Lakers: Why Kobe Bryant Decided To Join The Redeem Team
18-time Los Angeles Lakers All-Star shooting guard Kobe Bryant is all over the new Netflix documentary "The Redeem Team," directed by Jon Weinbach.
By 2008, the 30-year-old Bryant had cemented his status as the de facto best player in the NBA. He won his lone MVP trophy that season, while leading a Lakers team (along with Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom) to its first NBA Finals appearance in four years, where it would ultimately fall in six games against the Boston Celtics.
Without missing a single game during the 2007-08 season, the 6'6" swingman averaged 28.3 points on .459/.361/.840 shooting splits, plus 6.3 rebounds, 5.4 assists, and 1.8 steals a night. He was also named to the All-NBA First Team and the league's All-Defensive First Team that season.
A star-studded U.S.A. men's Olympic club, boasting a disparate array of All-Stars, had stumbled to a bronze medal in 2004 after falling to an eventual gold medal-winning Argentinian national team. The team knew it needed a roster overhaul. 2004 head coach Larry Brown was out, Duke legend Mike Krzyzewski stepped up to replace him. The team took pains to reshape its roster. The addition of Bryant was a huge component of that.
2008 would mark Bryant's first Olympic appearance, though he certainly would have been welcome at the 2000 and 2004 events. He would go on to play for Team U.S.A. one more summer, helping L.A. capture gold once again during a climactic game against Spain and the Gasol brothers at the 2012 games in London.
"We [were] kind of surprised that he even wanted to be a part of Team USA after everything that went on [in 2004]," current 18-time All-Star Lakers small forward LeBron James reveals in the documentary.
"He's a loner, always by himself, like he [doesn't] need [anybody] with him," 2021-22 Lakers power forward Carmelo Anthony reflects in new interview footage. "And he's comfortable with that. I don't think nobody accepted him like that at that point in time."
"In fact, in the first meeting in the 2008 Olympics, he sat by himself," Bill Plaschke of The Los Angeles Times indicates.
Anthony recalls that he told Bryant, "'Kobe look, you're here to play with us, we're here to play with you... We don't need Laker Kobe, we need Team USA Kobe. He was like, 'I get it, I understand it... I'm tired of watching y'all lose."
That's certainly one reason to spend the summer obliterating the opposition in Beijing.
