Cutting Kupchak (and Kobe) Some Slack

The Summer of Kobe continues. Now a video has popped up, and it purports to show Kobe speaking ill of Bynum and Kupchak.

Bill Plaschke of the LA Times, a Kobe hater even when they were winning championships, has a big article chock-full-a-Kobe-hateration.

As far as selecting Bynum in the 2005 draft, Bynum was clearly the player with the most potential available at that pick. Look at the 2005 draft and find a name drafted below him that you'd want to add to your roster instead of Bynum. You can't, there isn't anybody on that list who has done much in the NBA (with the exception of Antoine Wright of the Nets, but the Lakers didn't need another 2 guard). Kupchak made the right call drafting Bynum, and all their draft picks since 2003 have been pretty solid (passing up Leandro Barbosa for Brian Cook might seem like a mistake now, but Barbosa wouldn't have fit in LA just as he didn't fit in with the Spurs), and they've gotten good players late in each draft (Walton, Turiaf, Vujacic, Farmar), they were unlucky that their best pick came in the worst draft year of the past five (2005 was a very weak draft). This year's draft is deep, but they need a veteran, so any package for current players should include this year's picks as they'd get good value in return.

So they've got good talent scouts and made the picks they had to make at the time. What's been wrong, and where Kupchak deserves criticism is the decisions they've made after the picks were done. They could have packaged the draft pick and got a veteran player to fill an immediate need. For the past two years GMs around the league have been salivating over Bynum, seeing that he's not a great fit for the Lakers and Lamar Odom has also not found a way to mesh with Kobe. Making a trade using those two players as bait seems like a natural call. Plus Kupchak deserves lots of criticism for letting Caron Butler go in favor of trying to do something with Kwame Brown, and there was the massive contract given to Vlad "Space Cadet" Radmanivic, two costly mistakes that have leveraged a chunk of the Lakers present as well as future for very little in return so far.

Now the Lakers are backed in a corner, partly because Kobe can't shut up, and partly cause the organization didn't make the tough decisions when they should have been made.

Bynum still shows a ton of potential, and might end up being one of the top three centers in the league for the next decade, but keeping him on your roster for the 2-3 years that it will take for him to fully reach that potential is costly, difficult, and not conducive to winning now.

Maybe Kobe is acting like a spoiled brat, but he's also right, the Lakers have an opportunity to be one of the better teams in the league if they have one all-star to compliment Kobe and the right role players to fill in the rest of the roster. The last two seasons that isn't the roster they've had. They are the 2nd youngest team in the league, and when compared to their peers on the teams made up of mostly under 25 year old players, they are the class of those teams. Unfortunately, they play against all the teams, and having the right mix of veterans and youngsters is crucial to having a legitimate shot at a good playoff run.

Kobe's also right to see that pretty much every team in the East is one Kobe away from being in the Finals, the Lakers role players are as talented as the cast LeBron has around him in Cleveland. Put them in the West and instead of putting up the 2nd best record in their Conference, that team would have struggled to win 45 games. Kobe+Deng and a few other good players left over from a trade in Chicago would easily win 55 games and challenge for the Conference Title. That seems to be the only possible scenario acceptable to Kobe and everyone else, probably still won't happen, but you can tell he'd love to attack the Jordan mystique right there in Chicago.

But if Kobe is destined to stay with the Lakers, there's still some chance to create a team that could beat the Rockets, Spurs, Mavericks or Suns. Package Bynum, Odom and Vujacic for an all-star big forward/center and a solid veteran point guard who can work within the triangle, and work on signing one or two veteran bench players who can contribute a steadying force during a playoff run.

I think a Kevin Garnett deal could still be worked without gutting the team, for the PG, Derek Fisher might be attainable and knows how to operate under Phil's system, and for that veteran off the bench, sounds like the Spurs aren't going to renew Horry's contract, so he might be available, too.

A starting five of Kobe, Farmar, Garnett, Walton (a free agent, but seems to want to stay with the Lakers, and the Lakers want him to stay) and Brown (Kwame might put together a good season if he stays injury free) with significant minutes off the bench for Mihm (due to his injury, he might have trouble signing with a different team, though a free agent) Turiaf, Fisher, Evans along with Horry in his usual season long slumber until the playoffs start, could do some damage in the NBA Playoffs, even in the stacked West. That team could play big or small, and as long as they have enough healthy bodies, could be a tenacious team on defense (they'd have trouble scoring when both Kobe and Garnett weren't on the floor, though, so Phil will just have to manage their minutes so that one or the other is always there to fill up the basket).

Maybe blowing up the Lakers and starting over without Kobe will be the best thing for the Lakers and Kobe, but I think all it will take is one legit all-star at his side along with one or two players older than himself to get Kobe to trust the front office again. Kevin McHale would be very reluctant to make a trade that helps the Lakers, but Garnett wants out, and the promise of Bynum and the solid play of Odom might be enough to take away the sting of losing Garnett to the Lakers.

It won't be easy, but it doesn't seem impossible, either.

Having Kobe on one of the local NBA franchises is a gift, he is the most exciting player of his generation, and the stuff he does on court on a nightly basis defies description. To suggest, as Plaschke does (and comparing Kobe to Paris Hilton is just plain low), that LA fans would be better off without him is crazy talk.