemed team and USA basketball as we
know it now. That's it's a pretty significant what if hindsight.
(35:57):
But I covered those games, the two thousand four Olympic
Games and Athens, and I can tell you this, Jay Uh,
I doubt in Game one, when Carlos Royo made the
United States look like a JV team, I don't think
Kobe would have stood for that ship. So I'm gonna
bet that it would have been different. But I'll tell
(36:18):
you what. Our episode three coming up is about the
other alpha dog on a two thousand eight Redeemed Team,
Lebron James. We're gonna be hearing about his tale and
three other players from the Redeemed Team who were in
that great two thousand and three draft class, Carmelo Anthony,
Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. And also an account of
(36:40):
those strange two thousand four Olympics when we only came
home with a bronze medal. There's no pressure. There's no
pressure at all. I've been getting pressure since I was
ten years old. I think things could have been different,
but we didn't. We never had time. I mean, we
came at the last minute, me and Lebron and did
we We We got to call that the last minute and
the way that we looked at him like we we
(37:00):
just we all here put a rocket film. I'm Jack McCallum,
I'm je Thanks for listening to Kobe Lebron and the
Redeemed Team. The Dream Team Tapes, Season two. Kobe Lebron
and the Redeem Team is a production of Diversion podcasts
(37:22):
in association with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts. For
my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
where wherever you get your podcasts. This season has written
and hosted by me, Jack McCallum and j A. Dandee,
Executive producer Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast
(37:43):
and Sean's High Tone for I Heart Radio. Our editorial
director is John Tuttle, Supervising producer Brian Murphy, legal producer
Freddie Overseeghen editing, mixing and sound designed by Mark Frances.
Verna Fields is our technical producer, and our director of
Marketing and business Development is Jacob Bronstein Diversion Podcasts
The Dream Team Tapes Season two, Kobe Lebron and the
redeem Team is a production of Diversion Podcasts, an association
with I Heart Radio Diversion Podcasts. Welcome to episode two
(00:27):
of The Dream Team Tapes Season two, Kobe Lebron and
the Redeemed Team. We're calling this Kobe's first Quarter. And
as you listen to the details and descriptions of the
ups and downs of Kobe Bryant's first eight seasons in
the NBA, keep in mind that all of this transpires
through the time he was aged twenty five years old.
Quarter of a century. That's it. I'm j A. Dande
(00:51):
and I got an up close look at the Kobe
show while covering the Lakers for ten years at the
l A Times and ten years at ESPN. And I'm
joined by Jack McCallum, who made plenty of trips to
l A when a chronicle of the NBA for Sports Illustrated.
And Jack, I'm wondering, did you ever come to l
A with one story in mind only to have Kobe
take it over? I'll tell you what most prominently it
(01:11):
was during a strange summer of two thousand three, which
you're going to be concentrating on If you recall, the
same weekend that the news about Kobe's alleged sexual assault
in Colorado broke, was the same weekend that the Lakers
were proclaiming they had the new super team of the century.
They had acquired Carl Malone and Gary the Glove Peyton
(01:33):
to go with a you know, already great lineup with
Kobe and Shack. And that week I had arranged to
fly out with Carl Malone. He had hired a private
plane to take him to l A. When I got
to the small town where he was hiding out, Jim Hill,
by the way, the great l A sportscaster, were there,
and it looked like, Hey, this is gonna be a
great story about a super team. And next thing, you know,
(01:56):
the Kobe Bryant news that happened in Colorado had broke.
I never did get to use the stuff from the
Carl Malone plane ride. Yeah, that was probably the the
ultimate example while Kobe was alive, of him just taking
over and dominating the news. It would happen all the time. Though.
I went up to cover the NFC Championship in two
(02:16):
thousand six up in Seattle, and usually the NFL's Championship Sunday,
right the two conference championship games is the big story. Loan,
Behold what happens? Kobe drops eighty one points on the
Toronto Raptors and sort of takes over that storyline as well.
