Bryant asks for trade, then backtracks slightly

[Rollie_Fingaz]

Circus act
By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
June 19, 2007

Dan Wetzel
Yahoo! Sports

So now we have Kobe Bryant trashing teammates and management alike on some covert amateur commando video.

This coming after a statement on his Web site spoke of continued dissatisfaction with the direction of the Los Angeles Lakers and a new interest in being traded. Which came after Bryant flew to Barcelona to meet with owner Jerry Buss and, according to the Los Angeles Times, figured out he still wanted to be dealt.

All of this, of course, comes in the wake of his Memorial Day weekend schizophrenic radio tour where he alternated claiming he would never play for the Lakers again and affirming his commitment to winning a fourth title in L.A.

You follow all of that?

What a couple of weeks this has been, even by Kobe standards.

Slowly but surely, day after day, bizarre act after bizarre act, he keeps hurting only himself. All of the goodwill, good soldier, good teammate stuff that he painstakingly built up after Colorado is eroding with each passing episode.

It's not that what Bryant keeps saying is all that incorrect – it's that he keeps finding worse and worse ways of saying it.

Web site open letters? Radio flip flops? And now some strange rant in a shopping center parking lot, mouthing off to a couple of strangers whom he may or may not have known were filming him? Was this really the best place to rip teammate Andrew Bynum and general manager Mitch Kupchak?

Bryant is essentially correct about this entire deal. He is the most talented player in the NBA and in his prime at 29, and the Lakers have done little to surround him with enough talent to compete for a championship, especially in the brutal Western Conference. This isn’t the easy breezy East where LeBron James can reach the finals with similarly average support.

Kupchak has been bad. Just about every Lakers fan wishes Jerry West was still running the team. The idea that L.A. used a lottery pick on Bynum, a high school project in 2005, was questionable enough, but the idea that they wouldn’t pursue Jason Kidd because they wanted to keep him?

"Are you kidding me?" asks Bryant in the video.

Well, are they?

The thing is, if Bryant had an ounce of savvy, he could have spun this completely to his advantage. When the truth is on your side, when your core argument is that you just want to win, you shouldn’t come out looking like the bad guy – petulant, power hungry, ungrateful and unstable.

But what everyone is seeing is an irrational tantrum, stranger and stranger each time. And Bryant sure isn’t helping himself get traded. The past three weeks have done nothing to convince a contender to gamble on him, an owner to believe in him, a fan base to trust him. His handling of this has been career suicide – burning bridges on both sides of the island.

What a disaster and no amount of Phil Jackson talks are going to settle it down. Bryant’s true feelings are evident. His desire to get out of L.A. is real; it wasn’t just frustration and emotion talking. The temporary backtrack was the emotion – guilt, loyalty, embarrassment, whatever.

At this point, the Lakers are going to have to actually consider the unthinkable: trading him.

Buss understandably wants no part of that. Or at least he didn't three weeks ago. He banked the franchise on Kobe and dealt Shaquille O'Neal for what has amounted to little. He can't now give up Bryant for what will assuredly be below market value.

First off, the list of potential destinations dwindles by the day. Second, even a sound basketball trade can't replace the star power of Kobe. In L.A., you can’t sell three dimes for a quarter. The fans want the bright lights guy. Bryant, no matter what, remains that.

But he is also a wild card, a wild child and no one knows what he'll do next. One time, when he was getting criticized for shooting too much, he pouted and stopped shooting, passed the ball every single time like a wise-guy fifth grader.

If he doesn't want to be in L.A. next season, he can sabotage things in a million different ways. Really, at this point, do you put anything past him?

Bryant is a spectacular talent who has a deep desire to win, to compete, to get his front office and ownership to help make it happen.

But he has no idea how to tell them that. No idea at all. He just keeps thinking of the newest wrong way. And so it keeps getting worse, for the franchise, for the franchise players.

First a radio tour, now a bootleg internet video?

Are you kidding me?

 

[cranrab]

my problem with authors like the 1 above is that they continue to make 1 HUGE and COLOSSAL error in granting that tobe is correct in any of his statements.

to pick one, for example, why is tobe correct in publicly bashing fakers GM mitch kupchak? what move(s) do people refer to when they provide examples as evidence of mitch kupchak's incompetence?

furthermore, why is tobe correct in publicly requesting that memphis grizzlies GM jerry west return to the fakers? what move(s) do people refer to when they provide examples as evidence of jerry west's competence?

maybe people don't remember that jerry west wanted to pick sidney moncrief over earvin johnson. had it not been for jerry buss' insistence AGAINST it, the fakers would have pulled the trigger on that deal.

granted, jerry west DID clear cap space to lure shaquille o'neal to the fakers by trading vlade divac, and moving george lynch and anthony peeler, but is CLEARING CAP SPACE now the measure of a great GM? and don't think jerry west was a mover and shaker in that deal, either. first, shaquille o'neal ALWAYS wanted to be a faker, and second, shaquille o'neal would never have left the orlando magic if their GM hadn't told him they would NEVER pay him more $ than anfernee hardaway received.

