There was once a time, many years ago, when some believed that the Los Angeles Lakers could trade Kobe Bryant.
Many teams would've been knocking down the Lakers' door had it happened, and according to Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks were one of them.
Cuban recently spoke on Shaquille O'Neal's podcast, saying that the Mavericks were close to making a trade for the all-time great.
"Do you realize how close we were to trading for Kobe [Bryant] in 2007? It was literally this close," Cuban said. "I talked to [Los Angeles Lakers owner] Jerry Buss and worked something out with Jerry because Kobe had asked to leave. Jerry said, 'OK, if you want to leave, we'll take care of it.'
"It was going to be Josh Howard and Jason Terry and picks. No Dirk [Nowitzki], cause I said anybody but Dirk. I literally remember telling this dude, 'Guess what? Kobe's going to be a Mav,' and I literally thought it was done, and then [Lakers general manager] Mitch Kupchak obviously stepped up and said we can't do this, talked Kobe out of it."
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As Cuban touched on, as long as the Mavericks didn't have to move on from Dirk Nowitzki, he was content with giving up anything. That made perfect sense, too, as a duo of Nowitzki and Bryant would've arguably been one of the best in NBA history, if not the best, depending on whether things went as well as they could have.
Ultimately, things worked out for both sides regarding a playing career, as Nowitzki won a championship and Bryant is known as one of the greatest ever to lace them up.