It would happen again and again where Kobe would just
come and and dominate the news and Jack even in
(02:38):
the after lafe he could dominate the news. Following the
tragic helicopter crash in January, Kobe Bryant dominated All Star
Game in Chicago, and he even took over what should
have been a tribute to David Stern right he had
passed away on January one, and All Star Weekend was
really his creation. Under his tenure as a commissioner of
the NBA went from just one game to this weekend
(03:00):
filled with events and parties and all that, and it
became the Kobe Show of Kobe celebration. All the players
wore Kobe's twenty four or his daughter Gianna's number two
in their jerseys during the game. He actually provided the
news in Adam Silver's news conference, we are renaming our
All Star m v P Trophy the Kobe Bryant m
(03:22):
v P Award. Along those lines, Kobe has really taken
over this entire episode, and that wasn't the original plan,
as we outlined the ark of this series, but really
the accelerant in that shift was our interview with Phil Jackson,
who was Kobe's coach from Ton with a notable one
year break in the two thousand four oh five season.
(03:42):
And Jack when we talked to Phil, he just really
took us through this incredible journey of his time together
with Kobe. He could be a little elusive, but when
you got him, it was never predictable. You know, he
never took you out on what you Hey, a lot
of times you go in interview with somebody and I'm
collecting the quotes to support what my thesis is. And
(04:05):
there's guys that are really good at doing that. You
know what they're gonna say, but they're still really great
at saying it. But Phil always did something that set
you off on another path. And you know, I think
it's pretty obvious that when Kobe died, as was the
case with many people, but certainly Phil as much as
(04:26):
anybody you know, really started deeply thinking about these times
with Kobe and some of the things he said to
us were among the best. You know, I've been doing
this for fifty years, and uh, it was really some
of the best stuff that I had ever heard a
coach talking about a player. Yeah, at the end of
our time with him, we asked him to summarize his
(04:47):
relationship with Kobe, and he made it sound like something
from a work of literature. Here he is, well, I
think it's it's almost like a prodigal son story. And
there we go into father elimination illustration that you know,
there's a conflict, and there's wilfulness, and there's selfishness, and
(05:09):
there's um, I can do this on my own type
of thing, and then there's you know, the second life
or second opportunity that really brings back tenderness, yielding. You know,
it took two of us to have that complicated relationship
early on, you know, trying to both be wilful or directed,
(05:32):
and his was to establish himself and his identity, and
me to establish what a team had to do to
win and the direction that teams have to have to
have this unselfish behavior and bending that will I think
was done. You know, sometimes in you know, in usual ways,
(05:54):
like one time coming to the facility and I had
a place that I parking spot that was designated mine
and there was Kobe's car in my parking spot. You know,
things like that, just you know, know that he was
gonna entertain me and me not reacting to it at all,
you know, just going on about the day, you know,
not taking on bridge at anything. And so we forged
(06:16):
something that was harmonious and that that was one of
the joys of our life. And you know, my former
repel and partner Jamie Buss, says that, you know, we
raised him as a son of our own, So I
guess there's something in that together. So you can see
why we had to clear the way for this, much
like Kobe isolating on the wings so he could go
(06:38):
one on one. Although I'd say Kobe's ability to steal
the spotlight also as part of the Lakers and the
way they steal the spotlight, there's something about that franchise.
And a great example as we get back to the
context of USA Basketball came in the Olympics, and USA
Basketball executive Sean Ford told us that when they first
got to Georgia ahead of the Olympic Games and they
(06:59):
get to the hotel els around midnight and they credentialed
everyone on the team and then the traveling party and
then he's told at two am that he has to
drive Shaquille O'Neil to the Weston Hotel and he didn't
ask why, and then drive through Atlanta and he gets
to the West End. As as they're pulling up, he
discovered the reason. Get out and Jerry West is waiting
for him at the Lakers and uh he was that
(07:20):
That's when he signed his contract with the Lakers. So Jack,
if you remember that free agent signing when Shack left
the Orlando Magic, it oversattled the start of the Olympics. Absolutely.
I mean it did, as you said, overshadow the games.
But that's kind of understandable. Shack was at the height
of his powers back then and Jerry West signing of him.
You know, I talked to Jerry how many years after
(07:41):
that is now, you know, twenty five years later, with
however many signings Jerry has done, including you know, drafting Kobe,
he still gets excited when he when he talks about
that Shack signing. It's very It's really an interesting phenomenon.
Remember at the time he compared it to the bird
to his children, and it was that monumental an event
(08:02):
for him. And what we didn't realize though, was that
he was equally as excited about his Draft day trade
for Kobe Bryant, And initially I don't think we gave
that enough attention. There was still there was curiosity about Kobe. Um.
