Mark Cuban confirms Lakers nearly made massive Kobe Bryant mistake

Kobe Bryant will go down as one of, if not the, greatest Los Angeles Lakers of all time. Bryant won five championships with the purple and gold and became an icon for the city of Los Angeles and the rest of the world. No other athlete, aside from maybe Derek Jeter, has had the kind of impact on his city that Bryant had on LA.

One of the things that Kobe is praised the most for is his loyalty. Kobe spent his entire career with the Lakers in a day in age where players jumped teams like it was going out of style. It is something LeBron James, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, heck, even Michael Jordan could not do.

While Kobe should be applauded for his loyalty, there is an alternate reality in which he did not finish his career in LA. Lakers fans forget that Kobe definitely wanted out of Los Angeles and according to Mark Cuban, he was nearly a member of the Dallas Mavericks.

In fact, Cuban thought it was so close to being a done deal that he was ready to put together the trade call. The saving grace? Mitch Kupchak convincing Kobe to stay in LA.

The Lakers trading Kobe Bryant to the Dallas Mavericks would have been monumental.

Cuban says in the clip that the Mavericks had reached the NBA Championship the year prior, meaning that these negotiations happened at the trade deadline during the 2006-07 season. Based on the salaries of the players at the time, the Lakers likely would have gotten a package of Jerry Stackhouse, Josh Howard, Devin Harris and a boatload of draft picks.

Stackhouse would have been the big contract while Howard and Harris were the Mavs’ third and fourth-best players that season and were both under 26. It would not have been a huge return for Kobe Bryant but if things got ugly and Kobe forced his way out that is the kind of deal LA would have gotten.

Bryant definitely would have won at least two championships with the Mavericks. Dirk already won one without Bryant and as great as Pau Gasol is, Dirk is obviously the better player. Two rings would have been the floor for a Mavericks team with Kobe Bryant, especially in the late 2000s.

Dallas would have been able to contend for the title that season before the Boston big three was assembled, giving us a LeBron-Kobe matchup in the NBA Finals. Heck, we might have had 1-2 more later down the line with LeBron in Miami as well.

Meanwhile, the Lakers would have entered a tailspin. The Lakers went in the worst stretch in franchise history after winning two titles with Kobe and Gasol and that only would have been made worse by having to trade Kobe.

Los Angeles would not have been bad enough to get Kevin Durant in 2007, and who knows, perhaps the Lakers would have drafted the hometown kid in Russell Westbrook in the 2008 draft. Maybe the Lakers are the team that ends up with Westbrook and James Harden depending where they finish in those respective seasons.

And Kobe’s legacy would obviously be much, much different. He would be just a three-time champion with the Lakers and a lot of fans probably would have soured on him. Instead, fans would have given more credit to Shaquille O’Neal for the team’s three-peat and Magic Johnson would have still been regarded as the bonafide Lakers GOAT.

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But obviously, none of that happened, so this is nothing but an alternate reality nightmare for fans.