Over the next 20 seasons, Bryant earned 18 All-Star selections, a regular-season Most Valuable Player Award in 2008 and two N.B.A. The trade that made Bryant a Laker was engineered by the team’s general manager at the time, Jerry West, who was instantly smitten by Bryant’s fearlessness and prodigious talent. “He’s better than anybody on our team right now,” West famously told fellow Lakers staffers of Bryant’s performance. As West envisioned, Bryant indeed helped restore the Lakers to glory — albeit with no shortage of turmoil along the way. championships in the 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2001-02 seasons, then as the team’s unquestioned fulcrum for two more titles in 2008-09 and 2009-10.

Source: New York Times January 27, 2020 03:29 UTC