Kobe Bryant is keeping his options open. (USATSI)
In a Q&A with Sports Illustrated, Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak said the team is trying to balance its No.2 selection in next week's draft between the long-term needs of the franchise and the goal of putting a contending team around Kobe Bryant before he retires. Kupchak also says there haven't been, nor will there be, conversations between he and Bryant regarding the Laker icon's future past next year when his contract expires. Kupchakhas said in the past the indications are that Bryant will retire after 2016.
Mannix: When you're making your decision here and you're going through this process, do you factor in Kobe Bryant's future? And when I ask that, I'm asking, are you looking for a guy that might be able to make a more immediate impact because Kobe's career is down to the last year, two years, whatever it is?
Kupchak: To some degree. We feel we want to make significant progress from this year to next year. And if we can do that and not mortgage the future—in other words, with a player who is in free agency that's a veteran—then yeah. It's a factor because we do want and we need in this city to show progress. And we've not made the playoffs for two years running, I suppose you can do it a third year, but our fans are impatient, and they're used to a good product, and that's not what we want to do. And we know Kobe is not as happy when the town around him is not enough to win. But, we've got to be careful that we don't do something that puts us in the middle of the pack for the next six or seven years. Because all that does is get you the eighth seed in the playoffs and a draft pick that's not very good.
Mannix: You've been asked all the time about Kobe's future. But I'm curious how many, if any, conversations with Kobe have you had, do you have, about what he wants to do beyond this season?
Kupchak: Other than a conversation or so a year ago, really nothing, and I talk to him or, in this day and age, text, on a regular basis. And that doesn't mean once a week. Maybe, perhaps, if you average it over two or three months, it might come out to be once a week, but I would guess every couple of weeks he'll hear something, he'll call, he'll text, and I'll ask a couple of questions. Regarding his future, there's nothing really that's been discussed. In fact, a couple of weeks with all the rumors that were out there, I made some comments and I asked him, “Are you O.K. with my comments,” and he said “absolutely.” So, that's not something that really needs discussing right now. If there is a future beyond next year for Kobe, I don't think he even wants to talk about it until next year.
It's a delicate line that Kupchak has to walk, and the team has been uncharacteristically considerate of Bryant's desires in the twilight of his career. Typically, the Lakers have always put the franchise first, i.e. trading Shaq, moving on from Phil Jackson -- though that wasn't a great move--, etc. With Bryant they've shelled out a cap-debilitating contract and committed to keeping him as long as he desires (though a contract the size of his last two-year, $48 millon extension is unlikely).
The Lakers should be very careful with leaving this situation entirely up to Bryant, though. There's the PR nightmare of being accused of trying to push Bryant out the door, but the alteranative is problematic as well. Bryant's uncertainty means the Lakers have to plan to keep Bryant around, and Bryant has in the past been adamant that stars should not take paycuts for their teams -- something Dwyane Wade is finding the harsh reality about now with Miami. If the team is absolutely all-in on Bryant finishing his career with the team, and Bryant asks for a smaller-but-still-significant contract, that's going to either, A: limit their ability to pursue a total overhaul, B: possibly scare off free agents (we'll come back to that in a second) or C: keep the growth focus away from their talented rookies, namely Julius Randle and whoever they select in the No. 2 spot this year.
There are benefits to that last point. It lets Randle and Jahlil Okafor/Karl Anthony-Towns/D'Angelo Russell/whoever develop on their own without getting the brundt of the defense's attention. At some point, though, the team has to look to its future and put the priority on whoever becomes its next star or stars. Bryant is unlikely to respond well to that. Even with all the injuries of 2014, Bryant still wound up basically playing the same way he always did, high-volume, high-usage.
The free agency thing is out there, based on reports from ESPN, but Paul George, Carmelo Anthony, and others have publicly and explicitly denied that they were dissuaded from considering the Lakers by the presence of Bryant. It's less a matter of not wanting to share a locker room with Bryant, as has been the implication, but instead simply realizing that player would be relying on a Bryant that is a shell of what he once was. Bryant had moments last year before his injury ended his season for the third year in a row, but his efficiency has sprung a pretty significant leak and is spilling into the ocean... and he wasn't exactly the most efficient player to begin with. (Note: Efficiency is a quality, not a quantity. Overall it helps but it's not vital. The history of the Sixth Man of the Year award is littered with inefficient players that helped their teams win.)
The more overarching element is this: Bryant is no longer a pure-plus for the team, and certainly won't be in 2016. Without knowing if he wants to return, the Lakers have to prepare like he will. That may not be fair to the team, but that's the corner they've painted themselves into. Bryant feels no need to give the team a certain response on when he plans to hang it up, though Kupchak has said he feels that this next year is probably Bryant's last. Hopefully for the Lakers they've had conversations about what Bryant expects if he decides to play past 2016. Hopefully they have a plan for transition from the Bryant era to whatever comes next, whether that's built around their two top-five picks, a trade for Russell Westbrook or another star, or some unknown move.
In a lot of ways, Bryant is Schrödinger's Cat. 2016 is his box, and within it he is both playing past next season and not playing past next season. How do you form a long-term decision tree with that kind of monster, for good and for bad, hidden beyond certainty?
The problem is how uncertain all of this seems for the Lakers. It's never good to be stuck between stations.
Published by: CBS SPORTS
June 19th, 2015
Source: www.cbssports.com
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