The latest chapter in the Kobe Bryant-Los Angeles Lakers saga has just been written & as is the case with his recent tirades, it is no less turbulent & no less dramatic.
Wow, what an eventful two weeks this has been in Lakers land.
First, Kobe went on a diatribe concerning the state of the Lakers team-wise along with a wish to get outta town. Then on Memorial Day Weekend, he went on live radio oscillating between not wanting to play in a Lakers uniform again & feeling he could stay on to give the Lakers a fourth NBA Championship title. And now this: Kobe going on the offensive, blasting teammates & management on amateur video - all 24 seconds worth of him fuming & other signature traits of his when nothing goes his way.
But if we look at the situation more closely, there is plenty of verifiable reason for Kobe's newest outbursts. He's in his prime as one of the NBA's best players around, bar none. But he's had little or no additional support to help his team reach the heights the Lakers achieved while Shaq while was still in a Lakers uniform. Even in a conference as talent-laden & awful good as the Western Conference, in order to compete for a NBA championship, you've got to have quality players stepping up & doing their jobs accordingly (a la San Antonio). Kobe feels the Lakers & GM Mitch Kupchak haven't lived up to those standards.
Kupchak has been a lame duck from the get-go; even the most bandwagon Lakers fan feels that Jerry West should still be running this team, without a doubt. First of all, they used a lottery pick on a very sketchy player at best, Andrew Bynum...I can see that was questionable. But what about Jason Kidd? Kobe felt they wouldn't bother plugging Kidd into the Lakers' equation all because they wanted Kobe to stay on at Los Angeles.
"Are you kidding me?"
Then again, who is? Bryant seems to digging himself deeper & deeper into a hole he can't get out of; to be positive, if you're arguing that you want to win more, you shouldn't come off sounding like Kobe Bryant: power hungry, vacillating, petulant, hateful, an ingrate. So far, Kobe's displayed all these adjectives in some form or other & this latest tantrum isn't helping his cause one iota. No one's convinced that he's fit for a trade, much less make Lakers owner Jerry Buss believe him or even keep Kobe's fanbase's trust in him rock solid. If there is something to be said in all of this, he's committing career suicide by burning both bridges which are connecting him with the Lakers as a collective professional basketball organization.
Bryant, at this point in time, meant what he said by summary: "I want out of Los Angeles." But no sound hoops trade will replace the talent which Kobe has brought the Lakers in spades. As the star of the show, bright lights & all, he remains the franchise's leading man regardless of what he thinks. Still, he has that wild child streak in him; his unpredictability not only off the court but on it is equally impressive.
Yes, he has a desire to win, to push the Lakers back to glory, to compete with the likes of Phoenix & Dallas & his pushes to management to make this a distinct possibility have been tremendous. But from the looks of things, worse is coming to worst as he continues to take the wrong way down a one-way street to make his case known to Phil Jackson, his teammates, etc.
"Are you kidding me?"
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