Jerry Buss has given new life to the Kobe Bryant sweepstakes.
In an interview with Lakers beat writers Wednesday at training camp in Honolulu, Buss acknowledged for the first time that he tried to grant Kobe’s wish by trading him this summer. Far more interesting was the fact that Buss left the door wide open to considering more offers for his superstar if Kobe continues to threaten to opt out of his contract after the 2008-09 season.
“If he’s still in that frame of mind, then hopefully we can do the sign-and-trade and get some comparable value,” Buss said.
You can go through the articles from the various L.A. papers here and draw your own conclusions:
Press-Enterprise
Orange County Register
You should also pay attention to what Ric Bucher of ESPN The Magazine has to say about this, because Bucher has a pipeline directly to Kobe.
Like me, Bucher is skeptical about how serious the Lakers really were about trading Bryant because he believes G.M. Mitch Kupchak was telling teams he wasn’t listening to offers for Kobe this summer.
This fits with what I know to be true about the Knicks’ involvement in the whole scenario. The Knicks were one of three teams Kobe is believed to have agreed to waive his no-trade clause for, and yet discussions between Kupchak and Isiah Thomas never got to the point of specific trade proposals being exchanged. That doesn’t sound like a team that was serious about trading Kobe.
What does it all mean? If the clock on Kobe’s time in a Laker uniform didn’t begin ticking May 30 when he first asked to be traded, then it’s certainly begun ticking now.
Comments (3)
ya know, i think this is a common example of the media making something out of nothing. the whole point of Buss' comment, was to show that him and kobe are working TOGETHER! how many times in the history of sports has the owners talked to the player about trade offers, so the player can understand why the move isn't being made. uhm, NEVER?! and yet the Buss gets slammed for it. the funny thing is, just before that, you hear Pat Riley talking about how he was just being truthful with the media, and he gets slammed for no reason. like Pat said, the moral of the story - you just can't tell the media the truth (Ken Berger excluded of course!)
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