Kobe's Tainted Beef

Kobe Bryant's been caught on candid camera, betrayed by a fan with an amateur video. But Bryant betrayed his own team and forfeited any right to privacy when he stood in a public parking lot and trashed his colleagues. The Los Angeles Lakers can expect more of the same, and so should any team thinking of gutting its roster in a trade for him.

In an infamous 24-second video, a snippet of which is available on YouTube and transcripts of which are circulating on the Internet, Bryant shows his true colors. This is not a highlight video or a glossy promotional spot on his Web site, but a grainy documentary. He says the Lakers should "ship out" 19-year-old teammate Andrew Bynum, and that's kind compared with his discussion of Mitch Kupchak. It's an indelible portrait: two-faced, ranting, treacherous, manipulative. Also stupid -- what shining intelligence thinks it's a good idea to give parking lot interviews to fans?

For years now, Bryant has excused his self-centeredness by saying he just wants to win. It's a mantra he and his supporters have repeated through continual controversies, and again in the last few weeks as he's demanded a trade. Bryant is supposedly disenchanted with the Lakers because they have not put enough talent around him, and he desires to go east to play for the Chicago Bulls. Enough. If Bryant really wanted to win, he'd have found a way to play alongside Shaquille O'Neal.

Do you think for a moment that Lakers owner Jerry Buss and General Manager Kupchak don't want to win? In the 28 years that Buss has owned the Lakers, they've made the playoffs 26 times. Buss doesn't have to prove his competitive desire to Bryant, but he's certainly tried. He flew from China to Barcelona to talk to Bryant, he's paid him a fortune contractually, stood by him during a trial and did his bidding in trading O'Neal.

For all of that, it's still not at all clear what it will take to make Bryant professionally happy. The guess here is that the entity Bryant's really unhappy with is himself.

It will be interesting to see what effect the video will have on Bryant's immediate future, if any. Either the video is actually a ruse by Bryant to put pressure on the Lakers to trade him, or its just more evidence of Bryant's erratic, malcontented behavior. In either case, if the Lakers are smart they will stand firm and refuse Bryant's demand. How are they supposed to get decent value for Bryant in all of this mess?

What Bryant doesn't seem to get is that every time he opens his mouth and puts the Lakers in a more seemingly untenable position where he is concerned, he makes it harder for them to do a deal. All over the NBA, general managers are thinking: "Great, now the Lakers have to get rid of him! We can offer less!"

Just because a guy is hollering for a trade doesn't mean he gets one. It only seems that Bryant has all the leverage. Bryant is owed $88.6 million for the four years left on a seven-year, $136.4 million contract, and he has a rare no-trade clause. But what if the Lakers do nothing? What if they play for time, and insist that Bryant fulfill his deal until he's eligible to return to the free agent market in the summer of 2009?

That puts the onus on Bryant. A contract is a two-way proposition. If Bryant chooses not to play for Lakers, it means sitting out, and he won't get paid. It also means breaking faith with his fans, if he hasn't already. By pushing the Lakers so hard and so publicly, Bryant has perhaps already started to curdle the feelings of his audience. This is not the way a star or a leader behaves. Some are thinking, "If he's that good, why doesn't he get his team past the first round of the playoffs?"

Bryant turns 29 in August and by the time he's a free agent he will be 31, with more than a hard decade in his legs. What will his value be then? It's hard to say. On the face of it, what team wouldn't want the league's most prolific scorer and undeniably biggest draw? How many players can score 81 in a single night? Bryant guarantees sellouts, in every game, on any night of the week. Spectators think: "This could be the night. Maybe he'll score 80 again."

But along with those prolific outings comes another Bryant, a misshapen ego who is starting to age, and who has demonstrated that he will air his team's private issues publicly, who will agitate for teammates to be traded, who will second-guess management and who will throw his colleagues under a bus if they don't serve his purpose.

The next time Bryant tells the Lakers he doesn't want to play for them anymore, they should reply: "No problem. You can sit out, and we'll keep your paycheck. Or you take the court, play, and fill the seats." They should do everything they can to shore up the franchise and prepare for Bryant's exit -- after he's fulfilled his end of the deal. Then he's free to move on. And his next team will know what kind of player they're really getting.