And because of that, they’ll have to overpay to settle the situation.

It’s easy to cast the stone in the most convenient direction (Kobe)….but he’s not the guy who did:

A. The lying.

B. The personnel decisions.

I personally don’t think Kobe even remotely wants a trade. But he’s prepared to risk it if that’s what it takes to force some kind of action from a prostrate and seemingly rudderless front office.

So I’ll end this post by saying that if the price of Kobe’s happiness is Lamar and Drew….it’s a price this organization will play.

Because Kobe brings more to the Lakers than just sellouts….he brings relevance. Lose the relevance, and you risk becoming the Clippers, a team that’s been better than the Lakers (on paper) for 3+ years, but it is still a blip when it comes to being noticed on the LA or national radar.

Controversy is so entertaining. This basically is the essence of Hollywood. Without it, you aint news. The recent media circus is a roller coaster of sorts. It is heart warming and heart breaking altogether.

Say for instance, we go back in time. 1996 Draft Night. Nobody placed money on this guy from Philly, not even Philly itself. Instead they chose, Allen Iverson. Of course he later on became league MVP and earned a trip to the finals. True enough, in one of the deepest drafts in recent memory, son of former NBA player Jellybean Bryant came in at #13. In what I would personally consider an extremely lucky #13 pick from Jerry West or he saw something on this Kid, it was a blessed day for LA.

(Oh for trivial purposes, Hornets are picking #13 this year, 11 years after)

As we always say, the rest is history. But imagine Kobe playing in a small market team. Say the Spurs, who, later on came up with Tim Duncan. I bet they had the props to do a Divac deal duplicate wouldn’t you say? Then Kobe would not have been Kobe as we know of today. The same way MJ rose as a hero of Chicago and unto the whole basketball world. He would have brought equally as many rings to San Antonio as he and Shaq has done. And these events would not be all over the media. I say its Buss fault. I’ll say its Shaq’s. Heck I’ll even put the blame on Jerry West himself for having dragged Kobe into this. But the real culprit? LA.

Hang me up for blaming the city but it is what it is. Bright lights and glamour. Never seemed to fit Kobe’s character anyway. He was always the quiet and loner type. Man I’ll even say he had culture shock of the phenomenon who was himself. It was an altogether hard to refuse lifestyle which you enjoy along the way.

Shaq was a snug fit. He was the actor, the hero, heck he was Superman. The Diesel and Big Daddy. He calls himself somethin and everyone does. The LA prototypical guy.

To sum it up, Kobe would not have been the Kobe we know today, if he wasn’t in LA (hey it rhymes). And lets just say the Lakers took the Cavs path. Mitch still would pick Darko over LeBron coz thats the Genius he is.

Lastly, I end up asking myself this question: Am I a Laker fan or a Kobe fan? Those two things seem to be different entities nowadays.

11 years later and reality sets in. Of course there is no point going back in time as it will never happen, but when you start to hear the tick get louder by the second, don’t you just wish you were somewhere else?

I was right, I just ate the whole pie. Next?

I was referring to #32 BTW.

You’re promised a promotion at your job, a lucrative one at that and then they take it back and you find out it was only promised to you in words and only to you at that. So you decide to stay? I don’t think so. You take your ass somewhere where they live up to their promises.

I’ve done it once already myself.

Someone from the Lakers, SOMEONE needs to say something…John Black, where you at?

A storied franchise that’s gonna take years to recover. Nice.