Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest Los Angeles Lakers of all time.
Being one of the best players for one of professional basketball’s two royal franchises is, itself, the richest of honors, an enduring point of pride and the centerpiece of a legacy.
Bryant’s place — as one of the 25 best players in the history of basketball (allowing for the likes of Steph Curry and Kevin Durant to be included on the list 10 years from now, when they near their own retirements) — is secure. It shouldn’t be a point of debate. The greatness of The Mamba is evident and considerable.
Yet, how does Kobe compare to other great Lakers in terms of staying too long, staying beyond the point when his skills existed at a soaring height?
You’ve seen Kobe’s diminishment take place in the present tense. What about his predecessors in Purple and Gold?
When Magic Johnson contracted HIV in 1991, it seemed that his playing days were over. He managed to play the 1992 NBA All-Star Game and the 1992 Summer Olympics for the Dream Team, but he stopped playing for the Lakers.
Had Magic not returned in the 1995-1996 season, his last NBA game would have been Game 5 of the 1991 Finals against Michael Jordan and the Bulls. The Lakers were mashed in that series, but the idea of playing one’s last game against Jordan — who took the torch from Magic as the game’s most luminously gifted and marketable player — represented a graceful exit. In the Finals? Exponentially more so.
However, Magic had to scratch that itch, and so it was that he dragged a heavier and not-very-fit body through a portion of the 1995-1996 season. Fans surely loved the chance to see him one more time, but it was a classic case of an athlete not leaving well enough alone… as would be the case with Michael Jordan’s return to the league with the Washington Wizards, a few years after what should have been the perfect walk-off finale with the Bulls in 1998 in Salt Lake City.
Magic was in position to create the better end of a career than Kobe, but his return spoiled it. One understands why Magic did what he did; a part of him surely wanted to say — and show — that HIV did not have the last word in his life (it hasn’t), but nevertheless, that final set of games took away from the 1991 Finals, 1992 All-Star Game, and 1992 Olympic gold medal as perfect farewell gifts to the sport.
The early-1970s Lakers featured three all-time greats: Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain.
Baylor’s last full (or close to full) season came in 1970, when the Lakers lost to the Willis Reed Knicks in a seven-game Finals series. In 1971 and 1972, Baylor barely played due to injury. This was not so much a case of staying too long, but of injuries preventing him from playing; he was still a vital force in that 1970 season. Moreover, staying through 1972 allowed Baylor to collect an NBA championship ring with the Lakers. He might not have been on the floor, but he was able to call himself part of a championship team, a richly deserved honor for the man who carried the Lakers for much of the 1960s and didn’t get enough help in the Finals versus the Boston Celtics.
Jerry West accompanied Baylor through several of those losses. West’s final season was the 1974 campaign. This came a year after Wilt retired in 1973. West played that season with the knowledge that in the absence of Wilt and Baylor, the Lakers — who had not yet taken Kareem Abdul-Jabbar from the Milwaukee Bucks — were going to hit a lean period akin to what the Celtics faced in the period of time between their 1976 title and the arrival of Larry Bird in the 1979-1980 season. West played that 1974 season for a number of reasons, but one of them was to smooth the path for the franchise, a noble aim. West and Baylor exited well, as did Wilt, who was still a rebounding machine when he left the game — not the same scorer, but still an imposing presence on the glass and near the rim as a defender.
Speaking of Laker big men…
The other great Los Angeles Laker big man who played his final NBA game in Purple and Gold (not Shaquille O’Neal, who should have called it a day much sooner than he actually did) is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. There’s quite a bit of symmetry between his departure from the NBA (and the Lakers) and Wilt’s exit.
Both men lost the NBA Finals in their last seasons. Both were still important to their teams, but they were no longer the scoring machines they had once been. Kareem’s minutes were drastically reduced on the 1989 Laker team which was his last. Yet, he played more than 20 minutes per game that season, so while he wasn’t a prime option — James Worthy, Magic, and Byron Scott were more important as scoring threats — he wasn’t pushed to the periphery of the rotation. He simply occupied a less central position than before.
Still very much a part of the attempt to win three straight titles for the Lakers, Kareem helped L.A. go unbeaten in the Western Conference playoffs before injuries to Scott and Magic derailed the Lake Show in the Finals versus the Detroit Pistons. In Game 3 — with no Magic or Scott on the floor — Kareem reached deep one last time, scoring 24 points and pulling down 13 rebounds. It would have made a perfect exit compared to a Game 4 in which he looked every bit the 42-year-old man he was.
Nevertheless, as far as career exits go, Abdul-Jabbar’s rates better than most — not just in Laker history, but NBA history. That he lasted six years longer than Wilt — age 42, compared to Wilt’s 36 years when he retired — speaks to Kareem’s longevity, but more precisely, the quality of his longevity.
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One can see, in this survey of Laker legends, that most of the players mentioned above had a compelling reason to stay beyond the height of their powers. Wilt and Kareem both left in the Finals. Magic — who could have left in the 1991 Finals — played that 1995-1996 segment of games for deeply personal reasons, and probably with an intent to send a message to American society as well. Jerry West wanted to provide a transitional year for the franchise before a lean period he could see a mile away. Elgin Baylor got injured; it’s not as though he played a ton of games in 1972, dragging down his personal career statistics the way Kobe has.
All things considered, Kobe Bryant — whose greatness need not be questioned — did fall short in at least one respect: His exit from the Lakers and the NBA was not as purposeful as that of his Purple and Gold predecessors.