You know, high school players going straight to the NBA
was was still a novelty. The year before, Chemi Garnett
(08:23):
had become the first player to skip straight to the
pros and twenty years and with Kobe was the first
time that a guard had done it, So there was
that new aspect of it. And I went up to
the Lakers first road game of the season. I was
working in washing d C at the time. It took
the train up to Penn Station in New York City
and went up stairs and Madison Square Garden, and there
was so much demand for young Kobe and one of
(08:44):
his first games as a pro, that they actually did
a separate press conference for him before their game against
the Knicks. You know, back then, obviously people knew about Kobe.
Clips were not passed back virally back and forth. I
don't remember, maybe you do, but I don't remember a
thousand Kobe clips at you know, Lower Merion High School
(09:05):
being passed back and forth. Now in the next episode,
we're gonna be talking about Lebron. By that time, it
was different. You know, eight years later, everybody who was
a basketball fan had seen Lebron, and Kobe really didn't
play in any of these as I recall any of
these super games, you know, I get matched like Lebron
events Carmelo and stuff like that. So Kobe, as you said,
(09:28):
was still still a little bit of a secret. I
mean not not a full secret, but a little bit. Yeah,
And we we talked to Eric Aldridge, who was the
Lakers assistant PR director at the time. He was actually
the guy that picked up Kobe at the airport to
drive into his now legendary pre jaft workout with the
Lakers at the inglewood Y m c A. And he
he spoke on that aspect. Jack, A big part of
(09:50):
the mystique of Kobe was we didn't really know who
he was. I mean again, this was pre social media.
It was a lot of word of mouth. But once
the Laker fans got to see Kobe for themselves, starting
in the Summer League game and then early with this
time with the Lakers, they really formed a quick bond.
(10:12):
As authors noticed, Well, I think from my perspective, what
I saw was, you know, people love your watching brilliance.
If you think about you know, Tiger Woods, you think
about athletes who were so good so young, and then
you you're watching it unfold in front of your eyes.
(10:33):
I mean, it's almost like watching your own kid. You know,
you you see it, you see the potential, but he's
not there yet. It was clear that he wasn't there yet,
but you could see it. But not only could you
see it, you can see him working towards it. And
I think that's the thing that connected him with the
fan base. And then Robert Dory was traded to the
Lakers during Kobe's rookie season, and from his first practice
(10:56):
with the team, he noticed that Kobe was working towards
it even when the fans and the TV cameras weren't around.
I remember Cole was just like, everybody's going like a
third of a speed and Kobe's going one hund and
shoot around, Like does this guy know this is a
shoot around? And he was like, you know, I gotta
go hard because I'm trying to start I'm like, dude,
it shoot around, nobody goes hard. And he just had
(11:20):
all his energy and I said, that's that's an eighteen
year old for you. You You know, that's you're gonna have
all that energy. And when you wait waited this age
m game, grinding hits, you're gonna slow down. And it
was just one of those things. He was just trying
to learn the game. And he was just one of
those guys that was in the gym constantly trying to
get better. I mean every play he was going hard.
(11:40):
So Kobe had his formula for greatness on the court,
but he didn't have a pathway to bonding with his teammates.
And part of it was the age gap. Kobe was
born in ninety eight. The next youngest player on the
team was born in nineteen seventy four. And put it
this way, how much time did you spend hanging out
with seniors during your freshman year in college? And of
course Kobe never had any of that college experience. You know,
(12:01):
that transition time when you're away from home, every's an
equal footing. You're in the dorms, you're sharing sleeping quarters
with the roommate. You've all got this community bathroom, down
the down the hall, and its altres put it. He
just didn't have those social skills built up yet. So
altre also members of time. Early in Kobe's career, when
he and some of the players went to a TGI
Fridays after a preseason game in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and
(12:23):
Kobe walks in the restaurant. He didn't even join them
at first. That was a rookie faux pa. And when
he finally came over, he's astounded that the players are drinking,
Like he couldn't believe they had a game to play
the next night and they're drinking alcohol. And Robert Rory
was one of the players at the table and he
recalled that night it was all about bonding, And I
think he didn't understand that it's it's about coming together
(12:44):
and bonding, because if you think about it, it was
I always believe that it was a disconnect because you're
just eight year old. What do you have in common
with the a t O in twenty just probably video
games at the time video games were like the level
they r now. Um, So it was it was a
disconnect them. And and I think when he turned twenty one,
he was like, okay, I'm a part of crewing them.
