AK, BK

What do you think about the Phoenix deal I proposed yesterday? Here it is:

The Lakers receive:
Marion
Barbosa
Bell
Atlanta's No. 1

PHX receives
Kobe
Crittenton
Vujacic (throw-in to make the numbers work)

BK

Shaq and kobe have to take the blame for the state of their relationship...I dont know if the lakers can really wear it...It was a good move to trade shaq at that moment.Whatever the case I dont hold the lakers responsible and with Kobe and Shaq it was just over and done.I dont even blame Kobe for not wanting to come back if Shaq was there...it was just over and time for it to happen in quite a natural sense.

Its not fair to lay the blame on the lakers (unless you are arguing that they could have done more as an organisation to help the two players get along)

The whole 'the lakers lost two superstars' thing packs a punch but misses a lot of the gray area that makes up this situation.

I also think there is now a chance that Kobe has behaved even more despicably than anyone (including me) has credited him with.Surely all this knew evidence that Kobe is even more difficult than we thought takes pressure off both Shaq and the FO.For all we know theyve wanted to make a billion trades and Kobe didnt like them....nothing would surprise me at this point.

BK- as usual has the most eloquent way to describe and assess the current sitation with the Lakers.

What id like to add to BKs thoughts is Laker fans will always be Laker fans, players coaches and gms come and go.

The last several years has shown me very clearly the Lakers from top down lack leadership at every level- from owner to gm to coach to players.

I saw a post with chick's name and some of his legendary game calls and cant help think that a HUGE part of the Lakers demise is due to Chicky not being here any longer and his value to the organization.

Long live Chick!

This whole situation is ridiculous. A lot of things could have been handled differently, from the Shaq trade(which I agreed with), to resigning Kobe without the intent to REALLY build a contender around him. I read an article a couple weeks ago in which Eric Pincus said we should try to go back in time, and undo the Shaq trade. At first I thought it was ridiculous but had that trade not happened we wouldn't be in the situation we are in now.

I'm not gonna sit here and place the blame on Kobe like most people do, but if we could have somehow held that team together, and made one more championship run the Shaq trade could have benefitted us more. It would have shown other teams we we'ren't desperate to move him to keep Kobe, and that Shaq was still a force to be reckoned with. 1 summer(and Jerry West leaving) has changed the fate of the Lakers for years to come, the only questions now are how many years, and is there anyway Kobe will be along for the ride. Right now the only answers I have to those questions are I don't know, and No.

thanks alot BK, I feel great now

True Laker Fans,

"But after all us lakers fans have been through it all and we will still be cheering our team on at the end of the day."

I have lived in trading Shaq, someday, somehow Kobe will be gone too and we can lived with that. To trade him now, my problem with cheering the Lakers is as if I am coddling and amenable with Jerry Buss, Jim Buss and an incompetent GM.

Many fans here are having trouble to compare this team with the past. Being a laker fan is in name only not in the true sense of the word. These are the abnormal times and the owners are no longer normal, the GM has no balls to call the shots, afraid perhaps of losing his job. This is no longer the team that Mikan built named after the lakes of Minnessota preserved by Kareem, Wilt, Magic. It became greedy with the high-priced seat, continous price increase across the board despite failures to bring in another superstar. Last night, the new Celtics just torched the Knicks by 40 pts. a prelude of the competition, what do we have and what has been done is surely a pointless history. Now many of you are clamoring to ship out the remaining Superstar. Where is the replacement? Where is the refund for season tickets sold and not satisfied with the change? Where is the fair share of the fan in return?

Cheering for the Lakers is one thing but fleecing the so-called Laker fans is another.

good post BK.
so this is goodbye?
or is this good riddance?