 

[Spectrum]

Put Kobe on Timeout.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/6945924?MSNHPHMA

Kobe Bryant is not a child. His condition is more problematic than that. He's a child star.

Having been famous since adolescence, his emotional development appears to have ceased there as well.

Still, what do you do with a kid, famous or otherwise, who continues to act up? Do you trade him? No. You ground him. You give him a time out.

Though Bryant will turn 29 this summer, it's plain to see that he's never been in time out. The Kobe Rules — that seemingly eternal cycle of complaint and indulgence — might be an amusing curiosity for those of us who didn't grow up with the Lakers, but out here in L.A., they are the unwritten law. What Kobe wants, Kobe gets. And now that he has reiterated his want to be traded, there is considerable support for the Lakers to grant him his wish.

One argument, a bit misguided, says the Lakers should be done with him and get what they can. But there's a more prevalent sentiment in the City of Angels: people give in to Kobe because he's Kobe. They really don't want him to be unhappy, even for a moment.


Now I enjoy (as I suspect Kobe does) the attention that is lavished on him. But I don't really get it, this outsized concern for a spoiled kid. Then again, I'm not from L.A. This is a strange sports town. They like stars. But stars are in perilously short supply. In fact, outside of Kobe, the most talked-about athletes in Los Angeles play for the Arizona Cardinals and the New Orleans Saints.

Oh, no? Quick, who's the best-known player on the Dodgers' roster?

An over-the-hill shortstop with a single home run in 252 at-bats.

Now consider Vladimir Guerrero, the spectacular right fielder who toils for the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles. Guerrero is hitting almost 50 points higher than Nomar Garciaparra, but his fame is a perishable commodity. It doesn't travel up the interstate from Orange County.

Then there are the Stanley Cup champions. They also play in Anaheim, though that would be news to many Angelenos, too.

And this is supposed to be Hollywood? Please. The hottest team in Southern California is the UC-Irvine Anteaters, who were just eliminated from the College World Series.

So think before you start bashing the Kobe-lovers. It's tough for a fan out here. Pro football doesn't start until September 1, when Southern Cal entertains Idaho at the Los Angeles Coliseum, an event that promises to be less competitive than the Christians entertaining the lions at the Roman Coliseum. It is said that Pete Carroll has a great recruiting class. I sure hope so, because people here haven't yet dealt with the loss of Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart.

How could they possibly survive the loss of Kobe?

Of course, in an effort to effect a trade (or, more likely, draw attention to his plight), Bryant has tried his best to make the Lakers as miserable as he is. There have been stories, serial radio appearances and web site postings. He's not particularly choosy; he'll whine to just about anybody. He belittled Andrew Bynum, his 19-year-old teammate, for the benefit of somebody on the street with a cellphone video camera.

But do you trade him?

Not now. Not unless you can get Tim Duncan or Steve Nash or LeBron James or Dwyane Wade.

Of course, teams like the Knicks want a trade. But short of Madison Square Garden itself, there's no reasonable deal they could offer. The concept of relative value as it pertains to Bryant — one of the NBA's four best players, and perhaps its biggest star — is a very limited one. Sure, Chicago has some talented players. But Luol Deng isn't going to replace the void left by Bryant, certainly not in Hollywood. And as for the Suns, the Lakers' divisional rival, L.A. should make the deal only if it wants to ensure a Phoenix dynasty.

You don't deal a superstar on his timetable. Everybody has tried reasoning with Bryant: the general manager, his coach, the owner. It's time to ignore him. Let the tantrum, now in its second month, run its course. Kobe needs a time out.

No one, least of all Lakers fans, wants to see Kobe with a sad face. It is feared that his behavior will make Hollywood's favorite team unhappy and dysfunctional. But this neglects the fact that the Lakers are already unhappy and dysfunctional. Bryant was never known to be very popular in his own locker room. As for the management and ownership, remember that these are the Lakers owned by the Buss family.


The patriarch, Dr. Jerry, a Ph.D who made his fortune in real estate, has two pending DUI charges, and a couple of kids on the team payroll. Jimmy is an assistant GM. Jeanie is a vice president. A long time ago she posed for Playboy. Now she runs the business side of the operation and is romantically involved with the coach, who quit and wrote a tell-all book bashing Kobe before returning to the team again. Then there's another son, Johnny, who is 50. He writes about Kobe on his MySpace page.

And only now does it occur what the problem really might be.

Dr. Jerry never put his kids in time out.