(13:06):
But to disconnect was did the wall. I should say
it was up so hard. It was kind of to reconnect.
We'll be back with more Kobe, Lebron and the redeem
team after this. So then in there's a huge new
(13:27):
personality added to the mix, Bill Jackson. There had been
a series of playoff disappointments with the Lakers and that
led to the firing coach Del Harris, and then the
Lakers didn't think his replacement, Kurt Rambis was up to
the task, and Phil Jackson was available. The reason why
I was covered pretty extensively in the last Dance and
the Lakers signed filled with a five year, thirty million
dollar contract and jack that was really big bucks for
(13:48):
a coach at the time. It was sort of a
little version of what had happened in Chicago. Jordan was
very very close to Doug Collins. He had gotten them
to a certain point, and you know, you don't know
whether Phil is back there studying the situation and going okay,
I think it's time, you know. And it's obviously a
(14:09):
combination of taking over a team when they're ready to mature.
I don't think there's any doubt about that. But it's
also Phil's got a little bit of a magic touch
that he was able to add and next thing, you know,
three titles in a row. Yeah, and Phil, when he
took over in Chicago, A he was coming from inside.
He wasn't coming from the outside. But the advantage he
(14:29):
had when he came to the Lakers was that he
was minted with six championships, and so they had to
respect him. He commanded their respect, and I think in
part it was a message to the star players that
they had to get serious or they could be the
ones out the next time. And they responded. As Robert
Ori noted from the first DAID training camp, when they
get there and he sees that Kobe's bulked up and
(14:50):
shock and slimmed down. It's almost like they were skin
of field and they got in the best shape of
their lives. They were looking good, and they were like, oh,
we gotta be ready for his upcoming season. And so
Kobe was so eager to learn from Phil Jackson, his idol,
Michael Jordan's coach, that he went to meet with Phil
before his introductory press conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Meanwhile,
(15:11):
Shack cross passed with Phil that summer at Jackson's getaway
cabin in Montana. He was riding around the bay on
some jet skis that he had borrowed from neighbors. As
far as you could see, people were standing out on
their docks and looking at him. And he'd been jumping
on the trampoline that was in my yard, and my
neighbors kept seeing this figure show up above the boat
(15:34):
house and Jack was jumping on the trampoline, and then
he went off to the dock and he did he
dove in the dock, and then he borrowed some jet
skis and went around. So the big, fun loving guy,
you know, was somebody I knew already. And in that
story you can hear the affection for Shock and Phil's voice.
And he was also intrigued by the chance to coach
(15:54):
a dominant center, and that was the one element he
didn't have with the Chicago teams. And so acts and
made Shack the focal point of the offense. But Kobe
didn't always follow the plan. He would just go rogue,
and I pulled him the sideline and saying it's not
the time to try and take over the game. Yet, Yeah,
I'll get back to it, and he go back and
(16:15):
run the offense for a little bit. But you know,
everything was predicated to going through Shack a lot at
that time, because that's what I said, that's what we're
gonna do. So how we're gonna attack this team and
this game. And uh, you know, Kobe got tired of
doing that. But Kobe was capable of playing and of
working alongside Shack. And there's three championship banners and Staples
(16:36):
Center to prove it. When Kobe and Shack joined forces
at the top, their combined powers were unbeatable. And what's
interesting to me is that Phil Jackson singled out the
same moment that I always referenced as the display of
Kobe and Shack at their collaborative best, and it's to
play near the end of Game seven and the two
thousand Western Conference Finals, when Kobe crossed up Scottie Pippen.
Then he threw a lob to Shack and that's the
(16:57):
one that finished off the comeback against the Portland Trail
Blazers and it sent them on to the NBA Finals.