-Flagrant Fowl

BK -
Great piece of wriitng and I loved the title. I, alongside many others am sure, can't help but wonder what could have been....
Its funny, you never heard of such nonsense back in the day when the Celtics were reeling off championships. Maybe its b/c of the internet and most of the media's unwavering desire to see people fail.
"Now the guy who has been coddled and protected by the Lakers is the one shining the bright, unflattering spotlight on them."
I will take this one step further and say that not only has Kobe been coddled and protected by the Lakers, but also the fans. We have watched and cheered, and lets face it, there has been so much to cheer about. The championships, the all star mvps, the dramatic game winning shots, the 81 ( which I still find more amazing than Wilt's 100 because of how it was done and the athletes in which it was done against) etc.
I think Kobe owes it to us to go and play as hard as he can every night. He should stop playing the victim and for once be a man and take some ownership as to whats going on. He would be respected more if he went out and played the right way and let the winning take care of itself.
He wanted this and now it is up to him to rise to the occasion, like he has so many times before.
How he responds to the situation right now will tell us more about who Kobe Bryant is than when the Lakers were on top.

Nice post BK. I think you capture something that's been overlooked amidst all the hoopla, and that's the sadness of the whole situation.

It didn't have to be this way. Had Shaq and Kobe not had such enormous egos and been so diametrically opposed to each other, Shaq could have taken less than the maximum to aid in getting a better supporting cast and Kobe could have told management that he would resign as long as they kept Shaq.

Instead.....well, we all know what we got.

And now we fans are left with the mess. Meanwhile, Duncan quietly continues on being a consummate professional and racking up more titles over a longer span of time.

As "#4" expresses above, it's never even occurred to me to follow another team. In the NFL, I have my team but I also have a couple of "backup teams" who I'll follow if my main team sucks. But in the NBA, it's always been Lakers or nothing. And now we've all be reduced to watching the newswires, waiting for the inevitable end of an era, and an ugly one at that.

And just to express my opinion on what's currently going on, it looks to me like something's going to go down soon. PJ's and Kobe's comments aren't all that cryptic.

I'd like to see us make a trade that gets us at least one lottery pick. I don't want to see us continue to try and straddle the line between rebuilding and contending, which is exactly what we'd be doing if we got Nowitzki. Get a couple of very good YOUNG players and (one way or the other) 1 or more lottery picks and let's start fresh. That takes the pressure off Bynum to become an all-star NBA center at age 19-20 (which is ridiculous) and allows him and J-Critt to grow together and create some true team unity.

You completely missed the largest error the Lakers Organization made. Letting Jerry (Mr. Logo) West leave because he(Mr. Buss) did not want to give up part ownership.

When Shaq left he stated that if Mr. West were still with the Lakers he would not have asked for the trade.

People have focused on his trade demands; they have the right to do so, however, the gapping hole in the conversation is that Leadership starts at the top. It was Mr. Jerry West that brought the championship(s) to LA not Jerry Buss he may wrote the checks, however it was Mr. West who had the vision and then made the deals.

Now, one of Kobe’s demands was the return of Mr. West or as he stated someone he could trust. Both Shaq and Kobe called for Jerry West. They did not and still don’t respect Mtch.

Mr. West He had their respect, they would have listen to them, just like when Magic asked to be traded in the Eighties it was Mr. West who dealt with it.

When the FO let him go, the empire as you stated died, Mr. West would quieted the whole situation, their would not be trade rumors, unless to improve the roster.

Leadership does not start with an employee; it always starts and ends with management.

Really reading now this blog and news sites is very sad for me.

First, I'm watching that media and fans opinions are make a little problem bigger and bigger.

Second, Kobe had only done what a elite player will always do. Ask for the team to be better. Plenty of times elite players make the same thing that Kobe did. Jermaine O'Neal, Kevin Garnett,... for mention to the most recent cases. Why is in Kobe's case so important?

