With how Kevin Garnett’s Boston legacy turned out, it’s easy to forget that he wasn’t sold on the Celtics at all in the summer of 2007. Four teams were chasing him: the Lakers, the Suns, the Warriors, and Boston, and by his own account, on an episode of “All The Smoke,” his actual first choice wasn’t the Celtics.

“I’m just being honest with everybody, I wanted to link with Kobe,” Garnett stated during an interview with Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes on their podcast All The Smoke. “Danny Ainge flew in, and he just got right to it and showed the vision, the vision he was seeing. That’s how he was painting it, and he was a Picasso. I didn’t even know he was finessing me.”

It is tempting to wonder whether one answered phone call could have changed things, leading to the Lakers pairing seeing the light of day. Back then, Garnett tried to reach Bryant directly, but got nowhere. Tyronn Lue, who was close with Bryant and training alongside Garnett that summer, urged him to try again. Garnett did; Bryant still never called back.

It wasn’t the first time Los Angeles had gotten a look at what a Garnett-Lakers pairing might resemble. Two years earlier, at the 2005 Lakers summer league game in Long Beach, Garnett followed Lakers trainer Gary Vitti into the locker room, and the sighting alone was enough to set off a wave of speculation among fans in the building about a possible trade.

Get the Essentially Dunk Newsletter. League-wide coverage every day on the All-Stars, MVPs, iconic legends, and the drama defining the NBA.

Besides that, on a 2011 episode of The Dan Patrick Show, Garnett further said he’d still come close enough to the move that he could feel it happening, but pulled back over what he saw brewing between Bryant and coach Phil Jackson. “What disturbed me about the Laker situation was Kobe and Phil at the time,” Garnett said, adding that the dysfunction was something he chose to stay out of entirely.

What then actually ended up swaying Garnett was what Ainge had already built before he ever made his pitch. Boston acquired Ray Allen away from Seattle in a draft-night trade to pair with Paul Pierce, and Garnett has said seeing Allen and Pierce already in place is what changed his mind.

“This is probably my best opportunity at winning a ring,” Garnett said at the time. “It was a no-brainer.”

Before the Allen trade, some analysts considered Phoenix, fresh off 61 wins with Amar’e Stoudemire, Garnett’s best basketball fit of the four, ahead of even the Lakers. Yet, the Lakers weren’t out of it, either. They had a package built around Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom on the table.

Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor ultimately preferred Boston’s offer, saying: “I thought L.A. could not give me the players that Boston did.” Minnesota received Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Gerald Green, Sebastian Telfair, Theo Ratliff, and two first-round picks in the trade, completed July 31, 2007.

That said, on paper, the pairing with Bryant made obvious sense. Garnett averaged 17.8 points, 10.0 rebounds, and 1.4 blocks for his career, while Bryant averaged 25.0 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 4.7 assists. But the two would settle it on the court instead. Boston beat the Lakers in six games in the 2008 Finals for Garnett’s only championship, and Bryant got his fifth ring against Garnett and the Celtics in 2010.