Los Angeles Lakers Still Have Time to Salvage Kobe Bryant's Final Act
Time is a fickle foe of the Los Angeles Lakers, a fast-fleeting villain threatening to marginalize what's left of Kobe Bryant's NBA career, its greatest weapon being hard-hearted impermanence.
That doesn't mean time—along with the ticking clocks and closing windows it brings—cannot be defeated.
In this particular case, time's transience is not indomitable. There is enough of it left for the Lakers to inject additional purpose into Bryant's twilight, however long it's fated to last. Sufficient spending power, star-stuffed free-agent classes and an impending salary-cap boom have given them the means to buy time and (briefly) extend Bryant's championship-chasing shelf life.
No, this path out of obscurity and toward salvation isn't smoothly paved or without its twists and turns and tangents. But there is still a path—the end of which can be reached before it's too late.
Accepting Immediate Fate
The Lakers' immediate outlook is admittedly bleak.
Injuries have reduced the roster to an unpolished entity that depends too heavily on the offensive artistry of a 36-year-old Bryant. He has attempted nearly 29 percent (122) of the Lakers' total shots. When he scores 39 points on 37 field-goal attempts as he did against the Phoenix Suns, it is not solely out of personal preference or stubborn pride, but necessity.
Steve Nash is done for the year (and probably for his career). Julius Randle's rookie campaign ended before it ever truly started. Nick Young, one of the team's best (and the only three-point marksman), is still watching from the sidelines.
Carlos Boozer's defense has been in nonexistent form. Jeremy Lin, despite a pair of offensive explosions against the Los Angeles Clippers and the Suns, is clearly struggling to pilot an offense that is light on weapons and heavy on Bryant. Jordan Hill's rebounding and Ed Davis' overall eruption (24.4 player efficiency rating) have been some of the few bright spots.
Winless beginnings are of no surprise, given the circumstances. Even after Young returns and Bryant receives the unfiltered offensive help he needs, the Lakers aren't due for a turnaround this season, as currently constructed. Their 17th-ranked offense has likely peaked, their last-place defense accurately portrays their points-preventing ceiling.
Though they have historically made potential-augmenting moves few saw coming (see: the Pau Gasol and Nash trades), game-changing avenues aren't available to them now. Especially after Randle's injury.
Armed with only Hill's sizable and technically expiring contract (team option) and the Houston Rockets' lottery-protected 2015 first-rounder, per RealGM, the Lakers are thin on assets, making a blockbuster deal unlikely, if not impossible.
This hope-deadening pool of assets has given way to the unthinkable: select pundits and patrons arguing in favor of the Lakers waving the white flag by severing ties with Bryant himself.
"The Lakers are bad. Really bad," writes Sports Illustrated's Chris Mannix. "They may not challenge the '72-73 Sixers for the worst record of all time, but at the very least they will keep pace with this year's tanking Philadelphia team...So I’ll ask: Why not trade Kobe?"
Dealing Bryant is the most unlikely result of Los Angeles' recent tumult. His salary is rich ($23.5 million), but his connection to the Lakers is richer.
Trading him puts a notoriously impatient franchise at the mercy of developing prospects and draft picks not yet selected. Shifting to that course is the last resort of the Lakers' last resort. It only becomes a plausible theory if Bryant seeks a trade—a request that only becomes fathomable if both he and the Lakers are out of options. And they're not.
Financial Flexibility Is Everything
Free agency has long been the Lakers' rebuilding lifeline.
Only four players are under guaranteed contract for next season: Bryant, Young, Randle and Ryan Kelly. The Lakers can enter next summer with under $40 million in salary commitments (plus cap holds) if they're so inclined, giving them more than enough cash to lure at least one other star onto Hollywood's stage.
And there will be stars available.
Next summer's free-agency class is expected to include Marc Gasol, LaMarcus Aldridge, Goran Dragic, Paul Millsap, Greg Monroe and DeAndre Jordan, among many others. Kevin Love could reach the open market. The Lakers also have the ability to offer Chandler Parsons-inspired contracts to restricted free agents, like California-native Kawhi Leonard and the Oklahoma City Thunder's Reggie Jackson.
Superstar point guard Rajon Rondo is another option as well. Rival executives already believe the Lakers will make a strong play for the unrestricted free agent's services, according to Mannix. He would instantly give Bryant a star sidekick and thrust the team back into the realm of relevancy.