Now my opinion: I guess the Lakers problem is not in Kobe, not in Shaq, not in injuries, not in nothing more than in the management.
- It's management fault to not be able to maintain Shaq/Kobe duo.
- It's management fault to not be able to make a good trade with Shaq. Any other GM would not had traded a superstar like Shaq without receiving another superstar in return.
- It's management fault to make bad trades one after other. Kwame Brown the biggest example.
- It's management fault that when other big franchises are getting better season after season, like Suns, Spurs, Dallas, Boston,... The lakers are worst every year.
- It's management fault to not make any move to improve the team when it's clear that something goes wrong.

And this can continue with a lot more of arguments.

Stop talking about Kobe traded. This will be the end of the Lakers. We will be for a long time a lottery team every year. Why? After Shaq trade, after Butler trade, all the managers of the league now that you can trade with the Lakers without giving a lot, and of course, without giving a superstar. No team will offer his better player for Kobe.

The Lakers make laugh to others. Every new about the Lakers is almost a joke. Is it Kobe who can trade with other teams to improve the team? Is it Kobe that traded O'Neal for a bunch of good players but no one of Shaq's valour?

Please, the news don't have to be about Kobe, the blogs don't have to be about Kobe. Trading or blaming Kobe will not be the solution for the Lakers. Let's go to the true problem: Management.

BK,

"a questionable trade for a former #1 pick in the draft." That has got to be the biggest understatement in sports history. You also forget that Mitch or whoever runs the show up there gave that bust an extension. You mention that you believe Kobe had a role in the Lakers downward spiral, but also support the Lakers decision to keep Kobe. You spread the blame evenly, but I think the biggest blame belongs to management. After all, Kobe does his job and does it pretty damn well. Not to forget the fact that Kobe keeps Buss a very rich man so he can get drunk and chase after college girls while raising ticket prices. Essentially, what more do you want from a player? Now, let's look at management. Can you honestly say that they do their job well? We will never get fair value for a Kobe trade especially when Kobe has the power to veto a trade. Thus, we will morph into the Clippers circa 1990 and hope that every year we can get lucky in the draft. And with Jim Buss steering the ship, the outlook is pretty bad. Hell, I can train a monkey to do a better job then that dude. At the end of the day, Kobe will win a couple of more championships while the Lakers will be remembered as the team to trade away probably the two greatest players in NBA history. We still have our great history, but look how long it took the Celtics to contend with a FO that is much more competent then ours.

This is all very depressing for someone who bleeds purple and gold. And the funny thing is in the midst of Kobe Crisis 2007, where the hell is the Los Angeles Pro Football team. The Lakers can no longer be the only burning candle in LA, a NFL team would go a long way in easing the process of a Lakers turnaround. But in the 12 year since we last saw a NFL game in LA, the Anaheim Angel won the world series, the Lakers have won 3 Larry O'Brian trophies, are on the verge of trading two of basketball’s 50 greatest players, and the city is satisfied with a "B" pro-am team in the USC Trojans. Enough is enough, who is making the decision around here (Including in the Lakers FO) and why haven't they handed the keys to me? And the uphill climb continues to go on, and all the while I am trying to figure out if I should attack my own personal climb, or if I have purpose to attack the fact that it is uphill in the first place. Good luck Lakers nation, let’s just hope the LA Galaxy can pull off two straight wins so we can have a winner around whose players in the spotlight are actually humble and grateful.

BK -- Your overview is spot on. But I still think that this could work out in a non-depressing fashion. Will it be as good as 5 or 6 championships with Shaq and Kobe on the same team? No. But that's over with. Buss screwed up by standing back and letting his numnbskull son man the ship for two years. It's a mistake any father could make. So now he has one last chance to fix it: wait for the right offer and give Lakers fans a young team that comes to play every night.

And please allow me to post, once again, a link to my Chick2000 audio montage. I posted it earlier but I wish that I'd waited until now because it is the perfect time capsule to complement your latest:
http://estnyboer.com/chick

Tao...

Definitely...and this has been my point the last few days.people talk about trading kobe like its terrible...and it is terrible but at the end of the day Buss has just realised that a guy with that character is not going to get it done...at least not with the type of team we have...hes not going to invest in Kobe even further (they will probably escape this time to a degree but cant risk any more) and theyve realised as good as he is its just not worth it.

