Kobe Bryant‘s final NBA game was a massive sports spectacle. Diehard fans, actors, musicians and athletes all gathered in Staples Center to support the Los Angeles Lakers legend one last time. Little did they know they were in for a 60-point explosion from one of the game’s greats — the perfect ending to an all-time great NBA career.
Bryant’s finale was so epic that people forgot about the realities of the Lakers franchise. His stellar offensive display against the Utah Jazz powered the team to just their 17th win of the year — the lowest win tally in Lakers history. In other words, Bryant’s final season was the worst year for the organization.
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Selling greatness
Some fans and outsiders were oblivious to this. For them, 2015-16 was Bryant’s farewell tour, and the last chance to see the legend in action. Victories didn’t matter. Seeing Bryant lace up his sneakers for the final time was enough.
The Lakers front office and staff were smart enough to capitalize on his emotion, rather than try to be something they couldn’t be. The roster sucked. They were nowhere near title contention. It was the only thing that made sense in the disappointing year.
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“You have to look at the whole season. The last game was probably a snapshot of what the whole season was like, meaning we knew we couldn’t win,” ex-Lakers trainer Gary Vitti said in 2021, via the Los Angeles Times.
“In professional sports, what you sell, what the Lakers have always sold, was winning and we couldn’t sell winning. If you can’t sell winning, then you sell hope. But there was no hope. So, we couldn’t sell winning, we couldn’t sell hope, so we sold Kobe,” he added.
Selling their superstar meant allowing him to do whatever he wanted. Bryant played 66 games in his final year. His body was breaking down, as evidenced by his horrendous 35.8 field goal percentage. Still, the Lakers didn’t want to shortchange the entire NBA by not giving him full control in his final year.
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The dark side
D’Angelo Russell, the second overall Lakers second-overall draft pick that year, felt his rookie year was a wasted season, primarily because of the hoopla surrounding Bryant’s farewell tour. The entire organization was focused on honoring the legend that the development of young guns like Russell had taken a back seat.
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“Last off-season was Looney Tunes,” Russell said in 2016. “Wasn’t real. I didn’t get nothing out of it.”
“He deserved it; it was his time,” he continued. “They expected so much from so many people and then Kobe had his farewell tour and it was just like, we put everything we had, expectations for everybody else, on hold. We gotta get through Kobe’s farewell tour and then we can continue with our process. So we kind of accepted that.”
There are two sides to every story, as they say. Behind Bryant’s long and beautiful goodbye was a franchise struggling to stay afloat. After the smoke cleared from his 60-point outburst, the Lakers’ front office had to figure out how to rise from the rut.
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Four years later, with LeBron James and Anthony Davis leading the way, they won their 17th championship in franchise history. It’s safe to say that they ultimately figured things out.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Sep 14, 2025, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.