Excellent article slowly but surely people will see the light

The Logo's livid with Kobe

By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports
May 29, 2007


Sooner or later, Kobe Bryant turns on everyone in his life. Professional, personal, it's never mattered to him. He can be calculated and merciless this way. When he wants something, it seems everyone's disposable.

So, it is little surprise to discover that, through a source who has spoken with Jerry West, that the Logo is downright livid with Bryant for demanding West's return to the Los Angeles Lakers at the expense of his protégé, Mitch Kupchak. Maybe there was a chance that West could've come back with the Lakers, but Bryant's self-absorbed and self-destructive crusade to crush Kupchak over Memorial Day weekend has made it far less likely. Yes, West and Bryant have always shared the bond of cutthroat competitiveness, DNA that demands greatness of themselves and those surrounding them. For both, it has been a blessing and a curse, but it's an undeniable thread that runs through them.
Yet, here's the difference: West is legendarily loyal.

Once West's contract expires with the Grizzlies after the NBA draft, perhaps there had been a possibility that he could return to the Lakers as a consultant. Nothing has been discussed with owner Jerry Buss, the source said, and West issued a statement on Monday night insisting that he would never, ever do anything that would undermine Kupchak.

"Kobe has to turn on everyone at some point, cut people and ties in almost every relationship in his life," a former Bryant associate said Monday. "He turns on people because he believes he's not getting what he deserves. He has a one-track mind that thinks the world revolves around him and doesn't take a second to consider the costs, or what's the best way to handle something.

"This is the same stuff he did with (Shaquille O'Neal). He would leak the story, instigate it and then not understand why it never worked. Shaq is still more beloved than Kobe, and he will always be in L.A. People have seen this all before with Kobe. This never turns out right for him."

Bryant has stayed true to character in this embarrassing episode, going back and forth on his demands over the weekend. First, he ripped Kupchak, insisting that he had been, more or less, incompetent on the job. Then he told ESPN the Magazine that, unless West was brought back to run the Lakers, he wanted a trade. Once that got out, Bryant must have understood he had far overplayed his hand, done devastating damage to the mythical rehabilitation of his image. He knew he had gone too far.

He should've apologized and acknowledged he was out of line talking this way. Only, he denied saying it, despite the fact that the writer has been a long-time confidant. Typical Kobe, selling out someone else.

"I'm not demanding anything," Bryant told the Riverside Press-Enterprise just after he had spent the weekend demanding everything. "I'm not trying to throw Mitch under the bus, or (Lakers VP) Jim (Buss) under the bus," he told the Orange County Register just after he just spent the weekend doing just that.

For now, Kupchak loses leverage with his peers while trying to work trades this summer. This isn't the first time Bryant has created this kind of chaos for the franchise. As one NBA executive said Monday: "That made it harder for Mitch to get fair market value for Shaq. Everybody knew that Kobe's conditions to re-sign made it impossible for Shaq to stay, and Mitch had to take the Miami offer, which was the best on the table. Kobe needs to look in the mirror on that one."

Here's something else, too. Kobe thinks everyone in the NBA wants to play with him, and it isn't true. He was complaining that the Lakers could've had his buddy, Carlos Boozer, a year ago, but the Jazz were never going to trade him for Lamar Odom. Yes, there are players who'll take a trade to the Lakers, but make no mistake: It isn’t because they're enamored with the idea of hanging with Kobe.
It isn't just that Kobe doesn't have friends in his own locker room, but elsewhere too. One associate remembers a party for Bryant's daughter several years ago, when he looked around and saw no one but people who worked for Kobe. "No friends, no teammates – just agents, a barber, P.R. people … Everyone there was on the payroll."

Maybe Kupchak hasn't done the best job in the world in these three years post-Shaq (the Caron Butler-Kwame Brown trade crushed the Lakers), but he made sure that private jet flew Kobe back and forth to his rape hearings in Colorado. He made sure the organization supported him unconditionally during that humiliating time for the franchise. His reward? Kobe opted out of his contract, threatened to leave for the Clippers and declared that he wanted a basketball career free of Shaq to indulge his own shooting and scoring desires.