 

[Rollie_Fingaz]

This is an interesting story...

Kobe deserves the mess he made

Saturday, June 23, 2007

By IAN O'CONNOR
RECORD COLUMNIST

Kobe Bryant was going to be a Net, there was no question about that. John Calipari had it all mapped out. The NBA was holding its draft in the Meadowlands, and the new czar of the Nets would use his home-court advantage to introduce the eighth overall pick as his first franchise star.

All of 17 years old, Bryant forced himself out of Jersey before he ever got there, and more on that later. But first, understand that Kobe isn't going to play for the Nets now, just like he wasn't going to play for the Nets then.

Kobe reportedly has his trade-demand list all set, and it's a three-on-none fast break. Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, that's it. He doesn't even covet a role in Isiah Thomas' long-running Broadway show. Imagine that.

But the Nets? No, the Lakers aren't interested in what they have to give. Knowing Bryant wouldn't even remotely consider waiving his no-trade clause to play here unless Jason Kidd were staying put, Rod Thorn isn't about to offer Kidd to the Lakers like he did in February, when Thorn wanted the suddenly infamous Andrew Bynum in return (more on him later, too).

Would Thorn do a sign-and-trade deal with Vince Carter, and send along another Big Three-er, Richard Jefferson, in order to land Bryant? Would Thorn work whatever salary cap magic he'd have to work, and bend whatever NBA trade rules he'd have to bend, to get Carter and Jefferson to the Lakers in exchange for the league's best player?

Faster than a no-look pass from Kidd. Only here's the problem:

The Lakers aren't big fans of Carter. Which leads us to a troubling question:

Who is?

The Nets likely are stuck with their free agent-to-be, the shooting guard who won't shoot the make-or-break shot. They can't afford to lose Carter for nothing, and other teams can't afford to pay him to be something he's not -- a playoff closer.

That's not good news for Nets' fans who yearn for their first NBA title, and who believe the Eastern Conference road to the Finals is as wide open as Bryant's profane mouth. Sure, Bryant would improve the Nets' chances of returning to the Finals sometime before Kidd applies for Medicare.

Only self-respecting Nets' fans should never want to bail out Bryant, not after Bryant bailed out on them.

So we return to the heart-stopping, mind-bending hours leading up to the '96 draft. The Nets had worked out Bryant three times, and fell madly in love all three times. Calipari and Nets general manager John Nash dined with Kobe's parents, Joe and Pam, the night before some lucky NBA team would hire the Bryants' high school wonderchild. Joe and Pam told the Nets' officials they wanted Kobe in the Meadowlands, close to their suburban Philly home.

Calipari and Nash agreed: They would select Kobe with the eighth pick.

The following day, Bryant's agent, Arn Tellem, informed Nash his client would play in Italy -- where Kobe spent some formative years watching his father play pro ball -- if the Nets dared to draft him. The GM knew Tellem must've had a deal in place. Nash knew that Jerry West, then in L.A., thought Bryant was about as good a young prospect as he'd ever seen.

As it turned out, Tellem and Adidas' Sonny Vaccaro had cooked up a plan to get Bryant to the Lakers via Charlotte, which was holding the 13th pick. The agent and the sneaker rep knew Kobe would slip to 13 if the Nets took a pass, and they knew the Los Angeles market would present a zillion more marketing opportunities than the East Rutherford market.

Vaccaro gave Kobe's father a job, and he had Tellem give the Nets a song and a dance. Nash wanted to call the bluff, but Calipari was afraid his first move could end up a Same Old Nets disaster. The coach took the safest available option. He went with Kerry Kittles of Villanova and Charlotte took Bryant and traded him to the Lakers for Vlade Divac.

"I get sick every time I think about it," Nash once told me.

At the '98 All-Star game, where Bryant drew the ire of David Robinson and others by throwing a wraparound pass to himself, Kobe claimed he had no pre-draft issues with the Nets. "Jersey would've been fine with me," he said. "Close to home, family and friends coming to the game. No problem."

It was a lie. Just like the lie Kobe tells now, the one where he had nothing to do with running Shaquille O'Neal out of town.

Truth is, Kobe Bryant deserves this vile mess of his. He won three titles with O'Neal, but decided he'd rather be a solo Hollywood act. He wanted to be Cher, not Sonny, and Mitch Kupchak went ahead and dealt O'Neal to Miami without getting the Heat's best player in return.

Brilliant. Bryant was happy for a bit, at least when he wasn't being dragged into a Colorado courtroom, and then reality zapped him like a blind pick. His Lakers weren't very good. He could score 81 points in a regular-season game, but that wouldn't help him a lick in a best-of-seven with the Suns.

