Long before he was a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, LeBron James ushered in a new era to the NBA with the Miami Heat. He teamed up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to create a true superteam that NBA teams would try to model in the following seasons. In many ways, this started the player empowerment era.
One NBA legend who never quite bought into this was Kobe Bryant. Bryant undoubtedly got help from great teammates during his career but he never sought out the superteam like LeBron and co. (and stars after LeBron) did.
In fact, Kobe was the one who inspired these stars to seek each other out and form superteams. Wade recently confirmed in an interview that he called up LeBron after Kobe won his fifth championship and used it as motivation to put together the superteam in Miami.
