Henry Abbot: Lakers FO can't wait for Kobe to retire

[Archerbro]

This past season was the first when the Lakers had cap space to offer free agents in the Kobe era, so I'm not sure why 5 superstars would even say they refused to join Kobe. There never was an opportunity in the first place.

If you are talking about MLE level players, then I'm not sure those players would qualify to have an option anyways, they go to whichever team offers them max money. I mean there have been players who played for a notorious racist like Donald Sterling, surely playing with Kobe wasn't as bad as that.

on the herd today, Abbott said the agent told him he had 5 good/above average players. they're not superstars and they all said they didn't want to play with Kobe.

I'm basically stating, the agent told Abott that these guys don't want to play with him. They've told the agent that directly.and I get what you're saying that they'd take the most money offer anyways, but that's at the very least an opportunity cost for the lakers that they won't get these players because of Kobe.

So, it's an opportunity cost if they didn't even bother to meet with the Lakers. (because they didn't want to deal with him).

Again, it then comes down to if you think the agent is being truthful. Abott, and the editor thought so. (what does he have to gain from lying anyways? if anything he's risking himself for saying something like that)

That doesn't stand up to facts like I said. From '97 to '14 Lakers had none more than the MLE to offer players.

the facts from the mag/agent were, that these players told their agent "i don't want to play with Kobe"
are you disputing the quote or disputing Kobe ever cost them a free agent? Again, with the S & T's that we had until the new cba (2012), teams could get FA's that way.

[StocktonShorts]

I just can't leave this thread alone. It's just such a compelling story -- maybe even more compelling with so many of the allegations in the article being called into question.

The most interesting angle in all of this to me isn't the size of his current contract -- far too many people are focusing on this -- it's the allegations from agents and others than Kobe's on AND off-court behavior and attitude have negatively influenced the Lakers' ability to attract and keep top free agents over the years. But when you consider some of the characters he supposedly clashed with or scared away (Shaq, Dwight, Melo, Andrew Freaking Bynum) it doesn't exactly make a very convincing argument that Kobe was the only one at fault -- or that he was at fault at all.

In many ways this article makes me wish the Chris Paul trade had gone through just so we could have seen how that relationship developed.

[Louie_Ruckuz]

I always thought Ding was very pro-Kobe so take it for what its worth but he's been a long time Lakers beat reporter for OC Register.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/KevinDing/status/524671495835226112[/tweet]

You didn't need Kevin Ding to tell you the obvious, only people who re gonna believe Abott are the ones who dislike or hate Kobe. Abbott lost all his credibility when he mentioned Ramon Sessions lol

[Slava]

the facts from the mag/agent were, that these players told their agent "i don't want to play with Kobe"
are you disputing the quote or disputing Kobe ever cost them a free agent? Again, with the S & T's that we had until the new cba (2012), teams could get FA's that way.

I can say I don't want to sleep with Kate Upton too, not that I'd ever have a chance and frankly, its not like its her loss either.

[Archerbro]

I always thought Ding was very pro-Kobe so take it for what its worth but he's been a long time Lakers beat reporter for OC Register.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/KevinDing/status/524671495835226112[/tweet]

You didn't need Kevin Ding to tell you the obvious, only people who re gonna believe Abott are the ones who dislike or hate Kobe. Abbott lost all his credibility when he mentioned Ramon Sessions lol

dude Kobe was awesome to watch,

I believe alot of the quotes he got, because there's a policy in magazines with publishing material.

Also the narrative of espn did this to "get back" at Kobe seems odd because Abott got almost all of this article investigation done last year.

[TrueStoryGSW]

[Slava]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/PhilJackson11/status/524678101989851136[/tweet]

Even Phil is having his fun!

[Archerbro]

the facts from the mag/agent were, that these players told their agent "i don't want to play with Kobe"
are you disputing the quote or disputing Kobe ever cost them a free agent? Again, with the S & T's that we had until the new cba (2012), teams could get FA's that way.

I can say I don't want to sleep with Kate Upton too, not that I'd ever have a chance and frankly, its not like its her loss either.

It's the Lakers,

an opportunity cost is definitely an issue because it's FREAKING LA if you don't even get to the meeting. And to add on that S & T's were regular and routine for many years until two years ago of obtaining Free agents

That's definitely a problem whether you want to believe it or not. and this was only 5 players from a single agent.
a single source. (i.e. a possibility of more feeling the same way).

The difference here (playing on the metaphor) is the Lakers are another celebrity, while you're just an average Joe going after Upton (assuming she's superficial like this). They're not like a small market team that didn't have a chance, They're a marquee franchise. Plus, a player could force a s & t once upon a time to his destination.

what's disputable is how much did Kobe hurt them, if at all? There's probably situations where he helped too.




'

[gino_giode]

If by crippling the team they mean keeping them from being absolute bottom feeders in the league then I agree.

What's really crippling the team is the FO decisions to panic and hire/fire multiple coaches over the past few years. And this is BESIDES the fact they hired terrible coaches in the first place.

D'Antoni was a dumbass who ran Kobe's achilles into the ground. Mike Brown doesn't understand offense. Still undecided about Scott

[Slava]

the facts from the mag/agent were, that these players told their agent "i don't want to play with Kobe"
are you disputing the quote or disputing Kobe ever cost them a free agent? Again, with the S & T's that we had until the new cba (2012), teams could get FA's that way.

