wildyams

I know I said "no more Laker entries for a while" but in light of what has happened to the team since they got their asses handed to them in the Finals over a week ago, I feel like I should probably write something down. After the Lakers lost, essentially here is what happened: the Lakers fired Phil Jackson as coach (or more accurately just didn't renew his contract); Kobe, Karl Malone and Derek Fisher all opted out of their contracts; Gary Payton picked up his option on his contract (meaning he's signed with the Lakers for another year); and Shaq has demanded the Lakers trade him. Now, a couple of those things were not big surprises. Phil Jackson not coming back is not a surprise (it was widely assumed that he would probably retire if the Lakers did offer him a new contract), Kobe opting out was not a surprise (he's said he would all year), and Karl Malone opting out wasn't too shocking because he would have been paid the minimum allowed if he'd kept his current contract. Fisher had talked about opting out, but that was a tough decision for him, and really it was unknown what he would do up till the last minute (he even got an extension on when he had to make that decision because he was so torn). The real big shock was Shaq demanding a trade, so let me explain why he did this. To explain it, I need to first discuss Kobe's circumstances.

In the NBA there is a salary cap and there are rules governing what teams can pay players what amounts, so when a player like Kobe becomes an unrestricted free agent, even though he can technically go play for any team he wants to, every team will not be allowed to pay him the same amount. The league realized years ago that just letting players leave their team because some other team could offer more money was a bad idea, so they have it arranged so that a team who has had a player for 3 or more seasons will always be able to offer them more money than any other team out there. This is true of Kobe this summer as well. Even though he opted out of his contract with the Lakers (which had one more year left on it), he can still sign a new contract with the Lakers for $143 million; or he can sign with any other team in the league for whatever they could afford to pay him. The most any other team can offer Kobe is a $98 million deal, so clearly he'd have to forgo a lot of money if he wanted to leave the Lakers (in reality, most teams in the league could only offer Kobe a $5 million, as that is the most any team over the salary cap can offer a free agent, and easily two-thirds of the teams are over the cap).

Because Kobe can get more from the Lakers, clearly he would most want to sign a contract with the Lakers; however, if he wanted to leave the Lakers and get their contract, he could have the Lakers orchestrate what is called a "sign and trade", which is quite simply Kobe signing the Lakers deal and then having them trade him with the new deal in tact to another team. A lot of free agents do this because it is both beneficial to the player (he gets more money and the team he wants to play for) and for the team (they don't lose the player outright for nothing, and instead can get something back in trade). Sometimes, however, players will want to leave but the teams won't want them to leave (believing the player they have is better than what they could get in a trade for them), and if this happens then you get a lot of posturing and threats, where the player can threaten to just accept less money and leave to sign somewhere else (and thus the team gets nothing in return). This will usually force the team, if they believe the player really will do it, to go ahead and give in to a sign and trade deal. The

Lakers right now are potentially in this situation. Kobe has opted out, and if he goes to the Lakers and says "sign me and trade me or I'm gonna sign somewhere else" then it's up to the Lakers to either do as he wishes or to call his bluff and hope he stays with the Lakers for the bigger paycheck. Kobe has not indicated, yet, that he wants to sign with any other teams; however, when the Lakers general manager was asked if they would sign and trade Kobe, he said no. The Lakers have said that under no circumstances will they trade Kobe, meaning that if he does ask for a trade they will call his bluff and dare him to take less, even if it means they'll get nothing back. Now, immediately after being asked about Kobe, the Lakers GM (Mitch Kupchak) was asked what he would do if Shaq asked to be traded. Kupchak said that if Shaq asked for a trade (Shaq is signed for 2 more years, so if he wants to leave he has to get the Lakers to trade him), he would do as Shaquille wished. Shaq took this as a personal insult, that the Lakers were saying that no matter what they are going to do everything in their power to keep Kobe in LA, but would be willing to trade Shaq, so Shaq got pissed and has demanded the Lakers trade him, and has put his house in LA up for sale.

That is really all that is concrete facts right now, although believe me there is rampant speculation about everything going on with the Lakers right now. There are rumors about who will be the Lakers new coach, there are rumors about whether Kobe will re-sign with LA or not, and there are literally dozens or hundreds of rumors about where Shaq could be traded to, and who the Lakers would get in return. My personal feelings are that I have no idea who will be the Lakers new coach, and I have no idea where Shaq will be traded (if the Lakers do end up trading him at all). However, as for Kobe, I do think Kobe will re-sign with the Lakers. Over the years here, any problems Kobe has supposedly had have been with either Shaq or Phil Jackson. Phil won't be there next year, and it doesn't look like Shaq will either, so it really makes little sense for Kobe to leave the team now unless he hates the city of Los Angeles, or something like that. But not renewing Phil's contract and saying that they are willing to trade Shaq, the Lakers have essentially said "this is Kobe's team." It's hard to imagine him leaving for $45 million less somewhere else.

Concerning Shaq, and whether he gets traded or not, people need to keep some things in mind: Shaq is by far the most expensive player in the league, and at 32 years old he is no longer in his prime. This is as good a time as any to get rid of him if the Lakers were going to do it, because in a couple years he will be older, slower, and even more expensive (contracts in the NBA go up every year). This means he will contribute less while costing more, which is not good. Because of size of Shaq's contract, if the Lakers do trade Shaq, they will end up getting a number of expensive players in return; and generally the expensive players are the ones who are the most talented. The bottom line is that if Shaq is not in a Laker uniform next year, unless he retires (that's an incredibly remote possibility, as he would have to forgo about $60 million to do it), the Lakers will have at least 2 very good players in his place (they'll probably get more than that, but that would be at the very minimum). However, if you believe what the Lakers are saying, then if Kobe isn't in a Lakers uniform (and assuming he's not wearing a Colorado prison uniform instead) then LA won't have received anyone for him.

So there you go. The Lakers are kinda all over the place right now, and nothing is for certain, but I wanted to kinda bring everyone up to speed (considering the length of this entry I doubt anyone even read this far, but whatever).

Longest. Entry. Ever.