There was a time in recent NBA history where Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were considered the two best basketball players in the world.
Bryant was leading his Los Angeles Lakers to NBA Finals appearances, and James was right on the cusp on getting the Cleveland Cavaliers there during his first stint with the franchise.
Nike even made puppet commercials with the likenesses of James and Bryant, almost halfway predicting that during that particular season, the two powerhouses of the Eastern and Western conferences would finally meet their destiny and battle for NBA glory.
But alas, it never came to pass. James and his Cavaliers kept getting bounced in earlier rounds in the playoffs, and Bryant’s Lakers won a pair of championships. After that, Bryant suffered injuries and the Lakers were never good again after Dwight Howard left in free agency and Steve Nash got hurt in his first season.
But James definitely thinks that if some things had turned out differently, the two would’ve faced off in the Finals, per a comment he made on a photo that Slam Magazine posted on its Instagram account.
It’s interesting that James said he tried his best. That’s probably true. He knew about the commercials and the hype surrounding those two players.
But it’s difficult to imagine that he could’ve done more in order to make it happen. James was a machine in those years, and not much has changed since then. He just never had the right supporting cast around him in order to make it to the finals.
And now that Bryant is retired, a showdown between him and James is impossible. Maybe we’ll see it in a celebrity game someday in the future.