The late Kobe Bryant’s greatness had a flip side — his game personality, exemplary skill notwithstanding, made him more of a lone wolf than a team player. During the Kobe-Shaq era at the Los Angeles Lakers, the Mamba had rubbed many people in the team the wrong way with his rudeness as well as propensity to disregard the coach’s orders. So much so that Phil Jackson threatened to resign in 2004, after the three-peat, having had enough of Kobe’s disrespectful attitude.
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In his book Three-Ring Circus, Jeff Pearlman revealed how Jackson said he would quit the Lakers if they didn’t get rid of Kobe. Things had escalated between Kobe and Jackson through the 2003-04 season. The superstar was also going through personal turmoil at the time. Pearlman mentioned that it was during the game against the Denver Nuggets (on January 7, 2004) that the veteran head coach decided that he had enough.
Lakers lost that home game to the Nuggets 91-113, the defeat accentuated by some bad play from Bryant.
According to Pearlman, “Jackson scowled toward Bryant after a sloppy play led to a Nuggets bucket. ‘You can’t make that pass’!” However, Kobe didn’t think he had made a mistake and instead advised the coach to teach better offense to the rest of the players, “You better teach those mother***ers how to run the offense.”
Jackson couldn’t handle the disrespect and immediately called his agent, Todd Musburger, telling him that he was going to resign. Musburger convinced him that quitting wasn’t a good idea and that he should address the issue tactfully. Jackson went to the then Lakers General Manager, Mitch Kupchak, and demanded that Kobe should be traded.
He said, “I won’t coach this team next year if he is still here… He won’t listen to anyone. I’ve had it with this kid.”
The Lakers couldn’t trade Kobe as he was their home-grown star, and the face of the franchise. But someone had to pay the price for Bryant being “un-coachable.” In June 2004, the Lakers announced that the 11-time championship-winning coach would leave the franchise. His high salary demand was cited as the reason at the time.
Kobe didn’t like the way Jackson talked about him
During the Kobe-Shaq era, the Lakers were the most successful team in the league. However, their on-court success was in stark contrast to the constant turmoil behind the scenes. Both the superstars weren’t getting along that well. And everyone, including Jackson, was trying to find a solution.
Jackson’s media antics at the time didn’t help.
During an interview with GQ in 2015, Kobe said, “Part of that was him trying to tame me. He’s also very intelligent, and he understood the dynamic he had to deal with between me and Shaq. So he would take shots at me in the press, and I understood he was doing that in order to ingratiate himself to Shaq.”
“And since I knew what he [Jackson] was doing, I felt like that was an insult to my intelligence. I mean, I knew what he was doing. Why not just come to me and tell me that?”
While he understood the motive behind it, Kobe felt betrayed by coach Jackson. And soon Kobe said to himself that he would not have any personal interactions with Phil anymore.
On the other hand, Jackson had also grown tired of dealing with Bryant’s tantrums. And the way Kobe treated his peers forced the Hall-of-Famer coach to put out the resignation ultimatum that led to his eventual exit.
However, the Lakers hired Jackson back in 2005. During his second stint as head coach, he shared a better relationship with Bryant, who was firmly the Lakers centerpiece by then.
The coach provided the star freedom to operate on his terms, and that proved to be the magic trick. Bryant led the Lakers to two championships, earning the Finals MVP award on both the occasions.