I think it was solidified when jack understood that Kobe
knew how to win what was necessary to win, and
was able to do the things that created the winds,
and that he would give up the ball at the
(17:19):
right time to create this. Well, the demonstrating moments was
that dunk against Portland in the game the seventh game
of that series, when you know, all of a sudden,
you know, there was a movement which everybody was expecting
Kobe to make some kind of a shot or whatever,
and he just put the ball up there for Shock
to to ram it down through the hoop. And I
(17:41):
think that was really a moment that kind of solidified everything,
and they kind of understood then that they were gonna
do whatever it took to win. It felt like the
Lakers would keep winning championships for the foreseeable future. Jack
was Kobe. This was his version of college graduation, and
that was an element that the Lakers, who had pretty
much stayed set for throughout their three championships, and they
(18:05):
just weren't ready for that element, and and losing that,
of course, uh led to that drastic change that you
mentioned earlier when they brought in Gary Payton and Karl
Malone and they said, okay, we need to upgrade, and
they majorly upgraded. But meanwhile, the mileage of all those
deep playoff runs had had really worn down Kobe's knee,
and unbeknownst to the Lakers, he went to Eagle, Colorado
(18:25):
to get surgery. He just did it out of the blue.
The club was totally surprised at the incident and everything
and all hell broke loose after that. And while he
was in Colorado, Kobe had a sexual encounter with the
hotel employee and she later accused him of sexual assault,
and all that led to the most surreal press conference
(18:45):
I've ever attended, and it featured Kobe, his wife Vanessa,
and his attorney, Pamela Mackie, who was voice so here
first from in the clip from that day, Toby Bryant
is innocent of the charges that were filed at as
him today, I'm innacent. I didn't force her to do
anything against her will. I'm innocent. In that case just
(19:11):
loomed over the whole season, even despite the additions of
those two future Hall of Fame players, and it also
increased the tension between Shaq and Kobe. Shack had learned
that Kobe brought Shack's name into the statement that he
gave police and one thing it did was create even
more distance between Phil and Kobe. And at the time
that Kobe probably could have used more support and advice,
(19:34):
Phil's approach was to give Kobe more space. And Phil
just didn't know what to make of Kobe's presence on
the team. He just felt the anger emanating out of
his being. I don't know who. He's angry at himself,
He's angry at the situation, He's angry at the public exposure.
There's a lot of things. I never felt really comfortable
(19:55):
with it, and I just decided to be hands off
and situation. It felt like a personal upfront to me
to keep in mind all the other things that play.
Bill Jackson was in the last year of his contract.
He was trying to get an extension. Shack had another
year left on his contract, but he wanted an extension,
and Kobe this was the key could become a free
(20:16):
agent after the season, and for the first time he
was in a position to flex his leverage. And I
don't know if Kobe ever gave Lakers owner Jerry Buss
an ultimatum that he would leave unless Bus got rid
of Shock and Phil, But I do know I can't
explain how. But trust me, I do know that Bus
really didn't think Jackson should keep coaching that team. And
(20:38):
he also realized that he couldn't keep both Shack and Kobe,
that one of them was going to have to go.
They couldn't co exist any longer. That was his mindset.
I don't know the extent that Kobe influenced, but I'm
really confident that that was Jerry Buss's mentality at the time.
I'm interested. You were out there, and uh, I always
have this this theory, and when you say something is
(20:58):
the theory, that means it doesn't have to be correct it.
I always thought that it had to be like somebody's team,
not not two guys team, you know, it had to
be one guy's team. And it always was fascinating to
me because Shaq was such a dominant figure. And maybe
it's just because I knew him better. I had worked
(21:18):
on a book with him on in his rookie year,
and I kind of, like, you know, knew I could
always gravitate to him. He as you said, he was
a dominant player. They were still using, you know, feed
the post type of situation and the triangle utilize the
post person so Shack was dominant on the court. But
and you alluded to this, I think there there seemed
(21:41):
to be in l A the affection between Kobe and
the fans seemed to go beyond what the affection was
for Shock and the fans, which is interesting to me
because it's a showman's town and now Kobe was a
showman too, But my god, Shack. So how do you
kind of explain a whose team it was and be
(22:06):
the the incredible affection Kobe had with those Hollywood fans.
Part of it goes back to the old world Chamberlain line, right, Jack,
nobody roots for Goliath. And even though Shack was as
warm and engaging a big man as we've ever seen,
and the Lakers had a tradition and a rich legacy
(22:28):
of big men going back to George, Mike and and
Wilt and Kareem, but those guys were never the favorites, right.
