NBA Trade Rumors: Lakers Must Make Big Splash to Appease Kobe Bryant

While Jordan Farmar learned a wealth of basketball knowledge from playing alongside Kobe Bryant for five years, hopefully Farmar taught Kobe a thing or two about poker.

Bryant isn’t pleased and when the Black Mamba isn’t pleased, it gets ugly.  If the Los Angeles Lakers management knew what was good for them, they’d do everything in their power to make sure the only place the Kobe face makes an appearance is on the court.

No. 24 told Peter Vecsey of the New York Post about the lack of communication between him and the front-office, saying:

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“Hopefully, management knows what it’s doing and will provide us with our missing pieces.  Hey, I’m just a player.  I have no input concerning anything that happens here.  In fact, I learned we’d hired our coach from reading it online.  I can’t remember the last time I had a conversation with Jimmy [Buss, managing owner].  Occasionally, I’ll cross paths with Mitch [Kupchak, general manager] and we’ll speak for a couple minutes about nothing really.”

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The failure to keep Kobe in the loop regarding any transactions looks like it won’t end with the Mike Brown hiring.  According to ESPN, he had no say in the Lamar Odom giveaway either.  What stands out in Bryant’s quote, though, is how he begins: hopefully…missing pieces.

You don’t say hopefully if you’re fully confident in something.  A team captain that believes in his owner and general manager’s abilities would say, “They will get the job done.”  And hopefully for the sake of the Lakers’ morale, they don’t think too much into Kobe’s quote because he wouldn’t have used the phrase missing pieces if he didn’t believe a hole needed to be filled.

Bryant reminisced about the last time the purple and gold weren’t an NBA Finals favorite continuing on to say:

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“I’ve never known what’s going on.  That’s why I went public [in May 2007] and demanded a trade.  When it became obvious to me that management wasn’t trying to compete for a championship, I felt my only recourse was to embarrass [owner Jerry Buss] into doing it.”

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And this is where a fraction of Farmar’s poker experience would come in handy for Kobe.  Bryant needs to demand a trade be made like he did in ’07.  If Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak are hesitant to go after a star like Dwight Howard, take the threat to another level by bluffing a trade out of LA. 

And there’s no risk of burned bridges between players in such a scenario.  Derek Fisher is the only player on the entire team that has the guts to oppose Bryant in any way.  If Kobe’s mouth didn’t blow up the team in 2007, it won’t now.

I honestly believe that if Andrew Bynum can stay healthy, big if, the Lakers can still compete for a championship, but obviously Kobe would suggest otherwise.

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer. Follow him on Twitter.