Kobe sits out again, denies cleaning out locker
'If I’m here, I’m ready to strap it up,' says Lakers star
Updated: 9:04 p.m. ET Oct. 16, 2007
EL SEGUNDO, Calif. - Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant sat out practice for the third straight day Tuesday, then denied a report that he had cleaned out his locker — a story carried by several local news outlets.
Bryant spoke for less than two minutes in the parking lot of the team’s practice facility. Previously, he had said very little to reporters since Jerry Buss stated last week in Honolulu that he “would certainly listen” to trade offers for the NBA’s scoring leader.
“I don’t know, talk to Mitch and Mr. Buss about that,” Bryant replied when asked if he had played his final game for the Lakers, referring to general manager Mitch Kupchak and the team’s owner. “I’m just getting ready. If I’m here, I’m ready to strap it up.”
Bryant asked to be traded 4½ months ago, then avoided speaking about the Lakers until the beginning of training camp Oct. 1, when he talked more positively, saying he was looking forward to the season.
“My job is to play the game and get ready to play the game,” he said Tuesday. “That’s what I’m doing. I guess people are just intrigued by what’s going on around here. I understand that. I have a job to do. One thing I said at training camp was that I didn’t want this to be a distraction.”
When asked whether he was unsettled by recent events, Bryant said: “It’s our understanding not to bring up the situation and not talk about it. We just wanted to keep things quiet and go about our business. It kind of caught me off guard a little bit.
“We’ve just got to get back to basics and get ready and go from there. It’s my job to play basketball. It’s not my job to worry about what management is doing or this, that or the other thing. I’m going to be ready and let them do their jobs.”
Lakers coach Phil Jackson said Bryant sat out practice Tuesday “by mutual agreement.”
“He’s in the training room,” Jackson said. “I think that’s about all I’ll say. He asked me about resting his legs, but I think he’s OK.”
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Jackson said he didn’t know whether Bryant would play Thursday night when the Lakers face the Seattle SuperSonics in Bakersfield — the first of six exhibition games in nine days. The coach also said he didn’t know if Bryant would accompany the team if he doesn’t play.
Jackson said he couldn’t comment when asked if Bryant had played his final game as a member of the Lakers.
“I don’t know that at all. Who knows that? There’s certain things that have to be discussed and I think they will be,” Jackson said. “There’s nothing imminent. I’m on the inside of this, so I know all the statements before you ask the questions. We can’t project anything right now. I think there’s a certain progression of things we have to go through.”
Bryant has four years, worth $88.6 million, left on his contract, but can terminate the deal in two years, leaving $47.8 million on the table.
And.......................
Kobe circus will be intolerable for Lakers
Team left with little choice but to trade their star now
Did Kobe Bryant burp? Or was it just a hiccup? Such is the craziness of the situation with the Lakers.
By Michael Ventre
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 12:32 a.m. ET Oct. 17, 2007
Michael Ventre
Multiple sources close to the Lakers Tuesday suggested that Kobe Bryant may have burped. Television and radio stations in Los Angeles, as well as print media and bloggers, differed as to whether it was a full-throated belch or a barely audible baby croak, with some even claiming it was actually a hiccup.
When asked about the alleged burp, coach Phil Jackson said, “I can’t comment on that. We’re just playing basketball, that’s all we’re doing.” When asked if he expected Bryant to burp again, Jackson replied, “I can’t comment on that either.” Before getting into his car after practice, Bryant — obviously reluctant to confirm the burp rumor — refused to say, “Excuse me” or “Pardon me” and referred the matter to his agent.
What transpired Tuesday might as well have been a burp, a sneeze, a cough, a spilled can of soda, a car ding or sundry other mundane happenings that afflict humans on a daily basis. Of course, when something happens to Kobe Bryant in the context of his employment with the Lakers, no development is too insignificant.