In some ways they cant have any regrets...they did the logical thing by investing in him but they just lost.The guy is physically capable,maybe even psycologically capable but he has finally proved what many have long suspected...he is just not emotionally capable of taking this team where it needs to be...that much is clear.Trade his a$$ and be disapointed in KOBE...but dont worry too much becasue it was just never to be.There never would have been any championship.

In terms of acting despicably...Initially, I trusted that this might be a misunderstanding and Kobe just didnt understand what it would take to win or at least how long...had misunderstood what had been promised to him etc...now I wouldnt be surprised if its just all rubbish to give him an out as he realises he rated himself too highly and has basically failed and will continue to.

To leave the lakers hurts his career and legacy..he thought despite everything he would get the lakers to the elite in a year or two and now he sees its going to be tough so he wants out...gotta blame someone else right?...I see no evidence they didnt 'try' to put together a winning team to start with...in fact quite the opposite.The other stuff is all heresay but the one point I can analyse with my own eyes i take the lakers side.

Those blaming management should think again...youve been duped by a specialist.

Lazenby's article points to something PJ alluded to the other day - something he said that flew under the radar amidst all the latest controversy. He talked about the scouting and pondered why the team has managed to end up with so many of these up-and-down the floor euro-style players - which aren't necessarily the types he'd like to have.

Kiwi-

Dude, I was enjoying your absence. Wouldn't we all be happier with you as a Clippers fan?

Jason F,

>>>I'd like to see us make a trade that gets us at least one lottery pick.

If Kobe is the outgoing player, there's only one way that can happen. If Atlanta
tanks and the Lakers trade Kobe to Phoenix for whatever including Atlanta's pick. Note that

A more likely way to get a lottery pick would be to trade Lamar Odom to a team with
cap space and a lottery pick (sorta like Golden State's trade of Jason Richardson
to Charlotte last summer). One problem with that is that there will only be one season
left on Lamar's contract and he doesn't really want to leave the Lakers. Most teams
don't want to give up a lottery pick for a one year rental on a player.

The one place where Lamar might want to go play and stay there is New York,
since he's from there and his family lives there. Probably either New York or New
Jersey would be a possibility. If either of them misses the playoffs this season,
there you go.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in a while is that RAY ALLEN WAS 100% right!

It sucks that he was, but when he said:

""He's going to be very selfish. And he feels like he needs to show this league and the people in this country that he is better without Shaq. He can win championships without Shaq. So offensively, he's going to jump out and say, 'I can average 30 points. I can still carry the load on this team.'"

"If Kobe doesn't see he needs two and a half good players to be a legitimate playoff contender or win a championship, in about a year or two he'll be calling out to Jerry Buss that 'We need some help in here,' or 'Trade me.' And we'll all be saying, 'I told you so,' when he says that."

No matter what else you may think of all this.......WOW!! The dude was spot on!

Laker_sth,

"My seats are $27/gm"

Include here parking of $5 walk for a mile, $15 snack after a hard days work, all in all you just added $ 40 to the Buss wealth and $10 for rent of Staples. With the players you saw in the tube who played with Warriors in Honolulu, they are worth $3 to kill time and wate the travel time of 25 miles just to attend ball games. Therefore, Laker_sth you're paying less but in terms of % where profits are calculated you paying for more to watch a mediocre team. (Again sorry Violater for calling them a mediocre team, I'm not a fanatic, I just call what I witness.)

Damn, wrong keystroke!!! :( If my incomplete thought gets posted, K Bros, please include this pt2..

