For the millions of people who hate the Lakers and Kobe Bryant, and the basketball writers who love any opportunity they can get to mask an opinion as fact, this was another great summer. Not only have they been able to rejoice in the Lakers failed attempt at building a playoff-caliber roster, but they seem giddy like schoolgirls at the prospect of Kobe finishing his career without another chance at a sixth ring. The cherry on top of their schadenfreude sundaes has been in placing all of the blame for it on Kobe’s extension.
There was ESPN’s Justin Verrier who wrote:
It would be an appropriate scarlet letter for the Lakers’ Sith Lord. By signing a two-year, $48.5 million extension at age 35, Bryant not only hung a millstone on the Lakers’ salary cap, he effectively posted a “BEWARE” sign to ward off any player capable of providing the high-caliber help they so desperately need. The problem isn’t merely having to play alongside a ball-dominant, domineering, past-his-prime alpha dog, though that was enough to drive Howard right past those “Stay” billboards and into the arms of Daryl Morey. It’s that so much of the Lakers’ worldview still revolves around that guy, to the point that the team’s brass — despite so very much evidence that the on-court product would continue to suffer should they continue to do so — bought back in, at a hefty price, for two more years. “
Here’s SBNation’s Tom Ziller:
This is quite a race to watch: the stopwatch on the revival of the Lakers vs. the hourglass of Kobe’s career as a star. And the bigger concern for all involved, including fans, is that the two issues are intertwined, that at his incredible price tag in the new, more heavily capped NBA, Kobe is actually a reason the Lakers are so unable to bounce back quickly. Kobe’s really smart, and understands the NBA financial system better than some general managers. He almost assuredly understands that his own paycheck (regardless of production) has left Mitch Kupchak hamstrung in the summer market.”
Here’s another SBNation writer, Satchel Price:
Just months ago, the Lakers were still talking a big game and aiming their sights towards marquee free agents such as LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. They eventually got a meeting with the latter, but couldn’t sell anyone on a future with an aging Kobe Bryant and his monstrous contract sucking away valuable cap space.”
Repeating an untruth over and over again doesn’t make it true. I would have been more than willing to acknowledge it if it were true. Even though I’m the guy who spent thousands of words trying to explain (not defend) Kobe’s extension, I’m also the guy who told Kobe that he had no right to publicly criticize or place heavy expectations on the front office after he signed that extension. But we have enough evidence from what the team tried to do this summer to disprove the notion that Kobe’s contract had any effect on what the team’s strategy seems to be. More importantly, why are writers seemingly more concerned with why the Lakers didn’t sign two of the league’s best players instead of focusing on why they chose to sign with the teams they signed with?
The truth is that the only scenario that Kobe’s extension prevented the Lakers from attempting was in signing two free agents to max contracts. But if we’re to believe LeBron’s explanation about returning to Cleveland because he wanted to go home, and we’re to justifiably assume that Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, and Kyle Lowry signed extensions with their existing clubs because they offered more money than anyone else could have, then what exactly are we blaming Kobe’s extension from preventing? Excluding the contracts that Bosh and Melo signed, the Lakers had the cap space to offer every other contract that was signed this summer and preferred to use a decent-sized chunk of it in a trade for Jeremy Lin’s expiring contract and a first round pick instead of one of the many free agents who were available. Why is that? My educated guess is that they have no desire to overpay second and third-tier free agents, in either years and/or dollars, for just a puncher’s chance at the 7th-seed. However, the Lakers have shown not only a willingness to max out the league’s top-tier free agents, but they have shown a history of rewarding them handsomely when they become free agents.
If we’re to only go by the list of top-30 free agents published by ESPN Insider’s Amin ElHassan on July 4, the only free agents on the list that the Lakers were known to have expressed interest in signing were LeBron (Ranked #1 overall), Melo (2nd), Bosh (3rd), Pau (8th), Kyle Lowry (11th), and Ed Davis (15th). Those first three guys were easily the best of the free agent class and qualify as top-tier stars. As for Pau, much of the Lakers desire to retain him was tied to their trying to sign Melo. Once the Lakers were eliminated from the Melo Sweepstakes, their attention shifted to trying to sign-and-trade Pau. As for Lowry, he was the best unrestricted free agent at a position that was in desperate need of an upgrade and the Lakers probably didn’t think anyone would offer him the 4-years/$48 million he got from Toronto.
