Much like this season, the 1999 campaign was a chaotic one for the Los Angeles Lakers, although for different reasons.
Head coach Del Harris was fired early. Longtime contributors Elden Campbell and Eddie Jones were traded for aging sharpshooter Glen Rice. And the team had the services of wild-card rebounder Dennis Rodman for a while.
There was a 10-game winning streak once Harris was out and Rodman was in, but once the “Worm” was dismissed weeks later, the Lakers regressed toward an unsatisfying mean.
On April 20, the team fell behind big to the mediocre Golden State Warriors in Oakland, Calif., and it seemed to sum up the faults of the squad. Shaquille O’Neal was ejected early, and L.A. was down 28 in the second quarter.
But a 20-year-old Kobe Bryant, with a little help from Robert Horry, led the Lakers to a miraculous comeback win, and he did so by forcing overtime on a wild tip-in.
Bryant finished with a very efficient 27 points, to go along with five rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots. It was one of the first games in which Bryant looked like the clutch, heroic Bryant millions would come to know him as.
