The Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe Bryant announced a contract extension that ensured that Bryant will remain the league’s highest paid player through the 2016 NBA season and it will ensure that Kobe remains with the purple and gold through his 37th birthday.
I think everyone will agree that it was completely unnecessary to guarantee a two-year $48.5 million deal to Bryant. Kobe had no desire to leave the Lakers and everyone around the league knew it; outbidding oneself for an aging superstar coming off a career threatening injury just doesn’t make any sense.
There is no question that Kobe was the clear winner in this negotiation and to keep the backroom talk out of the media so that it couldn’t be dissected and second-guessed before it actually took place was a thing of beauty. Bryant’s people knew that the very notion of a legacy contract at over $24 million a season would be soundly rejected and skewered by media folks from all over.
Now that the contract has been signed the question of it’s existence can be called into question. Up to now Kobe had always made his NBA career about the rings. How many championships could he get and since he started accumulated them getting two or three wasn’t going to be good enough. The quest for six rings has been at the forefront of Kobe’s existence ever since it became a possibility and with this contract he can all but kiss that dream goodbye.
As it turns out Kobe is like so many other athletes who play under the pretence of winning only to ensure that they are getting paid for their troubles. Granted, the Lakers have made and will continue to make millions off Kobe and Kobe will continue to make his millions; neither will have a championship to show for their troubles.
Many athletes in their prime who are those franchise-type players, ultimately see their careers wind down at some point. When that time comes, these once highly paid franchise players have demonstrated their willingness to take pay cuts to ensure some individual success as well as the continued success of the franchise.
In this case, Kobe’s legacy contract is nothing more than a championship-voiding two year period for the Lakers. If Kobe had just swallowed some pride once in his professional life he would have realized that the Lakers just forgave a huge amount of salary cap flexibility in the all important 2014 free agent class.
The Lakers have basically decided that Kobe and a bunch of broken parts are going to give them the best chance at winning another championship. Sure the possibility exists that someone like a LeBron James abandons all reasonable thought process and bolts South Beach for LaLa Land. Even if this were to become the case, the Lakers would have to let current players go and basically gut their roster of all mid level salaried guys to make it work.
Even after this current contract extension comes to fruition and Kobe is once again faced with a retirement decision, there is little chance of him walking away at 37-years old. He will still be chasing that elusive sixth ring and won’t want to leave without a legitimate shot at it. Could we see Kobe bolt the Lakers for a run at a title with a contender?
Here’s the problem. The Lakers are paying Kobe a legacy contract that offers little chance of team success. Kobe is taking the money knowing that the chances of winning a title are slim to none which could set up his departure in 2016 sighting the desire to win. Kobe’s best chance of winning another championship would have come in 2014 and 2015 so long as the Lakers kept their salary cap flexibility. That flexibility is gone and with it are the Lakers chances at a title.
When it is all said and done, a #24 jersey will be raised to the rafters and after an appropriate amount of time a large statue will be commissioned for the front of the stadium as well as a renaming of a street involved, but none of those things would have changed in the slightest had Bryant never suited up for the Lakers again. The history books have been written here, all that is left is to celebrate the greatness that was.