Offseason about-faces of that kind remain possible. The Cleveland Cavaliers reminded us as much only months ago, when they went from a lottery-lost misadventure to a superstars-plying contender. (Their slow start, for the record, doesn't damage their championship-caging clout.)
The upshot here is the likelihood of overcoming the slippery stakes involved.
Cap space couldn't buy the Lakers a superstar this past summer. James returned to Cleveland, Carmelo Anthony remained with the New York Knicks and Chris Bosh re-upped with the Miami Heat.
Selling stars on depthless squads that collect under 30 wins is difficult practice. That's the situation the Lakers found themselves roped to last July—and they appear headed for similar disadvantages in 2015.
Henry Abbott also penned a provocative piece for ESPN The Magazine, wherein he attributed most of the Lakers' demise to Bryant warding off potential free agents and teammates with his exacting personality.
"There lies a fundamental risk for any star joining the Lakers of losing his precious status of 'the man' because of two factors," Bleacher Report's Kevin Ding wrote of Abbot's assessment. "Bryant's control-freak tendency limits your opportunities, and you are exposed as not being up to his level of commitment and excellence."
Said risk does complicate the Lakers' attempt to transform the team into a contender sooner rather than later. So, too, does Bryant's age, questioned durability and annual salary. But while there are inherent obstacles the Lakers must overcome, Ding also notes that many of them have been hyperbolized and fabricated.
Gasol and Bryant became close friends while playing beside one another. Lin was excited to join the Lakers and Bryant. Not every player—if any—will be scared away by his age or persona. And even if Bryant's role is a point of issue, this isn't a Dwight Howard situation anymore. Players don't have to join the team wondering if No. 24 will last another five years.
Bryant has become something of a draw in that way. He'll have to turn over the franchise's keys sometime soon, even if he must do it reluctantly. The chance to headline an organization steeped in history and exposure is worth considering for any player looking to relocate.
Some level of the Lakers' outside appeal was even evident over the summer. Isaiah Thomas, one of the more talented players available, told Grantland's Zach Lowe he was interested in signing with Los Angeles, saying, "Who wouldn’t want to play for them?"
There will always be those willing to play for Lakers, no matter their state. Adding those players is simply a matter of timing financial flexibility just right, like Los Angeles has done.
While the last year of Bryant's deal (2015-16) is so often viewed as his nonnegotiable last hurrah, it doesn't have to be.
"Whether I do or not, we'll have to see that two years from now," Bryant told Yahoo Sports' Marc J. Spears. "I don't know, but I could [play longer]. Physically, I don't see an end to the tunnel."
If he does, in fact, opt to play beyond his current contract, the Lakers have even more options. His $25 million salary will come off the ledger just in time for Kevin Durant's free agency and an anticipated salary-cap eruption, courtesy of the NBA's new national television deal.
"Who knows where those talks will lead?" Lowe wrote. "If the TV money flows in without any smoothing scheme, the cap could jump from about $66.5 million in 2015-16 to somewhere in the $90 million ballpark the following season—an unprecedented one-year spike."
Such a jump positions the Lakers to add a superstar this summer, and then one or two more—in addition to Bryant—the summer after. That kind of spending power will bring in talent.
It won't necessarily be Durant or one of the team's first options putting pen to paper on a contract, but it will be someone. And that someone, or more than one someone, should help the Lakers climb out of the foredoomed pit they're presently buried in.
Not Finished Just Yet
The point: This isn't over.
An injury-infested, star-starved 2014-15 campaign can—and likely will—leave the Lakers competing for the Western Conference's worst record, deepening desperation behind a rebuild that doesn't have time to develop draft picks.
But that's what the Lakers' financial plasticity is for: addressing their requisite impatience, conjuring much-needed time.
Time enough to turn things around before Bryant retires.
Time enough to make his final act something worth remembering.
Time enough to exploit Bryant's continued fight with playoff berths and meaningful title chases.
"I'll go out there and I'll leave on the floor everything," he said, per the Los Angeles Times' Eric Pincus, "and compete and not be fearful of criticism or fearful of not playing well or missing shots."
Unless those options—along with Bryant's fight—vanish without the benefits they're supposed to yield, time won't wholly beat his years-long goodbye. It can threaten to cheapen his final days, it can trickle toward disappearing altogether.
So long as the Lakers have the market, money and mystique to combat the imposing deadline, though, they have time enough to give their five-time champion, league MVP, crazed competitor and basketball deity a storied end to a storied career.
*Salary and free-agency information via ShamSports. Stats via Basketball-Reference and NBA.com.
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