Kobe Bryant has been locked in a three-year "trade me, keep me" soap opera with the Buss family out in L.A.
The time has come for the series finale.
Coming into training camp it seemed like just about every NBA team was in the hunt for number 24.
And just as it seemed the Kobe rush had finally cooled off, talks of Kobe-to-Chicago reared their ugly head again.
The Lakers need to make up their minds about what they want to do with the three-ringed menace, and there's no time like the present.
Between the indecision of the Lakers' front office, Kobe’s immaturity in handling the situation with the media, and John Paxson’s inability to evaluate the future of his team, this saga may end up hurting the Lakers' '07-'08 campaign—and might also play a role in the quickly developing debacle of a season in Chicago.
You can’t leave a group of players lying in wait to be traded like Paxson has done with Deng and Co. in Chitown—and you definitely can’t afford get the media attention that it has drawn.
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The Bulls have posted a dismal 9-15 record, in a division in which they had a good deal of success in last year with the exact same team. It may be because of the astronomic expectations for this young team’s '07-'08 campaign, but there is definitely something that doesn’t seem right with these players—and it isn’t too far-fetched to blame the parasite that is the Kobe Trade Talk.
Bryant is a modern day Jekyll and Hyde: he’s happy one minute, and the next minute he’s preaching to the media about how he thinks he might still make it out of LA. Make up your mind—play with your team, or go somewhere else.
The Lakers don’t deserve Kobe’s drama right now. They are an up-and-coming squad of players with tremendous potential, but each time they take the court they are faced with the question of whether or not they’ll have their superstar at the end of the day.
If they keep Kobe, which they should, think of how dangerous they could be with Mr. 24 running the show, Odom and up-and-coming star center Andrew Bynum as viable scoring threats, and talented role players like Jordan Farmar and Luke Walton giving them quality minutes night in and night out.
They're already showing signs of this eminent success—why change what works?
In other words, it’s time to put an end to the speculation and move on. It’s bad for the NBA and it’s bad for the Lakers. If Jerry Buss thinks he’s doing a good thing in drawing attention to his team by dangling his superstar out to the media, he’s wrong. He’s stunting the growth of his own players and making a mockery out of the teams waiting for his phone call.
No real progress can be made until Buss, Mitch Kupchak, or even Kobe himself come out and say Kobe is a Laker and the Chicago deal is done.
The soap opera in LA needs to end. Make up your mind, Mr. Buss—trade Kobe, or kill the drama once and for all. The success of your team—and Paxson’s—depends on it.
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8 months ago
It's not doing an harm to the Lakers. In fact, nobody has talked about this for weeks now. Kobe said publicly that he is happy, and I can't blame especially the way Bynum has been playing. Derek Fisher is also another reason why this team has looked good so far. The Bulls on the other hand, it was a distraction--but that that nothing to do with the way they are stinking up the place this year.
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