"Now, Kobe would go to the public with his stuff on Shaq, and he would never win," the ex-associate said. "He'd instigate, like he did with Kupchak, and he always comes out looking the same way."
Of course, that's selfish and short-sighted. Bryant wanted to show the world who runs the Lakers again, and that's wonderful and all, except that he's made it harder for the Lakers to get better this summer. Three years ago, he chased out Shaq and Phil Jackson and was granted his wish for a franchise that was all about indulging him.

So sure, West drafted Bryant into the NBA, delivered him O'Neal at center and constructed a three-time champion. What's more, the game's greatest G.M. wisely got out of Los Angeles before Kobe crushed him under his thumb, before West could be a target for Bryant.

He's a smart man to stay away for good because he understands the inevitable here: Sooner or later, Kobe Bryant turns on everyone.

Good article. We all know great players, and I mean truly great players sometimes are loners, don't have many friends, are hard to get along with and demand a lot. Wasn't it KG who punched a teamate, a guy who was not even the 10th man on the bench. Wasn't it the great Jordan who hit a teamate, screamed, had his own sets of rules, and even had a book about him detaling how difficult it was to live with Jordan. Yet how many rings and how many big contracts did bums like Scotty williams get after playing with such a talent and winning those rings? Yea, superstars are sometimes not easy to deal with, not all of them are Tim Duncan, but there are some constants, they win, they are willing to carry the load and they demand a lot....

Get over it..

[Edited by - TKF on 05-29-2007 8:51 PM]

There's just nothing new here. We all know what Kobe is about. Something like 85% of fans I know have hated him since he replaced Eddy Jones in the starting lineup. Hating Kobe isn't exactly a radical concept.

OTOH, I also think the article makes statements it doesn't substantiate. For example they blame Kobe for only being able to get odom back for Shaq, with no mention of Shaq giving a short list of acceptible destinations. You think it's easy to get market value when you're only allowed to trade with two or three teams who may not even have salaries to match. let alone stars?

The writer also tries to insinuate that Kobe wanted Boozer while Boozer didn't want Kobe, but instead of justifying that assertion he then goes on to say that Utah had no intention of trading him to LA. That was sloppy writing at best, if not duplicitous.

I also think the Lakers have not played their cards all that well. Taking on the contracts (and expectations) of Kobe and Odom, guys not likely to have meshed in the first place, only to then go with a youth movement while overreaching with Kwame, was not the smartest approach. When you already have a top 3 player in his prime, and another all-star caliber player to support him, that's probably the time to trade draft picks for starting caliber support talent, not time to go fishing deep in a draft.

Rebuild if you lose both Shaq and Kobe. Trade them for very high draft picks and start over going for Oden or Durant etc. But if you have Odom and Kobe you've got to get pieces to make it work. Otherwise you're just good enough to get low draft picks every year but not good enough to contend. That's Dolan's game, I thought LA was smarter than that.

Posted by tkf:

Good article.

I beg to differ. The article is rather fictious and highly objective.

Basically, it offers no serious discussion or perspective other than the insight of a Kobe hater.

Posted by playa2:

Kobe Bryant is the best player in the NBA hands down, Tim Duncan just so happen to be the best bigman in the game.

This doesn't absolve him from the cesspools he creates. Why is there so much drama centered around this guy with all this talent he has? You look at most of his issues and they center around selfishness/entitlement.

This is the same guy who felt it was necessary playing an All-Star Game in a city that helped raise him by shooting the ball 27 times on a deep West Squad, instead of letting the game/players itself dictate that he should do so. I remember that moment, classic stuff. The guy was being interviewed by Jim Grey crying, while being booed by the Philly faithful for his selfish "It's Always About Me Act".

Posted by playa2:

#1 YOU NEED TO PUT YOURSELF IN HIS FOOTSTEPS of hype and pressure

His dad played in the NBA, he was drafted straight out of highschool.

While living overseas in Italy when (JOE JELLY BEAN BRYANT) his dad played ball professionally Kobe had tapes of Micheal Jordan games sent to him from his grandfather while growing up there in which he studied those tapes religiously.

Jordan was considered the greatest player of all-time, so with all the HOOPLA SURROUNDING KOBE about how similar their games were and how much he idolized the great MJ.... do you truly expect him to act like a normal "NBA BALLER" ?

[Edited by - playa2 on 31-05-2007 13:32]

Self inflicted pressure if that's how you want to look at it. And so it appears that pressure drives him into being inherit ably selfish.

I can't wait to have my day where I just excuse and apologize for someone's actions.