Don't expect Kobe in Knicks gear any time soon. (USATSI)
This one has been making the rounds, so I thought we might want to talk about it a bit.
I saw it on Twitter before I found this Orlando Sentinel column. The premise? The Lakers should trade Kobe Bryant to New York for Amar'e Stoudemire, reuniting Bryant with Phil Jackson, giving him a chance to contend, and letting the Lakers start over sooner when Stoudemire's contract expires this summer.
It is almost certainly not going to happen. I'll leave the door open because the NBA makes zero sense about 40 percent of the time, but let's just say I'd put the money line on it happening at +1,000,000.
The realities standing in the way are pretty basic. First, you have to find the value in trading for Stoudemire. It puts the Lakers into better cap position early, but cap room isn't their problem. They had cap room this summer, they just couldn't find anyone (this is me not talking about whether Kobe Bryant was the reason and gently tip-toeing away). Plus, Bryant's contract only runs an extra year and he sounds very much like he plans to retire after these two seasons. Stoudemire has looked better this season, but considering how things have gone with the Lakers' injuries over the past three years, he'd somehow wind up playing negative games for them.
The money is important here. The Lakers are set to have Bryant come off the books (provided he retires) in 2016, just when the new media deal kicks in. There will be $80 million-plus of cap space available to them, provided they clear the rest of the slough on their books. Clearing money ahead of time doesn't help. The Lakers don't want to build through the draft. If they did, they wouldn't have stacked Julius Randle's position (which resulted in Randle even being on the floor when he was injured. I'm not pinning the injury on that decision, but the number of ways signing Carlos Boozer was a poor decision is stunning). The Lakers don't need salary relief.
So there's no upside for the Lakers to deal for Stoudemire.
The "doing what's right for Bryant" idea won't vibe with the Lakers or Bryant. First, Bryant wants to retire as a Laker. After all he pressured other teams into passing on or trading him openly wanted to be drafted by LA, and unlike many of his contemporaries (Kevin Garnett, LeBron James) he gets to retire saying he only played for one team, and won five titles there. The Lakers remain adamant that no player or coach comes before the franchise ... Phil Jackson or Shaquille O'Neal included.
The Lakers also gain value by keeping Bryant as an example of how they do business. They can tell free agents, "We want you to be a Laker for life," necessary because the current CBA limits their ability to outbid everyone. The luster of being a Laker has evaporated, and they're paying huge money into the league's revenue sharing system.
Bryant is a cash cow and the Lakers need him to hold up the weight of the massive, multi-billion dollar TV deal the team brokered with Time Warner Sportsnet. He puts butts in seats, sells merchandise, lures sponsors, greases wheels with business partners and still makes the Lakers "cool" in some quarters.
Does it make sense for the Knicks? Sure. You might be getting a less-efficient player, but you add someone who has won big, and Bryant might just add on a few years if he got to play with Jackson in the triangle again. There's no downside for the Knicks, who are still targeting 2016 and Kevin Durant. It might even make them better in some areas, despite some depth at shooting guard (Iman Shumpert, Tim Hardaway Jr., J.R. Smith if you're into that sort of thing). But it's not something they would want to mortgage the future for, no matter how highly Jackson thinks of his former pupil.
And perhaps most of all Bryant's deal has a no-trade clause and he's prideful and stubborn. At least at this moment in time, he seems content with helping these younger players improve improve a bad team. Maybe that changes later this season, but change it must or this conversation is a non-starter.
As previously noted, things can change. If the Lakers were looking to move Bryant, the Knicks would be as good a place to start as any -- big market, Phil Jackson, Derek Fisher, the Knicks could throw in one of the wings as sweetener. But it would take the complete destruction of a 17-year relationship between Bryant and the Lakers, a complete reversal of course by Bryant and ownership and an admission their mission to keep the team relevant and competitive completely failed.
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Blake Griffin finds DeAndre Jordan for the reverse alley-oop slam (VIDEO)
The Clippers hosted the Kings in a matinee on Sunday, and as is usually the case when this L.A. squad takes the floor, there were plenty of highlight plays.
This one, an alley-oop pass from Blake Griffin to DeAndre Jordan in the fourth quarter, was important because it cut Sacramento’s lead to just two with 1:40 to play.
But a jumper from former Clipper Darren Collison with 52 seconds left made it a two-possession game, and the Kings sealed the 98-92 victory by hitting their free throws the rest of the way.
DeMarcus Cousins finished with a monster line of 34 points, 17 rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots, and the Kings bullied the Clippers on the boards and in the paint to earn this one.
Blake Griffin managed to shoot just 6-of-20 from the field, with nine of those attempts coming as jump shots from midrange or beyond. He added eight rebounds, and this pass to Jordan late was the prettiest of his four assists.
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