Kobe Bryant played a big role in the Los Angeles Lakers’ success during the 2000s and early part of this decade, and he continues to help the team in big ways even in retirement.
According to an article from The Athletic’s Sam Amick, Bryant helped ignite the front office overhaul last year that helped the team eventually land LeBron James.
Lakers president Jeanie Buss related to Amick what Bryant told her when the two got together to discuss the organization early last year.
“Jeanie, I know who we’re trying to get; we know who we’re trying to get, so that player is not going to come here with all of this s— going on. It’s not going to happen,” Bryant told her, via Amick’s article. “So if you do want to have that focus, and go after that player, then I’m telling you that you’ve gotta clean house, and you’ve gotta just reshuffle the deck and start anew. You have the new practice facility (the UCLA Health Training Center) that we’re just moving into (in the summer of 2017). We’ve got new management, and off we go. But that player is not coming here unless you do that.”
The Lakers were a mess at the time. They had some terrible contracts, a bad record, and a major power struggle at the top.
Jeanie, who had been feuding with brother Jim for years, finally decided to make big moves and fired Jim as president and GM Mitch Kupchak. Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka, Kobe’s agent, were hired to take their places.
Since then the team has made many trades to clear salary cap space and revamp the roster so they could attract LeBron. The plan worked and the Lakers now seem to be on their way towards regaining franchise success.
The Mamba Mentality pays off once again for the Lakers.