I can say I don't want to sleep with Kate Upton too, not that I'd ever have a chance and frankly, its not like its her loss either.

It's the Lakers,

an opportunity cost is definitely an issue because it's FREAKING LA if you don't even get to the meeting. And to add on that S & T's were regular and routine for many years until two years ago of obtaining Free agents

That's definitely a problem whether you want to believe it or not. and this was only 5 players from a single agent.
a single source. (i.e. a possibility of more feeling the same way).

The difference here (playing on the metaphor) is the Lakers are another celebrity, while you're just an average Joe going after Upton (assuming she's superficial like this). They're not like a small market team that didn't have a chance, They're a marquee franchise. Plus, a player could force a s & t once upon a time to his destination.

what's disputable is how much did Kobe hurt them, if at all? There's probably situations where he helped too.




'

My analogy was Lakers as Kate Upton and the agent's clients being average joes.

Lakers got Steve Nash in a sign & trade, Pau, Lin, CP3 (almost) & Howard in trades just in the past 8 seasons, Artest, Jamison, Steve Blake & Matt Barnes through free agency while retaining Odom, Fisher for below market value. I don't see how Kobe has effected anything negatively here.

[R U Legit]

Take your potshots at him now, but when the day comes that he retires, the NBA won't be the same.

[Next Coming]

This is great. Was always going to end like this for Kobe. He's Daniel Plainview and I love it.

[Br0ken_Sp0ke]

.

[pb-ceo]

No the idiots that gave him that contract are crippling the Lakers, anyone would have taken that deal when they put it in front of them.

I'm not a Kobe fan by any means but if you give him that contract, don't complain about it later.

(If anyone in the Laker FO is actually complaining)

read the article. it's much more than the insane contract.

[G35]

Honestly, just my opinion, from what I recall, Henry Abbot is not a fan of Kobe and would be hard pressed to say anything positive about Kobe. Listening to him on Colin Cowherd's show today and it's as if he has a grudge against Kobe. There was no two sides of the story, Abbot says he has been working on the story for over a year now. What is funny is Colin asks Abbot how hard was it to get the information and he says I just picked up the phone and called people. It's as if he picks up the phone and says, "How much do you hate Kobe?" There's no context, and Colin is a shockjock, he made some terrible analysis afterwards, making broad statements saying Dwight Howard didn't want to stay in LA with Kobe but then he goes on to say that big men are outdated and Dwight Howard is ineffective in the playoff's.

I doubt the Lakers would be much better than they were in 2006/2007 when they did not have much salary cap. They did not turn it around in free agency. It was through picking up Marc Gasol in the 2nd round and having Kwame Browns contract to trade that they picked up Pau. The only team I can think of that can directly say they won a title through free agency is the Heat. I personally think having a ton of salary cap room is overrated. There is no sure fire way to build a contender, there is always a certain amount of luck involved.....

[madmaxmedia]

To me, giving him $24M is basically accepting you're not getting any big time players for the rest of Kobe's contract/career.

If it was say $15M, maybe that has no impact this year. But it might give them more flexibility in case some opportunity arises next offseason, etc. With the rising salary cap, trades, etc. who knows. Maybe you don't have room to get 2 superstars, but maybe you get a 1A and a 1B to come.

To say, well it would have made no difference anyway because no one is coming, might as well give him the money for business reasons, seems like a pessimistic stance to take on the Lakers as a team and as a franchise.

And while much has been said about Kobe's personality, I don't think it's impossible for Kobe to play with another big time player who might eclipse Kobe in his older age now. I think Kobe wants to be the best player on the court every single day, but I also think in his case game will recognize game. I don't think he created any problems on the last Olympic team he played on.

I would at least like to see the Lakers leave some of these possibilities open. By offering Kobe $24M per, it makes it much harder to.

[jcuuofd]

Who would have thought that ESPN would spread poisonous rumors? I for one am shocked.

[MistyMountain20]

I read the article, pretty brutal stuff. The part about Kobe wanting to win on his terms jibes with what I theorized about him a while ago...that his lifelong goal is to surpass his childhood image of Michael Jordan, which means he has to do it the way he saw Jordan doing it. Despite all his own talents and even his passing skills, he had to play the way he thought Jordan was playing to pursue his goal. When asked to do something else (see that Game 7 against the Suns), he would glitch up mentally and even check out of the game, no matter what the situation.

An interesting case study.

And yet Phil Jackson returned to coach him again.

Phil said he didn't want to coach Kobe after Kobe lost his skills. Kobe still had his skills at that point. We're seeing now what Phil meant. The Zen Master is a pretty smart dude, you might want to pay attention to what he says.

So you and Abbott both suffer from confirmation bias. Worse with him since he's a "journalist".

You remember that Phil was ready to come back in 2013, yes?

[BKing10]

I liked this part

"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."

It wasn't the fact he was restricted and the Pacers would match anything?

[MistyMountain20]

My man Abbott, doing hatchet jobs on Kobe since at least 2009. A tip of the hat if anyone can find an earlier date.

http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blog ... rc=desktop