Now Kobe wants to force his way out of L.A. the way he forced his way out of East Rutherford. He's publicly trashed Lakers' management and he's reportedly heard on an amateur video shredding Kupchak for not taking Kidd for Bynum, the 7-foot-1 kid from St. Joseph of Metuchen whom Bryant also ripped (What is it with Kobe and Jersey guys, anyway?).

He wants out, period, end of story. Maybe the Lakers will land Kevin Garnett or Jermaine O'Neal and change Kobe's mind. More likely, Bryant will end up chasing shadows with the Bulls.

Kobe doing Jordan would be like Rich Little doing Nixon, or Frank Gorshin doing Cagney. Michael Jordan never ran a pre-draft end-around on Chicago, and never forced the Bulls to clear Scottie Pippen from his court.

He just won six NBA championships, or twice as many as Kobe Bryant, the last guy in the NBA who deserves to be traded closer to a parade.

 

[cranrab]

tj simers of the la times tried to interview tobe this week and asked some hard questions.

notice in the excerpt below how tobe (once an unstoppable whining motormouth) has finally learned to STFU:

"So, what do you think of the Garnett deal?" I began.

"As far as what?" he snipped.

"Are you disappointed the Lakers couldn't make something happen?"

"I don't have a reaction either way," he said. "I don't think about it too much."

"You don't think about the Lakers, and what they could or could not do to improve after everything you had to say?"

"Why should I?"

This was not the same guy I had met a few weeks ago. I don't know, maybe he was uptight because he was one of three players picked to take a drug test. He was clearly on edge and I hadn't even mentioned Mitch Kupchak's name yet.

I had called the Lakers' publicity department to ask about Kupchak's availability, but was put on hold where I had to listen to Smush Parker highlights. And the Kobester thinks he has it rough.

I hung up, the Lakers called back, and I was told Kupchak was on vacation until the 24th. I'm not surprised he left town after what he told the Daily News recently. "If this was the team that we started the season off with, I'd be fine with it. I feel that we're an improved team over last year."

I read those comments to the Kobester and said, "So what do you say?"

"Talk to Mitch about it, man," he said, obviously forgetting my first name. "If that's what he feels, that's what he feels."

He had a point there because it's hard to argue with the fact "if that's what Mitch feels, that's what Mitch feels," but I asked for the Kobester's opinion.

"I don't have one," he said, growing very irritated, and maybe he was in a hurry to get back to the topless pool where he was spotted the last time he was in town, but if that was the case, I'd have driven him there.

"You're telling me, the Lakers aren't on your mind?"

"Write what you want to write, man," he said, and I get permission like that, and I might start writing rumors like the one on the Internet recently that mentioned something about a divorce.

"You made your future with the Lakers an issue, and don't you think you have left Lakers fans hanging?"

He rolled his eyes, and OK, so maybe neither one of us cares what Lakers fans think, but I'm surprised he'd admit it.

"I'm not making it an issue any more," he said.

"Does that mean you will be at training camp?"

"I have no reason not to be," he said, and now there's news. "Your guy, [ESPN's] Ric Bucher, says you will never play in a Lakers uniform again."

"You know what, man, we'll see what happens."

BASED ON our last meeting, I thought we might carpool to Staples this year, or maybe catch a Beckham match together. But now he seemed so unhappy.

"Maybe I just don't like seeing you here," he said, while walking away so he might talk to some nice reporters.

"When's the last time you practiced in a high school gym?" one reporter wanted to know.

"Kobe, talk about the sacrifice you guys are making to play for this team," said another -- after someone else asked what he wanted for his birthday next week.

I hated to interrupt, but when he mentioned he liked playing with Jason Kidd and LeBron James, I asked if he wanted to play with Jermaine O'Neal.

"Oh man, this guy right here is something special," the Kobester told the other reporters while walking away again, and I don't think he meant special like I mean special.

I've had experience dealing with Mike Garrett, though, so I can hang pretty good with someone who likes to walk away when they can't be bothered, so just in case it was the name "O'Neal" that had turned him sour, I gave him the Jermaine question one more time.

"I don't know what's going to happen [with O'Neal]," he said. "I don't know. I hear what's going on, but I don't know. We'll have to wait and see."

I could see the mistake I was making; I wasn't asking the right question the way Jimmy Kimmel did last week, the Kobester coming clean and admitting he liked Harry Potter and vacuuming.

"You're the only one who is asking about the Lakers," the Kobester said. "Let it go."

"I don't understand why you just don't clear the air -- especially after the mixed messages you sent earlier."

"Mitch and them know what's going on," the Kobester said. "Go knock down his door. He knows what's going on."

"I take it our love affair is already over."

"Love affair?" the Kobester huffed.

 

[DANGEROUSBLACKMAN]

Kobe Come And Play For The Atlanta Hawks, We Need You.