Violater - cont. Our Lone MegaStar acts like a total self absorbed, DIVA and despite his greatness on the court, doesnt come off as a Man that understands the word "Loyal" if it was Tattooed under his right eyelid!!! Yet you're telling me, if I speak about this and critique or offer up my lousy 2 cents in a less than positive way.. Im not a "true" fan? Please enlighten me on what I need to do. Thanks

I'd be shocked if Kobe was traded ! PERIOD ! And like I've stated before on this blog I'd let things play out over the next 2 years. However in making this comment I'm praying the front office along with a healthy team makes Kobe's decision in 2009 a tough one ! Kobe, remember few even Shaq, or Kareem ( my idol) where Lakers for Life ! You can be ! On another note we've been spoiled top see back to back championships, and 3 peats. This frnachise is down however it will rise again...with or without Kobe !!

Long Time Laker Fan,

You're correct, and that's why I qualified my remark with "one way or the other".

I just don't want to see us continue the conflicting rebuild vs. try-and-contend-now mindsets in a Kobe trade. Either we trade him for players that help us contend now (which I don't see happening), or we get some good young players/draft picks to help us build for the future. And maybe we stink for a year or two and get lottery picks that way....I dunno.

But the worst think in the NBA is to become a middling team that's perpetually neither good enough to contend for a title nor bad enough to get a top pick. It's extremely difficult to get out of that rut once you're in it.

Edwin Gueco,

>>>Next year, with the Good Lord permits, Player Zero opts out of
>>>Washington and comes back to Los Angeles. With $ 13 - $14M, he
>>>is a worthy replacement of Kwame.

Okay, so where are the Lakers going to get this $13-14M in cap space. Even
if they let go every player they have an option to let go next summer, they'd
still only have about 3 to 4 million in cap space. Where do they get the other
10 million in cap space? About the only way you could easily do it is to trade
Lamar Odom to a team with lots of cap space for a draft pick. That would add his
entire salary to their cap space and put them in the running for Hibachi.

But also, I'll remind you that the last time the Lakers had plans to clear some
space and hope they could land player X (with the Good Lord permits), that player
(Yao Ming) re-signed with his own team, because his own team could offer more.
Washington will be able to offer more to Arenas than the Lakers, and he will
likely go where the money is.

>>>Gordon already spoke, he doesn't want to play with the Lakers

No, he didn't say that at all. Don't be like KL and Gunner2 and make up
what people are saying.

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I'm coming off the fence. I didn't vote before because I was torn about what would
be best for the Lakers. I now believe if they keep Kobe this year, it will be a constant
media circus and the whole team will spend more time discussing Kobe with the
media than actually doing their jobs.

I also think that Kobe had calmed down a bit and might have been persuaded
to stay if the Lakers had had a good season, but since Dr. Buss' interview and Kobe's
reaction to it, I no longer think that's possible. Thus they basically can wait two
years and let Kobe walk away, wait until next summer and trade Kobe, or trade
Kobe now. I don't see any conceivable way that they could convince Kobe to stay
for more than the next two seasons. The sooner they start rebuilding, the sooner
they'll start getting good again.

Trade Kobe.

For Kobe's sake. For the Lakers' sake. For the fans' sake. I think at this point
everyone (except Buss, who will make less profit for a couple of years) will be
better off after a Kobe trade.

Ray Allen may have been right, but that doesn't make Kobe's sentiment wrong.

remember, poop flows downhill......

if this franchise looses two of the best players ever in the league in a matter of a few years, it just points to organizational incompetence and a violation ofthe public trust that is a city's sports franchise.

the players don't need to be nice freindly cuddly guys, nor do they need to get along. they do need to play like champions. if i played with players that showed so little effort(defense=effort), i'd pop a gasket too, especially if i played for what is supposed to be the preeminent franchise in the sport and i really, really wanted it to be a winner. that said, i don't think that Kobe or the FO has handled this properly. the thing is, Kobe is just a player, the FO is the organization itself. the FO should be the one to get it right and point the player in the right direction. this is one thing that Jerry West was able to do, that Mitch has failed with, starting with Shaq(remember Shaq dissing Kupchack?)....