Ranking every Kobe Bryant season with the Lakers: 8. 2001-02
The last of the dynasty in Los Angeles. The Lakers after some controversy in the Western Conference Finals would go on to 3-peat. This would mark the last championship Kobe and Shaq would win together before their feud started to hit full circle the following year.
Bryant was great on both ends during the run helping lead the Lakers to 58 wins on the season and landing on the All-NBA first team for the first time in his career and an All-Defensive second-team selection. His ratings on both ends paced the Lakers as his offensive rating was 109.1 and his defensive rating 101.7, which was a +7.4 net-rating.
For the season Bryant was very good, he averaged 25.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists per night. He did that while shooting splits of 46.9/25/82.9. The field goal percentage was the highest of his career, although he did struggle with his outside shot for most of the year.
Regardless it was another year that Bryant continued to expand his game into a more complete player. At 23 years old he already had three championships to his name and dazzling on a nightly basis. He and Shaq seemed to be on top of the world and primed to win many more together.
That plan didn’t work out as advertised as the team would trade Shaq two years later. Nonetheless, Kobe made his third straight All-Star selection this season and won his first All-Star MVP with a 31 point effort.
At such a young age, he was doing things the league had never seen before. As the years progressed the Hornets day there thinking to themselves “why did we trade Kobe?”.