"Can I take the Larry O'Brien Trophy back to China?" Yao Ming looked astonished.
It was the day after the Lakers won the championship. They had returned to Los Angeles and joined the wild championship parade once more.
"Of course!" Kobe nodded.
Letting key players from other countries take the championship trophy back to their homelands for parades was something many teams did.
A few years earlier, Ginobili had taken the trophy back to Argentina.
And this year, Magic Johnson and Kobe decided to let Yao Ming take the trophy on a tour around China.
The Lakers' influence would skyrocket because of it!
China's market of 1.3 billion people had already begun to demonstrate its purchasing power.
At the same time, countless young people would fall in love with basketball.
This was an excellent thing for both Mamba Sports and the Lakers.
"Kobe, you did it. I thought it would take a long time before we saw this again after Shaq left Los Angeles." Jerry Buss was overwhelmed with emotion.
Before anyone realized it, the Lakers had risen from the ashes after the collapse of the OK Dynasty.
And Jerry Buss knew that, barring any surprises, the Lakers would remain the top championship contender until Nash declined from his peak.
How many championships would they win this time?
Jerry Buss did not know, but he knew that in the twenty-first century, the Lakers had become synonymous with a basketball powerhouse.
At the same time, Jerry Buss finally made up his mind.
He would hand the team over to his children to run.
At seventy-one years old, Jerry Buss felt it was time to delegate authority.
The team was now at the absolute peak of its power. Without needing to do anything, it could win endless honors.
If he handed a