So despite having the means to offer 28 of ElHassan’s top-30 free agents the exact same contracts they either received (or will eventually receive, if you include Bledsoe), the Lakers only showed interest in six — five if you exclude Pau. And seeing as they also signed Davis to the veteran’s minimum, then there were really just four free agents who they struck out on — three of which were the top-3 on the list.
— Have You Seen These LIMITED EDITION “Mamba Strikes Back” T-Shirts? —
Despite having plenty of cap space with which to do so, they showed no interest in anyone else in ElHassan’s top-10, including Dwyane Wade (5th), Dirk Nowitzki (6th), Chandler Parsons (9th) and Gordon Hayward (10th). Nobody thought Wade or Nowitzki were going anywhere and the Lakers appeared to show no interest in trying to pry restricted free agents like Monroe (4th), Bledsoe (7th), or Parsons away from their old teams by overpaying them the way Dallas did with their 3-year/$46 million contract to Parsons. Nor did they seem interested in luring someone as unpredictable as Lance Stephenson to a big city like Los Angeles with the 3-year/$27 million deal he got from the Hornets.
Perhaps they could have put together a 45-win team had they not cared about the long-term ramifications and postponed crossing those bridges when they got to them. Had Kobe signed for $15 million instead of the $23.5 million he’ll make next season, maybe they would have been able to put together a 50-win roster. The fact is that not did what they by design, but a 50-win team is neither a legitimate contender or good enough to get home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
The late additions of LeBron James and Chris Bosh to the free agent pool made us forget what an average year for free agency it was once you got past LeBron, Melo, and Bosh. Of the 18 free agents ElHassan ranked 13-30, two of them re-signed with the defending champion Spurs. Of the other 16, only three re-signed with their current teams: Avery Bradley (22nd), Patrick Patterson (25th), and P.J. Tucker (26th). Not only were all three of them restricted free agents but none were signed to an offer sheet by another team. How good can a free agent class be if the incumbent teams of 13 of those 16 free agents passed on retaining them and the other three guys were re-signed without competition?
The problem with the Lakers trying to put together a patchwork 45 or 50-win team with nothing but cap space is that they would have most likely been forced t0 overpay either restricted free agents like Chandler Parsons, past-their-prime vets like Shawn Marion (ranked #20 by ElHassan), Paul Pierce (21st), and Vince Carter (28), or journeymen like Spencer Hawes (13th), Channing Frye (14th), Trevor Ariza (17th), and Josh McRoberts (19th).
The only real argument that can be made for why Kobe’s contract is to blame is when wondering how much greater the Lakers chances would have been at signing both LeBron and Carmelo if they’d waited until July instead of giving him the extension in November. What if all three were free agents this summer? On one hand, we can speculate as to how much greater the Lakers chances would have been at signing both LeBron and Melo if they could have offered both the max. On the other hand, if they didn’t have Kobe under contract after last year’s miserable 27-55 season, there would have been a risk that Kobe tests free agency and greatly considers leaving. They would have had no Kobe, no LeBron, and no Melo. At least with Kobe on the roster, they were scheduled for 20 combined appearances on ESPN and TNT next season. Compare that to the Celtics, who parted ways with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen over the last three summers, and have only been scheduled for one nationally televised game.
[divide]Lakers Practice Footage: 5-On 5 Scrimmage, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Jeremy Lin
PAGE 2: Kobe’s Extension Incorrectly Blamed For Lakers Free Agent Failures
In the same article on ESPN.com, Verrier wrote that the Lakers are now “the type of team with the brand power and influence to score one of four sitdowns on Carmelo Anthony’s free-agency world tour, but not one he would ever seriously consider playing for.” I found it strange that Verrier proves his point that Melo would “never consider playing” for the Lakers by linking that same sentence to a Jeff Goodman story on ESPN.com that contains the following quote from Anthony:
“I was flip-flopping,” [Anthony] admitted. “It was hard. It was Chicago, but then after I met with L.A., it was L.A.”
