The Los Angeles Lakers chose to retain Kobe Bryant after his rift with Shaquille O’Neal made it almost impossible for the two to co-exist in a singular tandem. The bulk of the credit for the Lakers’ three-peat in the early 2000s was attributed to Shaq: he was mostly looked upon as the leader of the team. Therefore, Kobe wanted to badly win a Championship after the Lakers’ keys were handed to him in 2004, especially after the Big Diesel won one without him in Miami.
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This gives us some understanding as to how brutal the 2008 NBA Finals loss was to Kobe on a personal level. That was the closest he had been to a Championship since 2004—he certainly felt devastated. But instead of falling apart, the Mamba rallied his troops to prepare for a stronger attack next year.
Trevor Ariza, who was a role player for the Lakers at the time, revealed on the Run It Back show just how sincere Kobe was to flesh out his plan for next year. The then 22-year-old received a list of nine things he needs to do from Kobe immediately after the Finals.
“We lost to Boston and everybody was pretty emotional about it…We get to the plane…he sat one seat behind me. And we’re just talking and he said, ‘In two days, I’m gonna send you exactly what you need to do for us to get better,'” Ariza revealed.
“And he sent me a paragraph of like nine things that I needed to work on and do every single day,” he added. Ariza didn’t reveal the list of things, but they seemed pretty intense workout plans from his description.
Hearing Kobe stories truly never get old!
Trevor Ariza shares a classic story of Kobe sharing an extensive offseason plan with him, immediately after losing to the Celtics in 2008!#kobebryant @ChandlerParsons | @TeamLou23 | @MichelleDBeadle pic.twitter.com/0l2tKSnb5y
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) November 22, 2024
However, that was not all. Kobe followed up on Ariza’s progress during the summer to check if he really was doing the things allotted to him. “So he [Kobe] would call me out to Newport beach to come work out with him at 4:30 and he would just check my temperature to see if I was doing the things he sent me,” the 2009 NBA Champion added.
After Ariza proved to be consistent with his tasks, Kobe trusted him as one of his running mates for the 2008-09 campaign. The result was the Lakers winning the 2009 Championship quite comfortably against the Orlando Magic.
Ariza’s story is quite fascinating if we try to peel back the layers. He was a 22-year-old role player for the Lakers in the 2008 Finals, who averaged only seven minutes a game in the six-game series to put up 2.6 points and 1.8 rebounds per game. But Kobe saw Ariza’s potential beyond those meagre numbers and trained him hard.
The result was a 11 PPG and 6 RPG performance from him in the Lakers’ 4-1 win in the 2009 Finals. This kind of foresight separated Kobe from many contemporary superstars in the league.
