"Gigi! Give Uncle Nash a smile!"
At a villa by Santa Monica Beach in Los Angeles, countless well-known figures from the basketball world had gathered.
It was the second birthday of Kobe's second daughter, Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant. Born on May 2, 2006, Gigi was already a little dark elf who loved running all over the place.
"Uncle!" Gigi scampered into Nash's arms on her little legs. She knew this Uncle Nash well!
"Slow down, little princess." Yao Ming bent over nearby with a loving look on his face, afraid that Gigi might fall.
"With footwork like that, she'll definitely become an outstanding basketball player in the future." Manu Ginobili's hair had started to thin. He scratched the back of his head and sighed.
"I envy Kobe. Even his daughter is this adorable." Bowen sounded rather sour from the side.
"I've decided. I'm going to have a whole bunch of little girls with La La Anthony too!" Carmelo Anthony silently made up his mind.
The run-and-gun dynasty's championship had been two years ago.
During that title run, every Lakers player had nearly burned through everything they had. Nash in particular had taken painkilling injections to play, which directly caused him to completely lose the speed he had once been so proud of in the following seasons.
Though Nash was still a first-tier guard in the league thanks to his shooting and playmaking, and could still easily put up excellent numbers like 14+12 for the Lakers, it had to be acknowledged that this veteran guard in his thirties had begun to decline.
Coupled with the league's surging trend of superteams, the Lakers had failed to make it out of the Western Conference for two straight years.
They were getting old.
Bowen, one of the team's key players, was thirty-seven. Ben Wallace was