Even if Verrier doesn’t believe him, even if he believes it was either the Bulls or Knicks from the start and that Melo must be lying, how can he ignore that Melo also declined to join a Bulls team that unquestionably had a better roster than the team he ultimately re-signed with? There was no realistic scenario that would have allowed the Lakers to sign Melo to the max, retain Pau, and still put together a more talented roster than the one the Bulls currently have. By choosing to remain in New York, we can safely assume that it wasn’t because he felt their roster was better than the Bulls. So why is it fair to say that Melo passed on the Bulls because the Knicks offered him more money but when it comes to the Lakers, he passed on them because of Kobe’s contract?
You can make a similar case with Bosh, who opted to sign a max deal to stay in Miami and passed up the chance to be a title favorite with the Rockets. We don’t really know how much of a chance the Lakers had at signing Bosh. What we know is that he, like Melo, signed with the team that offered him the most money over the one that had the better roster. If Bosh was swayed by the money and the chance to not have to uproot his family, why can’t that be a good enough for reason for why he’s not a Laker either?
At least Kyle Lowry was willing to go on record with his concerns about the Lakers. Here’s what Bleacher Report’s Jared Zwerling wrote:
In the case of the Lakers, Lowry was concerned because there wasn’t a coach in place, the structure of the team was unclear and winning right away didn’t seem likely.”
The only problem with Lowry’s statement is that he agreed to stay with the Raptors on the second day of free agency. I have a hard time believing that the Lakers would have been willing to offer him that much money or been willing to offer it on the first or second day of free agency. The Lakers were not going to make an offer to Lowry before getting answers from LeBron and Carmelo and those guys took their sweet time before announcing their decisions. Therefore, we can’t blame Kobe for the Lakers not signing Lowry either. I can’t understand why, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, Kobe is being blamed for the Lakers lack of improvement but nobody is blaming Dwight Howard or James Harden for the Rockets inability to sign Melo, Bosh, or Lowry or blaming Derrick Rose for the Bulls missing out on Melo and Kevin Love. Before the start of free agency, Bulls bloggers flirted with the prospect of adding both of them:
So crazy it just might work. What if Bulls could get BOTH ‘Melo AND Love? pic.twitter.com/sHUHMkjOBQ
— Kelly Scaletta (@KellyScaletta) May 23, 2014
Instead they signed Pau Gasol, a 34-year-old who missed 55 games over the past two seasons due to issues with his knees and feet, as well as a bout with vertigo. They also signed Nikola Mirtoic and journeyman point guard Aaron Brooks. In order to pull off those signings, they were forced to amnesty Carlos Boozer and are now responsible for around $13 million of his contract for next season. Despite the steep drop-off from expectation to reality, it was still enough to give them the second-best offseason of any team, according to NBA.com’s David Aldridge. How is it that the Lakers and Bulls both whiffed in pursuit of the best players available, but David Aldridge has the Lakers with the seventh-worst offseason and the Bulls with the second-best?
**Sidenote: Aldridge ranked the Celtics fourth and the Lakers 24th. Despite their owner hinting “there could be some fireworks” at the start of the offseason, somehow the Celtics drafting Marcus Smart and James Young, signing Evan Turner, and trading for Marcus Thornton and Tyler Zeller was enough to rank them ahead of 26 other teams, including 20 spots higher than the Lakers? If that’s all it takes to have the fourth-best offseason then why even bother ranking them?
[divide]Lakers Practice Footage: 5-On 5 Scrimmage, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Jeremy Lin
PAGE 3: Kobe’s Extension Incorrectly Blamed For Lakers Free Agent Failures
If writers want to make the case that the Lakers could have used their cap space to put together a potential playoff roster, or at least one that is better than the one they currently have, there’s a strong argument to be made. There’s no denying the Lakers could have improved a 27-win roster with all that cap space. But the blame for their reluctance or inability to do so would fall on the front office, independent of Kobe’s contract. Even with Kobe’s contract, the Lakers could have attempted to give offer sheets to Greg Monroe and/or Eric Bledsoe. Why didn’t they? Probably because they were afraid those teams would match. Regardless, it has nothing to do with Kobe.
The anti-Lakers sentiment is nothing new. I can’t be surprised that there are people who seem overjoyed that the Lakers are a lottery team in a league now designed to force teams to rebuild either through tanking or trading their best players for unknown commodities. Ziller mentions that the Lakers didn’t get “LeBron or Melo — let alone LeBron and Melo” but never mentions why LeBron and Melo signed with Cleveland and New York, respectively.
