The no trade clause had more to do with him resigning then Shaq leaving. Reason being? Kobe couldn't be put in the spot Shaq was if he had the no trade clause.
Couldn't he have just negotiated this aspect with his sign-n-trade team, also?
Not when his wife was telling him she wants to stay in LA to be by her family.
I also don't see how it makes sense even from the Lakers stand point to do a sign and trade then. Who could they have possibly got to fill his role? You guys keep talking like its possible but have not brought up a single player, scenario where it would work. Who at the time even had the cap space to pay Kobe upwards towards 20 million a year? Who was a better perimeter player coming off that 03-04 season? As for the no trade, it's easy to say he could have negioated it with any other team but it doesn't seem like any teams really like to do that. Kobe has the only no-trade clause in his contract and has been the only player with one for years if I am not mistaken.
You guys seem to forget that Shaq was the first choice to be moved mid-season as his conditioning was once again a factor on their regular season at the same time Kobe was scoring 160 pts in 5 games or whatever it was. The only thing that could have saved him was winning a championship. Jerry Buss had his mind made up that he did not want to pay Shaq that huge extension and the fact he tried to check Buss' ego. Why would they do a sign and trade for another player if they wanted to move from Shaq regardless? Jerry Buss went on record saying he didn't want to pay that kind of money to Shaq and that prompted the whole 'PAY ME MY F*#@(*$ MONEY' after his dunk in a game.
Well, to this point, no one has asked for a scenario that would have suited Kobe and the Lakers both. But since it has now happened....
Kobe Bryant to the Indiana Pacers in a sign-and-trade for free agent Al Harrington, Ron Artest, and Reggie Miller. Miller is at the end of his career, Harrington will have to be signed in a sign-and-trade, and Ron Artest for Kobe seems reasonable. This leaves a Pacer team with Kobe, Jermaine O'Neal, Fred Jones, James Jones, Jamaal Tinsley, Anthony Johnson, Primoz Brezec (who Indy wanted to keep, but couldn't due to insufficient ability to protect him in the expansion draft - which now is not a problem). Indy needs to do something in order to keep from losing Harington for nothing.
In this case, the Lakers now have a line-up of Payton, Kareem Rush (under the watchful eye of Reggie Miller), Ron Artest, Karl Malone, and Shaq, with Al Harrington waiting in the wings. Artest will be watched over by the veterans, and Phil Jackson (who would be re-signed) has a way with head cases. I like my chances with that line-up in 2005.
The question is how Indiana would approach Miller in selling the deal to him. He'd be going to play with three sure-fire Hall-of-Famers, and he did go to UCLA, so in a way, it would be a homecoming.
Kobe would be teamed with Jermaine O'Neal, the feature player for a team with a GM of Larry Bird, a top-notch coach in Rick Carlisle, and a reasonable chance of competing, in a basketball-crazy area, albeit a smaller market.
Indiana would get something back for Al Harrington - a top-notch, clutch-time superstar, and would give up an ancient vet, a young guy who they couldn't keep anyway, and Artest...which, to them, really makes the trade "Kobe for Artest."
That's one possibility.
