Early in the 2006-07 season, it looked like the Los Angeles Lakers were making progress a couple of years after trading Shaquille O’Neal when they started 15-6.
But then things went up in smoke.
The team suffered some key injuries, and although it kept winning for a while, the compound effect of those injuries started to take effect by midseason.
By March, with the team coming dangerously close to missing the playoffs for the second time in three years, Kobe Bryant decided enough was enough.
He single-handedly stopped a seven-game losing streak by becoming only the second player ever to score at least 50 points in four straight games, all of which L.A. won.
Towards the end of the schedule, with the Lakers needing more wins to clinch a playoff spot, Bryant continued to pour it on.
After that four-game 50-point streak, he hit the half-century mark three more times, including in L.A.’s penultimate regular season game against the Seattle SuperSonics.
He was hyper-efficient in this one, going 18-of-25 from the field to get his 50 points.
The Lakers won, 109-98, but only two other players reached double figures (barely).
The fact that Seattle only won 31 games that year and that Bryant needed to score 50 for L.A. to get the victory illustrates how bad the team’s roster was outside of the Black Mamba.
The Lakers made the playoffs that year by a hair, only to get run out of the gym in the first round versus the Phoenix Suns.
After Bryant infamously demanded a trade that summer, L.A.’s karma turned around, as it landed Pau Gasol the following February, leading immediately to three straight NBA Finals appearances and back-to-back world championships.
