Obviously, Kobe did a gigantic heavy-lifting alongside Shaq after 1999-00 season. Kobe was a top 3 player in NBA and the Kobe-Shaq relationship was more like a 1a and 1b situation. They were almost on equal footing.
Having that said, is narrative of “Kobe Bryant was carried by MVP Shaq” still true even almost 25 years later. MVP Shaq almost single-handedly brought Lakers’ 1st Championship for years and should’ve got a uanimous MVP. The likes of Ray Allen, Vince Carter, T-Mac, Michael Redd, Allen Iverson etc. could’ve replaces Kobe that season and Lakers probably would still have won 2000 NBA Championship because of Shaq’s dominance.
Was Shaq the best player on the team in 99-00? Absolutely. No doubt.
I wouldn’t define it as a carry job. This wasn’t Duncan in 03 or Hakeem in 94. Either of those guys would have killed for 21 year old Kobe. The only guards you could argue were better than Kobe in that year were Gary Payton and Jason Kidd. And I’d take Kobe over Kidd as a secondary scorer. Kobe was one of the 10 best players in the league that year. The only better two way players were Garnett, Duncan, and Payton.
Kobe was 22.5/6.3/4.9/2.5 stocks during the regular season. (Good for 12th in the league in PPG). Before he got injured in the Finals, he was 22.8/4.4/4.5/3.1 stocks in the first 3 rounds of the playoffs.
Could you take Allen, Carter, T-Mac, Redd, AI and still win with that year of Shaq? Possibly. But none of those players were the two-way perimeter player that Kobe was, and none of them were better than Kobe that year anyway. Keep in mind, the Lakers were taken to Game 5 in Round one, and Game 7 in the Western Conference Finals. I don’t see those players making the Lakers better.