The Suns and Lakers met in the playoffs again the very next year. There were no dramatics or comebacks this time, however. Nash & Co. easily dispatched Kobe and the Bryants in five games.
Later in the summer of 2007, Los Angeles drafted a preps-to-pros prospect, Andrew Bynum. The thought of wasting his prime on behalf of a rebuilding project gnawed at Bryant’s keen competitive edge, which Phoenix had blunted two years straight.
That summer, he asked the Lakers to trade him to one of three teams. Ironically, Phoenix was one of them, he told ESPN earlier this season.
"At that time, the Lakers had to do something. I was just losing faith in what they were trying to do. It was like I was a meal ticket," Bryant told ESPN's Baxter Holmes in late 2015. "'You come out and score 40, 50 points, fill the seats, we're going to keep the payroll at a minimum, generate revenue.' It's like, 'Look, listen, I am not with that, dude. I have to win without Shaq. I've got to do it. We've got to do something.'"
Ultimately, that something did not include the Suns, who felt their weakness was not on the perimeter, but inside. Rather than unite Nash and Bryant for the price of a frontcourt talent, Phoenix dealt for Bryant’s former teammate in Shaquille O’Neal from Miami a few months later.
That trade was partly due to the repeated postseason beatings suffered at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs, but it was also a response to the Lakers’ in-season activity. Bryant’s summer demands were heard. Los Angeles did indeed do something. But instead of dealing their own star away, they acquired another one in the form of All-Star big man Pau Gasol.
The deals featured yet another role reversal in the history between Bryant and Phoenix. Suddenly the Lakers were contenders again. They made the Finals that season – and the next two years after that, winning two NBA Championships.
The Suns answer of O’Neal did not work out nearly as well. They were ousted in the first round of the playoffs that year, then failed to make the postseason altogether in 2009. Bryant was back on top of the world, while Nash and the Suns appeared to be setting.
In a vacuum, giving Shaq's roster spot to Channing Frye is not an upgrade. For Phoenix, however, it was the best choice they could have made in the summer of 2009. It meant a restoration of Suns basketball as directed by Nash. Back to the flowing offense in which it thrived, Phoenix returned to its winning ways in the 2009-10 season.
For the first time since 1991, the Suns and Lakers were contenders in the same season. They marched through the playoffs to the tune of their respective styles – Phoenix with pick-and-roll and run-and-gun, Los Angeles behind Bryant’s brilliance and its frontcourt dominance.
Those paths converged in the Western Conference Finals, the first time Bryant faced the Suns in the postseason since his back-to-back humiliations in 2006 and 2007. He had not forgotten. He did not forgive. When asked whether seeing the Suns again would be extra special, he responded with scowls and sarcasm.
“What do you think?” Bryant sneered. “You already know.”
If Phoenix didn’t know then, they soon found out. Bryant scored 40 points in Game 1, but also got the help he didn’t have in 2006 and 2007 from Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. Game 2 was similarly one-sided, with Bryant turning in a Nash-like 13 assists along with 21 points. Phoenix, it seemed, had no answer to the problem: Bryant + help.
But something happened in the next two games in the desert. Phoenix found its mojo and an added edge. Nash looked rejuvenated, Stoudemire reborn (42 points in Game 3) and the Suns’ reserves (54 points in Game 4) were more than a counter to super sixth man Lamar Odom.
Kobe was as terrifying as ever (72 points, 28-of-46 FG in Games 3 and 4), but somehow the Suns still tied the series. The stars indeed appeared aligned in Game 5, when a brilliant Nash performance (29 points, 11 assists) and a bank-shot three from Jason Richardson tied the game with 3.5 seconds left.
Suns fans were once again forced to face their collective demon as Bryant took the inbounds pass and hoisted a double-teamed three-pointer from the right side. It didn’t go in. It didn’t even hit the rim – the same result as Bryant’s would-be game-winner in Game 6 of 2006.
Except the Lakers didn’t let Phoenix celebrate that fact. Instead Bryant’s teammates – so often the subject of debate of how Bryant should play his game – bailed him out. The air ball was tracked successfully only by Laker forward Ron Artest, who darted to where it fell and, as the clock expired, banked in an off-balance putback for the win.
Half a decade after incredulously analyzing the Lakers’ playoff defeats at the Suns’ hands, TNT analyst Doug Collins could only laughingly observe, “…the Lakers, finding a way to win on a Kobe Bryant airball.”
It was, perhaps, the least intentional and most pivotal “assist” in NBA playoff history. After Phoenix lost Game 6, it also marked the last meaningful on-court chapter between Bryant and the team that nearly drafted him, signed him, and could have traded for him.
By 2012, the dual decline of the Lakers and Suns was already taking place. The Suns (33-32) were further along in that regard when they faced Bryant and the Lakers (40-25) in Los Angeles on Jan. 10, 2012. Phoenix suffered a vintage performance from the man nicknamed “Black Mamba,” who went off for 48 points on 18-of-31 shooting.
After the game, Bryant was asked about his feelings toward the Suns, and it was clear that neither time nor the 2010 NBA Playoffs had healed the wounds inflicted in 2006 and 2007.
“I don’t like them,” Bryant deadpanned about the Suns. “I don’t like them. It’s plain and simple. I do not like them. They used to whip us pretty good and they used to let us know about. I will not forget that.”
The reporter persisted. “Even though most of the guys from that team are gone?”
Bryant nearly cut him off in answering.
“I don’t care. I won’t let it go.”
The feeling is mutual. Suns fans won’t let Phoenix’s triumphs over him go. They won’t let go of the viciously good feelings produced by Bell’s clothesline. They won’t let go of Bryant getting lucky on an airball.
In the general language of sports, such feelings are compliments. Phoenix earned Bryant’s dislike with triumph. Bryant did the same to Phoenix. In the end, everyone benefited from the fireworks created by those sparks.
After 20 years, it’s difficult to picture NBA life without Bryant playing the villain in Lakers purple and gold. It’s even harder to imagine him playing the hero in purple-and-orange, a role he could have earned in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2007. That’s four times – four! – that Bryant nearly went from being basketball’s equivalent of Lex Luthor to Superman.
Something tells me that Phoenix – and Bryant – are okay with the former.