What if you were told that the reason the Los Angeles Lakers aren’t teeming with superstars not named Kobe Bryant right now is because of Kobe Bryant himself?
Would you believe it? Probably. Perhaps most definitely. He’s notoriously hard to get along with—at least until last year—and the countless anecdotes we’ve been made aware of can only mean there’s been a player or two or 10 (or 50) who has avoided Los Angeles because of Kobe. But his impact is apparently bigger than we think.
Within a scathing, yet well-written piece for ESPN The Magazine, Henry Abbott brings word that Kobe turned off multiple superstar free agents:
After James, Carmelo Anthony was high on the Lakers’ list. And the particular way that recruitment was botched — Bryant made news by flying home from Europe, but somehow wires got crossed and he missed the meeting anyway — reminded Lakers insiders of the manner in which he nearly alienated Steve Nash in 2012. In the days before LA acquired Nash, sources say, the point guard wanted to hear from Bryant that the Lakers’ star was amenable to having Nash control the ball much of the time — a key tenet of the D’Antoni offense from the Suns days. When Lakers brass asked Bryant to call Nash, Bryant failed to do so, saying he preferred that Nash call him. The pettiness took days to resolve and nearly scuttled the deal.
While the Lakers were going after Anthony in vain, they quietly pursued Chris Bosh as well, but he preferred the carcass of the Heat. Paul George, Angelino through and through, had once been the team’s safest choice. But sources say one reason the two-way star had re-signed with the Pacers in the fall of 2013 instead was that he was turned off by the thought that Bryant would police his efforts.
The entire piece is worth a read. If true, it’s incredibly informative and insightful. I don’t doubt that some of this, if not all of it, is true.
My main problem is with how it depicts Bryant. It’s basically blaming him for where the Lakers are now. And while he’s definitely played a role in their demise to some degree, he cannot be alone in his culpability. Truthfully, even if he really is a free-agent deterrence, he’s not even close to wholly responsible.
It’s the Lakers’ job to rein him in. If he’s really that prone to ignoring authority and disrespecting teammates and prospective teammates, they’ve only succeeded in empowering him for nearly two decades. They’ve had every opportunity to squash his ego. They could have traded him when he wanted to be traded. They didn’t have to trade Shaquille O’Neal. They could have amnestied him. They didn’t have to sign Kobe to that extension last fall.
There have been plenty of outs over the years, none of which the Lakers have exploited. So if Kobe really is stunting their rebuild, serving as the ultimate roadblock between a shitty today and a brighter tomorrow, there’s nothing and no one for us to blame other than the Lakers themselves.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com.