Jerry West and Elton Baylair were fan favorites over Wilt's
Magic was the fan favorite over Kareem. The Laker fans
never really bonded with Kareem the way they did with Magic,
And I think, just again it's part of it. There's
(22:50):
something more relatable. Why is Steph Curry so popular, right,
because he's closer in size to the average fan. And Kobe,
even though he's tall, wasn't a behemoth like Shack And
that was part of it. And you wonder if part
of it also is that the only uniform that Kobe
ever wore was the Lakers were me Maybe he wore
that Charlotte Hornet's cap on Draft night, but you know,
(23:12):
from the time he played his first game, he was
in a Lake uniform where Shaq came from the Magic
and then of course later played on several teams after
he left the Lakers, So that there's there are all
those factors. And I'm guessing after the sexual assault charge,
Kobe became a more complicated figure, a figure of redemption.
So he became a character that people understand in Hollywood
(23:35):
when they're pitching a movie. People understand that, but Check
never really had something like that. Yeah, if anything, that experienced,
that ordeal of the sexual assault case bonded Kobe with
the fans even more and and they zealously defended him
from the get go. And you know, he he never
(23:56):
lost the crowd. It it it never cost him his
standing with the Laker fans. You're listening to Kobe Lebron
and the redeem Team. We'll be back in just a moment.
I remember that press conference, by the way, Jake, because
as I said before, I was supposed to be writing
the the the Wonderful, Feel Good Gary Payton, Carl Malone
(24:20):
joined up for the super Team. And there was this
guy next to me, and uh, he goes, uh, where
are you from? I said, I'm from Sports Illustrated. He
was not impressed. He went up from Celebrity Justice. So
apparently there was a thing I don't know, maybe it
still exists called Celebrity Justice. And I went, oh, ship man,
(24:41):
we're in a different world here it was, and that
that season it was it was Access Hollywood and and
E and and it just became this whole other thing.
And that press conference it felt like a movie, just
because I never thought I would be there for something
like that. For Kobe Riots, it was an outlandist that
(25:03):
an athlete could find himself in his circumstance. But but
Kobe Bryant, it just it seemed unfathomable that he would
stand before is accused of sexual assault and you and
you have the problem of how to. I don't want
to use the word spin because that's not what you're doing.
But when you write a story or when you're broadcasting,
you were writing, were you still writing back then? Or yeah, yeah,
(25:25):
I'm I'm writing. I covered every almost every game of
that season for the l a time. You have to
figure out, you know, which way you're kind of shading it?
Do you express utter disbelief? Um? The one thing you
cannot do is, you know, begin casting as some people do,
you know, begin casting aspersions on the accuser. Uh, you
(25:49):
know right away. And it's a very you know, it's
a very difficult story to write, and to this day
it be you know it. It is a very difficult
thing to deal with and of a no win situation.
I mean, there's a woman who worked at Sports Illustrated,
who I deeply respected, who you know, got really angry
one day because she thought as the years went on,
(26:11):
Now this is years later, you know, maybe it was
when Kobe scored eighty one or Kobe one two in
a row, why are you still glorifying this guy? Why
are you still And you know, my point was, I
can't begin every story with Kobe Bryant Comma who was
accused of an assault in Colorado in July of two
(26:32):
thousand three. You can't begin every story like that. That
a person deserves a chance to go on and grow.
