Arguing with a Lakers fan over whether Kobe and Co will make the playoffs this season is like telling an Ancient Greek the world is not flat.
Try showing the current LA roster to a supporter as proof that they can forget about the post-season. See what happens. You’d have more joy presenting our dead Archaic-period friend with a shiny spherical model globe of planet Earth.
Yes, Mr Bean Bryant is back. Even at 36, he remains relentlessly competitive, meticulously prepared and a basketball genius. The most unwriteoffable player since Michael Jordan.
His comeback has surprised a lot of people. He is scoring 27.6 points per game after the first five games of the season, pouring in 39 against the Phoenix Suns in a loss. One of five losses. Yes, at the time of writing, the Lakers remain winless. The team’s top brass must be raging.
Or perhaps not. What if that was the plan all along?
For those in any doubt, let’s spell it out: the Lakers are tanking this season. Folding like a well-oiled garden chair. Accept it, Laker fans.
‘But why would they waste the final few good years of Kobe’s career?’ you might well ask.
Yes, Kobe has played some terrific ball in the opening games of the season. He has exceeded the expectations of many, including this writer. But the questions about how long he can keep it up remain. Make no mistake; he will never again be the best player on a title team.
So the real question should be this: Where is the next Kobe coming from? Or the next Magic Johnson? How about a Wilt Chamberlain or a Kareem Abdul Jabbar? In short, how are the Lakers going to find their next great player?
The plan was clearly to find a superstar in free agency. Carmelo Anthony kicked the wheels on a potential deal at the Staples Center last summer but decided to stick with his existing big city rebuild in New York. Dwight Howard declined to re-sign in the summer of 2013. Kevin Love will likely stay in Cleveland next summer.
So who then? Kevin Durant in 2016? Get to the back of the line behind the Thunder, Wizards, Knicks and the numerous other teams cradling cap room and dreaming of filling it with a once-in-a-generation scorer. Who else is good enough to lead LA to glory? LeBron James? First he’d have to leave the Cavs – again – and that’s not going to happen.
Check this list if you think I’m forgetting someone. After the two Kevins, superstar pickings are slimmer than Durant’s limbs.
No, their best, perhaps only, chance of netting a superstar any time soon is through the draft – and you have to be bad to earn a high draft pick.
And so to the biggest reason for the Lakers to play out a historically poor campaign: the Lakers owe their next draft pick to the Suns as part of the ill-fated Steve Nash deal – unless the pick falls in the top five. That means, even if they finish with the 26th-best record in the NBA, a season without the remotest of chances of ending in a title will also end without a star rookie.
But the Lakers are not the Sixers. They can’t just say to their fans ‘Get ready to lose a lot this season’. Jack Nicholson wouldn’t like it.
So they set up the perfect smokescreen – they built a fake contender.
First, the Lakers signed Jeremy Lin and former All-Star Carlos Boozer, big names but net negatives on defence. Players who will play big minutes, score points, and watch as their opponent scores even more.
Then they inked overpriced deals to bring back middling players from the previous season. Heat-check specialist Nick Young got a four-year contract. Limited big man Jordan Hill got $9 MILLION A YEAR! With the salary cap full, now no one is asking why they don’t go after player A or B in free agency.
Then then hired Byron Scott to lead the mission. Former Laker Scott is a title-winner as a player, and a career loser as a coach, with a 44% winning record. He did win the NBA’s Coach of the Year award in 2008, but then led the Cavs to the bottom five in points allowed per 100 possessions for three straight seasons – the only coach in the 30-team NBA to do so. Then he said this. Bizarre.
The final part of the mission was to get the Black Mamba on board. The last time the Lakers were bad, in 2007, Bryant demanded a trade. Instead, the front office brought in Spanish big man Pau Gasol and the pair won two championships together.
This time, such a demand would no longer hold enough weight to scare the bigwigs into action, so Bryant has little choice but to fall in line – and his shiny new two-year deal gives him 48.5 million reasons to play along. In the meantime, he has the blessing to take as many shots as he can wants, and to aim for Abdul Jabbar’s NBA scoring record (just 6,549 points to go …).
Bryant is a very intelligent man. He knows his best chance of equalling Michael Jordan’s haul of six championships (and don’t underestimate the importance of this to him) is to stay sharp until the end of next season, when the aforementioned monster contract comes to an end. Then, if he stays clear of injury, he can provide some veteran leadership on a future title contender in LA (or New York with his former zen guru Phil Jackson ...).
If the Lakers were this bad by accident, do you think Bryant, a man with an almost sociopathic will to win, would accept it so easily? No, he sees the end game.
So sit back and enjoy, Laker fans. This is a tank job, even if those driving the tank won’t admit it.
Three pointers
1. The Cleveland Cavaliers created more fanfare for LeBron’s return than the San Antonio Spurs did for their pre-game championship ring ceremony. Then the Cavs lost to the Knicks. Is nobody paying attention? If I was an NBA owner, I would hire a mole to infiltrate the Spurs’ inner-sanctum. Or just clone coach Gregg Popovich.
2. It’s not looking great for the new-look Cavs so far. They have won just one of four since James returned, including a two-point loss to the Utah Jazz. I hear the LeBron Haters’ Club, which recently moved its HQ to South Florida, has just made a huge order of champagne and party poppers.
3. Klay Thompson convinced a Golden State fan he was actually backcourt mate Steph Curry. So far, Thompson is proving his team right for not trading him for Kevin Love. He is leading the league in scoring so far – and he also did this. Last season, Thompson scored almost six points a game less than his fellow ‘Splash Brother’. Maybe he believes he is Curry, too.
Jamie Goodwin is Web News Editor on gulfnews.com and has been an avid follower of the NBA for more than 20 years.