Verrier wrote that Kobe’s contract “posted a “BEWARE” sign to ward off any player capable of providing the high-caliber help they so desperately need,” but never mentions who exactly Kobe’s contract warded off. Probably because there isn’t one that we can definitively say who wasn’t more swayed by the team he was joining than the teams or players he rejected.
No disrespect to Whicker, but he leaves out three pretty significant details in his story. First and most importantly, Love was traded to Cleveland. He didn’t sign with them as a free agent. If he was going to change teams this summer, the decision wasn’t going to be his. It was going to be up to the Timberwolves. It is no secret that the Lakers are lacking in trade assets. I even wrote about it. They certainly couldn’t compete with an offer that included the top pick in both of the last two drafts, but how many teams could have?
**Sidenote: In the 25-year history of the Timberwolves, they have never made a trade with the Lakers. Whether that has something to do with owner Glen Taylor holding a grudge against the team that has won 11 titles since leaving Minneapolis for Los Angeles, or because former GM and Celtics lifer Kevin McHale was never going to help his old rival, there has to be an explanation as to why the two teams have never swapped players before.
Secondly, you can’t leave out the role that money played. Love needed to give any team interested in trading for him an assurance that barring a catastrophe, he would re-sign with them next summer. This was the only leverage Love had in deciding where he’d be traded to. No team would give up all of their assets if he told them he planned on leaving after just one season. Obviously, Love’s preference was to be traded to a team that he would re-sign with because that team would own his Bird Rights and be able to offer him $30 million more over the life of the contract. Having LeBron James on their roster was a pretty convincing strategy for getting Love to give the Cavaliers that assurance. But even if the Lakers had LeBron on their roster, they still wouldn’t have had the assets to satisfy Minnesota in a Love trade. Their only hope would have been for Love to play out next season on a bad team and then explore free agency.
Lastly, Whicker failed to mention that after six NBA seasons, Love has yet to play in a single playoff game. Excluding international competitions, the last postseason game he participated in was the 2008 NCAA Final Four. Love not only wants to compete for a title but he wants to do so immediately. He had no interest in joining any team that wouldn’t become an immediate contender just by adding him. That says a lot more about today’s NBA player than it does about today’s Lakers. Regardless, Kevin Love is a Cleveland Cavalier because they have the best player in the world on their roster and a trade package that satisfied the Timberwolves — not because the Lakers lack luster.
If you don’t have the young players on rookie deals because you traded those picks away, and you can’t trade future picks because you’ve already traded two of those, then you not only lack the assets that teams covet in trades but your only chance at improving is through free agency. In today’s NBA, you can’t rely on free agency alone to improve — not when teams can sign their guys on rookie deals to five-year extensions a year before anyone else can attempt to sign them or when they can offer their veterans an additional year and more money than any other team.
With Love unofficially off the list of 2015 free agents, and other big names like LaMarcus Aldridge, Marc Gasol, Tony Parker, and Goran Dragic likely to sign max or near-max extensions with their current teams, the Lakers might have another summer similar to this past one. There are still some free agents like Paul Millsap, Rajon Rondo, Monta Ellis, and Roy Hibbert who the Lakers might attempt to sign.
— Have You Seen These LIMITED EDITION “Mamba Strikes Back” T-Shirts? —
If the Lakers are stuck in the past and years away from contending for another title, then it has much more to do with organizational philosophy than it does with continuing to make Kobe the league’s highest-paid player. Critics are so busy lazily debating whether it’s his age, his personality, his ball domination or his contract that’s most to blame for the team’s bleak outlook that they have failed to realize that it’s none of those things.
While there is a strong case to be made that absolves Kobe of any blame for this past offseason, he isn’t in the clear just yet. There is still the chance that his contract prevents the front office from drastically improving the roster next summer. I just ask that those critics and fans think twice and dig a little deeper before writing their annual “Blame Kobe” pieces.
I’ve never shied away from criticizing Kobe in the past. So if it turns out he is to blame, I promise I’ll be the first one to admit it.
[divide]Lakers Practice Footage: 5-On 5 Scrimmage, Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Jeremy Lin