Kobe Bryant: Did He Blow His Last Chance at Winning Another Ring?

With the Lakers' recent disappointing display of basketball in this year's playoffs and the looming retirement of Phil Jackson, Los Angeles is a pretty unsettling place to be right now.

Since the Dallas Mavericks swept the Lakers in the second round not even two weeks ago, there have been countless articles and television segments scrutinizing the direction, or lack thereof, this team is going in.

Many believe it is a necessity for the Lakers to gut their roster and bring in another superstar, along with some other new faces, to pair with Kobe Bryant. 

Speaking of Bryant, amidst all this talk of change and direction, one must wonder if Kobe blew his last shot at winning an NBA title.

It's a valid notion considering that Bryant is not getting any younger. We saw in the playoffs a Bryant who, for the first time in his career, seemed susceptible to injury. We also saw a Bryant that was unable to lead his team out of the hole it dug itself.

Changes appear to be on the horizon for this Los Angeles team, and no one can predict what those changes will bring.

Will the Lakers be title contenders next season?  

No one truly knows. All we can do is speculate on the subject.

But before we speculate on whether or not the Lakers will be a championship-caliber team next season, let's first focus on what exactly went wrong this year.

What made the Lakers collapse against Dallas in the playoffs?  

What has all of a sudden led to this talk about Bryant not being fit to lead this team anymore?

Where did these problems facing the Lakers originate?

Surprisingly enough, the answer to the aforementioned questions lies not within Bryant, but in the Lakers' future plans, which were already in motion before their playoff collapse.

We all knew that Jackson was retiring after this season, and that was something this team was prepared to cope with. What was unexpected were the constant rumors that began to plague this team as the trading deadline approached.

It all started back in February, when the Lakers were marked as a possible destination for Carmelo Anthony. Reports had Los Angeles packaging Andrew Bynum to Denver in exchange for their superstar forward.

These reports proved to be inaccurate, but they set an array of rumors in motion.

The main reason provided for the Lakers not pursuing such a trade was that Bynum was going to be a valuable trading chip next season when Dwight Howard became available.

Next, reports surfaced about the Lakers making a play for Chris Paul come next season, and names likes Pau Gasol, Ron Artest and Lamar Odom were thrown around. 

All of these rumors were puzzling, to say the least.

Wasn’t this basically the same team that won an NBA title last season?

Wasn’t this the team favored to repeat as NBA champions this year?

Yes, it was, but with names like Howard and Paul potentially available, the Lakers could not keep themselves out of the rumor mill—and this became their downfall.

As talented as Kobe and the rest of the Laker team are, they are not immune to suffering from the mental rigors that go along with playing in the NBA. Rumors may be a part of the business, but that does not mean players do not have a difficult time overcoming them, especially when they are not used to them.

Los Angeles is a big market team, yet it has never had to face a whirlwind of trade speculation like it did this season. The pressure to win has always been there, but a potential roster blowup never truly has.

As far down the road as this roster shakeup may have been, the Lakers, with the exception of Kobe, were under duress. Bryant knows that he is the Lakers' franchise player, and therefore safe, but no one else has that luxury.

Yes, Kobe had his struggles in the playoffs, but at the end of the day, he still averaged nearly 23 points per game in the postseason. The Lakers' failure comes down to lack of confidence in his teammates, which came as a result of the recent trade speculation that began to plague the team toward the end of February.

While many like to attribute this postseason’s failure to Bryant’s aging game, the reality is that most of the time he was able to do what he does best. Odom, Gasol and Artest seemed to cave under the pressure of the ongoing rumors.

So yes, this may have been Kobe’s last shot at a winning a title. He is going to be 33, and as we came to see, he is becoming more and more human on the basketball court, not to mention big changes seem to be on the horizon for Los Angeles.

However, this being said, Bryant in no way blew his last chance at winning a ring, and his teammates did not blow it for him either. Rather, the Lakers' inability to keep themselves out of the rumor mill did.

The speculation became too much to cope with, and Bryant’s supporting cast lacked the confidence and bravado it had exhibited much of this season.

With their ensuing playoff performance, we came to find that just like Kobe’s health, the Lakers' ego is just as human as the rest of us.