What if we told you that the duo formed by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant could even have been a trio? At the end of the 90s, the Lakers were not far from recruiting a nugget who later became a superstar. We do not tell you the delusional potential of such an association…
The least we can say is that the Lakers had a very high quality one-two punch in the early 2000s. Led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, the men of the City of Angels have rolled in the league for several seasons. The two came to the franchise at the same time in 1996, and were able to develop as a tandem for a few years before becoming unstoppable.
That being said, while the results produced were impressive, they could have been even crazier. Indeed, a year after selecting the Mamba, the Angelinos fell in love with a young nugget from North Carolina: Tracy McGrady. Not holding a pick in the first round of the draft, however, they would have had to set up a trade to be able to choose him, an idea that they ended up abandoning. Much to the chagrin of a franchise legend who loved what she saw from the wingman, as revealed CBS Sports :
Tracy McGrady not far from being drafted by the Lakers
As a longtime architect of the Lakers roster, West is famous for being smitten with the performance of then-17-year-old Bryant during a pre-draft practice. As Ed Harris recounts, Tracy McGrady had an even more impressive work-out for the Lakers a year later, prompting West to make a brief but serious effort to try to acquire draft rights from McGrady and associate him with O’Neal and Bryant.
“Jerry thought maybe we should go ahead and make a deal, whatever the cost, to get this guy, even if it would be a step back in the short term, to have two guys like him on the same team,” Harris said. It was Lakers owner Jerry Buss who shot down the idea of a Bryant/McGrady partnership.
For the trouble, the late big boss of the Californian franchise deprived us of an absolutely crazy trio on paper. Admittedly, few people thought during the T-Mac draft that he was going to become a legendary attacker, but that’s what happened. Not sure he would have stayed long, because the distribution of the swelling would have been complicated between him, Vino and the Shaqtus, but we would have had the right to a monumental strike force in attack.
Nevertheless, the Purples and Golds wanted to win immediately after a long period of collective scarcity, following the retirement of Magic Johnson. On top of that, McGrady was like Kobe, a player who skipped the NCAA before turning pro, and having something like that was risky enough. In fact, they did not have to regret this choice, since the back and O’Neal led LA to a superb three-peat between 2000 and 2002.
In the end, the Lakers settled for drafting unknowns DeJuan Wheat and Paul Rogers in the second round of the 1997 draft, not setting up a trade for a higher pick. As for Tracy McGrady, he joined the Raptors. The rest, we know it!