But it's a tough, you know, journalistic lesson, I think
for anybody to handle. You agree, Yeah, And it's made
even more difficult than that. We never got the definitive
declaration of guilt or innocence from a court resolution. Right,
it was dropped before it went to court. Again, he
(26:54):
reached agreement, and that's why I maintain we have to
allow for the possibility that the user saw this resolved
to her satisfaction. You know, there was a large settlement
made and Kobe agreed to apologize and he issued in
basically an apology and an explanation, and the accuser said
(27:15):
she would no longer cooperate with the prosecutors, and that
basically ended the case. And it's possible that that was
enough to satisfy and she felt, you know, justice had
been served in that regard and that she got what
she wanted. We don't know, we've never heard from her,
so maybe she's still upset, maybe she feels like it
(27:35):
was insufficient. But the fact that um we never did
hear from her, and I'm certain you know there was
a degree of silence that was part of the agreement
that was reached, but we've never heard otherwise. So that's
one thing I've taken into consideration. And again a lot
of this came up again after Kobe died, is that
how much of his story should we allocate for this
(27:59):
and uh, should it dominate as you said, should it
be in the lead paragraph, but in his obituary, I'm
not certain. And it's especially you do have to allow
for for growth. And then we'll hear from Phil Jackson
over the course of this series, the growth that he
made in his relationship, the steps that Kobe took in
order to for them to have a productive working relationship
for the latter part of Phil's career in the second
(28:20):
half of Kobe's career, and we look at Kobe what
he went on to do and become such an advocate
for women's sports um which is what he almost became
known for, and in particular his daughter and and at
the time of his passing, he had really become a
champion for the w n b A. So so all
of those things came into play by the end. Yeah,
(28:41):
it's unusual. You know, a lot of sports figures or
celebrities have their great falling at the end, you know,
I mean what he Hayes went for years when his
behavior was like sort of right on the edge. But
Kobe was different. You know, as you said, I'm not
excusing his age. By the way, he was certainly old enough,
you know, not to to to know that extramarital sex
(29:03):
was wrong. Whatever happened. But all this, this happened so
early in his career, and he had so much of
his life to live, and as much as he had
time to be derided by fans Ford, he also had
the time to change exacting. But Jack, getting back to
that notion that his his age, and as we've titled
(29:25):
this episode, it was the first quarter, and in a
way that benefited him because it allowed for him to
make the comeback. So he still had the prime of
his career to come. And one thing that we've learned
in sports is that if you win, if you if
you get back to the top, much is forgiven. And
so one of the reasons that the Kobe Bryant story
(29:46):
is told in the manner it is is that he
went on to win two more championships after this low point,
and certainly two thousand three four is the absolute low point,
but he pulls himself back from that. But at the
time it was so different, and it's hard to believe
that Phil Jackson that you heard at the top of
this episode and the affection that he had for Kobe Bryant,
(30:08):
that certainly wasn't the case in oh three oh four.
And Phil actually at that point wanted complete separation from Kobe.
He even went to the front office and asked to
get Kobe traded. And we know this because he wrote
about it in his Diary of the season it came
out that summer, and also because he told it to
us once again when we spoke to him for this podcast.
And I just went in and talked to the management
(30:29):
and said, Yo, I don't think this is the right
time right now. I think Kobe is uncoachable at this
particular time in his life. And uh, I don't know
what your direction is, but I think I think you
have to really assess whether you want to sign Kobe
for more or how you want to deal with this situation.
And so that happened. I believe the timeline is in
(30:50):
January two thousand four, and then there's various reports about
what happened is supposedly a meeting that Kobe had with
Jerry Buss on Super Bowl Sunday. What I do know
is that it all spilled out in the open the
week right up before the All Star Game, the last
game before the All Star Break, the Lakers are in Houston,
and they announced that they're pulling their contract extension offer
(31:14):
for Phil Jackson off the table, so he's basically going
to be a lame duck in the second half of
the season. And Shaq was very upset by that. We
asked Kobe his reaction. He said, I don't care. That's
three word quote. I don't care. So that's shows where
their relationship was. And then it's the All Star Break
and we talked about the Lakers overshadowing things. Well, they
overshadowed that All Star break. It's in Los Angeles, and
(31:35):
I remember people at the NBA were so mad because
that's supposed to be their showcase, their time to hype
and promote the league, and all anyone that's talking about
is the squabbling between the Lakers and their superstars. Shot
did call me after the All Star Game and said,
Kobe basically said something that was derogative towards you the
All Star Game, and um, I think you should talk
(31:59):
to him. And I said, you know, Cobe just is
going through difficult time right now. It's hard for him
to take directions. He's angry, he feels isolated, and he's
drawn into himself. And I think the best thing to
do is just let him be. I think that he's
he'll he'll find his way through this. And so I
(32:20):
didn't make an issue out of that, but I do
know that that the contentious nature was part of his
carriage at that time. And um, he was announced to
be a free agent, I believe in right before the
draft that year, and I was dealing with the extension
(32:40):
on a contract at the same time. Jack. The irony
is is that basically Kobe set Shack up to be
the m v P that All Star Game. After all
they've been going through, Kobe kept passing in the ball
and Chack Win's MVP that All Star Game exactly. You
know this. I don't think people understand the day to
day totality of how a team is together, like how
(33:05):
much they're together, how they can get on each other's nerves.