On Tuesday, it was widely reported in the Los Angeles area that Bryant had cleaned out his locker. That created speculation that he was about to be traded. According to reports, some items did appear to be missing, and when pressed, Jackson even admitted that Bryant’s locker looked more spare than usual.
Here is a Hall of Fame basketball coach who is tied with Red Auerbach for NBA championships with nine and earns $10 million per season and he’s reduced to monitoring the item count in Bryant’s locker. This is what it’s come to.
This is not to ridicule those members of the Fourth Estate and their distant cousins on the lunatic fringe who ran with the burp, er, locker rumor. In fact, Lockergate comes on the heels of Bryant asking out of consecutive practices to rest his legs. And Jackson was cryptic even for him on Tuesday, turning a simple question about whether Bryant would accompany the team to Bakersfield Thursday for an exhibition game into the kind of stonewalling usually reserved for Justice Department attorneys testifying on Capitol Hill.
The mood, the vibe, the climate, the sixth sense, all suggest something’s not copacetic in Laker Nation. The first clue came in the spring when Kobe appeared on every media outlet with an FCC license and a transmitter and blasted the organization for not doing enough to surround him with a championship-caliber team, a tirade that included calling owner Jerry Buss an “idiot” and mocking young center Andrew Bynum on an amateur video.
Then there was Buss himself, who last week dropped a bombshell by saying he would consider trading Kobe, that he would listen if the right offer came along, that nobody is untouchable. That was Buss assuming the Michael Corleone role and looking upon Kobe as brother Fredo. And we all know what happened to Fredo.
Buss’ statement was a declaration of war. He was letting everyone know that when Bryant told the world he felt betrayed by Buss, the Lakers owner thus felt betrayed back. Buss is known as an aging playboy, an avid poker player, a quiet lover of life who enjoys presiding over the Lakers but who is content to sit in a luxury box high atop the hardwood with a bevy of beauties and a shaker full of cocktails and let his basketball people run the show — with his input, of course.
But there is another side to Buss, a no-nonsense side with a prideful streak. He is a successful businessman who enjoys competing and winning, and no matter what anyone thinks of his team’s recent fortunes, he does not like to be made a fool of by an employee, even one in the midst of a $136 million contract.
So when Buss made his pronouncement about Bryant, he touched off a frenzy of vigils, office pools and a scrum for information by reporters. The locker just happened to represent the most recent evidence of discontent and impending upheaval. Get used to it.
It seems obvious that although Buss only broke the moratorium on Kobe comments recently, he has been stewing about this for weeks. And perhaps he and the loose-knit coalition of advisors that purports to be running the team — his son, Jim Buss, his general manager, Mitch Kupchak, Jackson and Jeanie Buss, who is his daughter and Jackson’s turtledove — have been burning the phone lines seeking a deal for their narcissistic superstar all along.
Trading Kobe Bryant, regarded by most to be the game’s best player, may seem insanely stupid, especially after the club already dealt away Shaquille O’Neal. Now there’s a legacy for you, dumping two Hall of Famers within three years of each other. That makes the Portland Trail Blazers passing on Michael Jordan seem like a decision grounded in common sense.
But what really jumps out first is not that trading Kobe is dumb or smart, but rather that it’s inevitable. There is no choice. Bryant can opt out of his contract in two years, and basically threatened to do so if his trade demand wasn’t met. He is the second most self-absorbed professional athlete playing today, behind Barry Bonds, and he is not the kind of individual to let bygones be bygones.
If the Lakers don’t get moving now on moving this guy, they’ll have to deal with more locker stories, each and every day. When Kobe misses a practice because of a bout with indigestion, it will be interpreted that a trade is imminent. When he tweaks an ankle and leaves a game in the first quarter, it will be seen as the Lakers protecting him for his new team.
The distraction level figures to reach intolerable before November gives way to December, or, more likely, before October gives way to November.
In truth, Kobe Bryant’s locker is getting emptier by the minute.
Michael Ventre is a contributor to msnbc.com and a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.
