For those yet wondering if Kobe Bryant remains the face of the Los Angeles Lakers, the heart-and-soul of the organization’s planned fortunes over at least the next several seasons, consider the not-so-tempered words of team president Jeanie Buss.
“Any free agent that would be afraid to play with Kobe Bryant is probably a loser, and I’m glad they wouldn’t come to the team,” Buss said during a live and intense episode of “SportsCenter” on Thursday that was fueled by an earlier ESPN article condemning the lifelong Lakers’ hero as a self-serving sag on the franchise and one of the primary reasons other big name star players have been reluctant to sign on with one of the league’s most storied and decorated squads.
“I read the story,” Buss added. “I don’t agree with any of it. If there is somebody that’s on our payroll who is saying things like that, I’ll soon get to the bottom of it, and they won’t be working for us anymore. I have no doubt that Kobe will make people regret ever saying those comments.”
The 36-year-old Bryant recently inked a two-year extension with the team for $48.5 million, making him the league’s highest paid player even though he played in just six games last season and is attempting to bounce back this year from a myriad of injuries, chief among them a torn Achilles’ heel.
His absence within the Lakers’ lineup ultimately brought about even more pain than the levels Bryant probably endured, as the team struggled to its worst season in history (27-55), continuing, for them, what rates as a suddenly sustained and bumbling trend of having not made an NBA Finals appearance in some four seasons.
It all has some wondering why at a time when the organization is in such desperate need of a major retooling Bryant would appear to be only thinking of himself, even after blowing the team’s salary cap structure asunder still spending much of his summer lamenting that as far as he’s concerned stars of his magnitude remain grossly “underpaid.”
Critics will have you believe it’s that kind of arrogance that has resulted in the league’s glitziest franchise, the one that once could attract such mega-stars as Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal simply just based on the asking, no longer measuring up as a preferred destination spot for would-be free agents.
“Peek behind the banners and it’s rotten,” one agent told ESPN. “I’ve had a lot of clients in the last five years, good players, who didn’t want to play with Kobe,” reflected another. “They see that his teammates become the chronic public whipping boys. Anyone who could possibly challenge Kobe for the spotlight ends up becoming a pincushion for the media. Even Shaq.”
This summer alone, the Lakers failed miserably in their disjointed pursuits of such free agents as Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and even their own Pau Gasol. Two seasons before, Dwight Howard chose to bolt L.A. for the much smaller market of Houston, even leaving some $30 million in guaranteed money on the table for the right to do so.
But breaking up can be hard to do, and the five rings the Lakers share with Bryant seem to make such a fate that much harder for some team execs to bear. “We made a very good case for Carmelo coming to Los Angeles,” Buss said. “But he’s from New York, he sees a mission. I understand why he chose to stay with New York. I don’t think any of that has to do with Kobe Bryant.”
Indeed, through it all the Lakers have been and publicly remain Team Kobe. They proved as much by signing Bryant to his new deal and in the way Jeanie Buss came out swinging in defense of his reputation and what he has meant to the franchise’s long preserved Q-Score.
In summer off seasons to come, the Lakers are almost certain to make plays for free-agents to be LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Rajon Rondo. From the sound of things, it’s almost just as likely that Kobe Bryant will still be at the helm, serving as the organization’s leading man and main attraction in selling the dream of what again could be.