And one of the great things I think about Jerry Buss,
you have Phil, a great coach, a great you know,
one day we gotta get you know, we gotta get
rid of Kobe. Next thing, you know, he's winning championships
with him. And one of the great things about an
owner like Jerry Buss who's not involved in this day
(33:25):
to day rigamarole is he sits back and goes and
has a very clear vision. I think Kobe Bryant is
the best guy to win us more titles. It was
like what he said with Magic, I don't care if
we trade the whole damn team. I want Magic Johnson,
you know. And that's one of the things a clear
(33:46):
headed owner will do. And that's why, Hey, I'm sure
Jerry Buss did some you know, made some stupid decisions
like every other owner. But I'll tell you what. The
guy had his eye on the prize and the price
eyes out of the aughts was going to be Kobe Bryant,
and he saw it. And you know, I'm not sure Jay,
(34:08):
what I would have said about it if I had
that decision. But he had his decision, that's for sure.
And so the way the rest of that season played out,
is that they lose. In the NBA post, it had
pretty much been determined. I'm sure that that Jerry Bust
decided that Kobe was going to be the guy going
forward and he was going to be the centerpiece of
this team. And within a few weeks at the end
(34:28):
of those NBA Finals, Phil Jackson is out as coach,
and then Shaquille O'Neil is traded to Miami and the
Lakers as we had known them are no more. And
everything wasn't finished for Kobe though, because he still had
to resolve the sexual assault case. He was based in Colorado,
and ultimately they reached the resolution of that we discussed earlier,
(34:51):
and they settle out of court and the accuser drops
the case and will no longer cooperate with the prosecutor.
The problem for Kobe, it though, was he had no
idea that it was going to play out that way,
and so because of that, he couldn't promise USA Basketball,
he couldn't make that commitment to play with them for
the Olympic team in Athens that year. And you wonder
(35:13):
if that changes the whole course of history. Right going
back to the initial allegation in the summer of two
thousand three. It's still having an impact here in the
summer of two thousand four, and it keeps Kobe off
the Olympic team because he just couldn't make that commitment.
He didn't know what his what his schedule, what his
life was going to be like. You didn't even know
if he'd be a free man at the point of
the Olympics. And so you wonder though, if he had
(35:34):
been on that team, do they lose, do they finish
with the bronze medal, or does Kobe get them to
the gold medal as he ends up doing in two
thousand and eight, And if they do win the gold medal,
do we not have that reboot of the USA basketball
program led by Jerry Colangelo? And do we not even
have the whole redeemed team and USA basketball as we
know it now. That's it's a pretty significant what if hindsight.
(35:57):
But I covered those games, the two thousand four Olympic
Games and Athens, and I can tell you this, Jay Uh,
I doubt in Game one, when Carlos Royo made the
United States look like a JV team, I don't think
Kobe would have stood for that ship. So I'm gonna
bet that it would have been different. But I'll tell
(36:18):
you what. Our episode three coming up is about the
other alpha dog on a two thousand eight Redeemed Team,
Lebron James. We're gonna be hearing about his tale and
three other players from the Redeemed Team who were in
that great two thousand and three draft class, Carmelo Anthony,
Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. And also an account of
(36:40):
those strange two thousand four Olympics when we only came
home with a bronze medal. There's no pressure. There's no
pressure at all. I've been getting pressure since I was
ten years old. I think things could have been different,
but we didn't. We never had time. I mean, we
came at the last minute, me and Lebron and did
we We We got to call that the last minute and
the way that we looked at him like we we
(37:00):
just we all here put a rocket film. I'm Jack McCallum,
I'm je Thanks for listening to Kobe Lebron and the
Redeemed Team. The Dream Team Tapes, Season two. Kobe Lebron
and the Redeem Team is a production of Diversion podcasts
(37:22):
in association with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts. For
my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
where wherever you get your podcasts. This season has written
and hosted by me, Jack McCallum and j A. Dandee,
Executive producer Scott Waxman and Mark Frances for Diversion podcast
(37:43):
and Sean's High Tone for I Heart Radio. Our editorial
director is John Tuttle, Supervising producer Brian Murphy, legal producer
Freddie Overseeghen editing, mixing and sound designed by Mark Frances.
Verna Fields is our technical producer, and our director of
Marketing and business Development is Jacob Bronstein Diversion Podcasts
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