We gave the twilight of Kobe Bryant’s career entirely impractical expectations. The gradual drop-off for his production was supposed to pass before us seamlessly as he was encumbered with an unexceptional supporting cast with the Los Angeles Lakers unable to sign another superstar due to his tacked-on two-year, $48.5 million extension.

Meanwhile, Kobe would win the Lakers too many games where they would promptly surrender their first round picks already traded away to the Suns for Steve Nash and to the Magic for Dwight Howard. 

Without the immediacy of new in their prime franchise players like a Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge or even Carmelo Anthony, and without the arrival of high lottery picks, the fear was the Lakers would be stuck just outside the playoffs and just outside the zone of retaining those invaluable lottery picks. The Lakers even attempted to compound the issue by offering Dirk Nowitzki a four-year max contract in 2014. These were the worst possible outcomes for the Lakers and would have set the franchise back half a decade at the very least.

But the Lakers drafted Julius Randle in 2014 with the pick they were Stepien Rule always keeping and then kept their top-5 protected pick in 2015 when Randle went out for the season on opening night and Kobe was limited to just 35 games and had a .286 winning percentage (10-25) in those games and a True Shooting Percentage below .500 for the first time in his career.

Bryant was never going to be as good at 36 as he was at 26 in his first season after Shaquille O’Neal was traded, when even the support of Lamar Odom and Caron Butler couldn’t keep the Lakers out of the lottery in 2005. These teams of final act Carlos Boozer, salary dump/too lumbering for the new NBA Roy Hibbert and back from China/Italy Ron Artest are far worse than that team regardless of how you rate Jordan Clarkson, D’Angleo Russell and Randle.

It only matters how good, or in this case bad, Kobe has become in relation to keeping their picks because no version of him ever had a chance with these teams.

I always expected Kobe to eventually morph into the Ron Harper who followed along with the Bulls during their second threepeat. Maybe with Chris Paul and Dwight Howard as intended, and with Phil Jackson back on the sideline, Kobe could have compressed his game into a facilitator, spot-up shooter and engaged wing defender.

Kobe was never anywhere close to as good of a three-point shooter as he thought he was, but even an off-ball in the corner and coming off screens Ray Allen facsimile would have prolonged his career if the Lakers had ended up with Paul and Howard. You could see him getting a sixth ring this way if you squint hard enough. It wouldn’t have been Kobe’s desired way but it could have happened.

But maybe Kobe would have been too obtuse to evolve in either of these ways based on where his mind was at even in the summer of 2013 when he was limping with his recovering Achilles into a meeting with Dwight still expecting to be prime Kobe demanding all else to defer to him indefinitely. Chris Paul has the aggressive personality and enough savvy to constructively challenge Kobe in ways Dwight was incapable of doing from the start, so maybe it could have worked on some level with the three of them if the bodies of Kobe and Dwight didn’t breakdown in the process as they have ever since.

Kobe was months away from being back from his ruptured Achilles injury when he already began negotiating his extension with the Lakers in the media immediately after Dwight signed with the Rockets, saying he had no intention of taking a pay cut. Kobe was unbeholden to the Lakers on this contract, a position he had earned the right to use, and the Nowitzki and Tim Duncan contract comparisons are false equivalencies based on the reality of the Lakers’ title hopes in 2013.

The Lakers instantly had LeBron James in 2014 plans in 2012 after trading for Dwight, but they had recalibrated and were already acknowledging they were essentially riding out Kobe’s career by the fall of 2013 when Dwight had left.

The sheer psychosis we’ve always known Kobe possesses and the strictures of his physical preparation made it feel possible there wouldn’t be too dramatic of a decline. But Kobe’s overdriven nature during that wide swath of his prime certainly made the end come quick and come hard.

Kobe has remained healthy so far and is shooting dribble three-pointers at the rate of a dictator with nobody to answer to. It is one part sincere appreciation farewell tour and one part horror show that has us all rubbernecking.

Accidentally or not, the Lakers have expertly had it both ways during the controversial two seasons of Kobe’s extension. The Lakers have been rebuilding this entire time behind the veneer of keeping Kobe a “Laker for Life” and receiving whatever financial benefits at the gate and with TV ratings that exist for keeping him around rather than stripping the franchise to the NBA bankruptcy of a total rebuild. The Lakers get their Kobe retirement tour and their rebuild at the same time.

Remarkably, the Lakers are in excellent position to keep Kobe and keep a top-3 2016 pick. Even the miraculous possibility of never even sending a first round pick to the Magic is just a top-3 finish in the lottery in 2016 and 2017 away from happening.

Whether the Lakers continue accumulating young players, or trade some of those in for an established star and then using cap space to add another or two, there are viable possibilities.

The unthinkable conclusion of Kobe’s career, amidst what has felt like nihilism, is how he’s circuitously accelerated the timeline for the Lakers to become competitive again.