Kobe Goes Down, Possibly For The Last Time

Well my worst prediction has come to fruition.  Kobe came back and got hurt again.  It's not like he was setting the world on fire as it was, but this is the nail in the Laker's coffin for this season. 

Pau was supposed to be motivated and play rejuvenated ball at the start of the season.  Didn't happen.  Although role players like Jordan Hill, Wes Johnson, and Xavier Henry have been pleasant surprises in their improvements, it's a lock that that group of fellas won't get them to the playoffs.  I don't even know if they would make it in the East.  (OK yes they would.)

Let's say Kobe doesn't come back at all this year.  Honestly, he probably shouldn't anyway.  Fix yourself up man, you ain't winning no championship this year.  Come back next season and try to be respectable.  Maybe at this point, that's not even possible.

They said Pau trades were now off the table, do they start back up again?  Maybe get a decent little scorer in return?  Or do they ride it out and get a high draft pick in the best draft of the new millennium?  Wouldn't it be great if they actually drafted a stud, so they wouldn't be paying out their ass for him on the first few years of his rookie contract, instead of signing an overpriced, older star?  Follow the model of the Spurs, and their heirs the Thunder.

I would also like to point out the obvious that Steve Nash is done.  He all but said it with the comment, "I have 18 months of contracted basketball left."  Which on the surface says he's going to play out his contract after next season.  But it runs much deeper than that.  The tone in his voice when he said it, had a desperation to it.  It had a sadness to it.  Not because his career was going to be over, but because he knows it's over now, and he's going to do everything he can to postpone it with as little pain as possible, if that's even possible.  I feel for ya Nash, but just like Kobe, you're playing against Father Time, and as the great Prophet Charles Barkley once said, "Father Time is undefeated."

Keep dreamin'

Morons will say that, "It's cool man, we'll just get LeBron or Melo next year."  We?  Like your dumb ass is part of the team.  Anyway, the odds of LeBron going to L.A. were small, now with Kobe down and possibly out, they are minuscule.  He's not leaving a championship team with great weather, for a lottery team with great weather.  Cleveland may be a lottery team, but it's at least his home, and Kyrie Iring is an all-star on that team, the Lakers currently have none.

Melo?  I've ranted and ranted about how much I dislike the guy.  He's not a winner, he's selfish etc.  I don't need to go into that again.  But is Melo a possibility?  Yeah I would say it's a hell of a lot more likely than LeBron.  But does Melo really want to go from a crazy ass lottery team, to a broken down lottery team, albeit they have nice weather?  He might, and his wife probably wants to go to the west coast.  But maybe "we" can just convince him to go to the Clippers instead?

That's a lot of gloom and doom I realize.  Here's the silver lining: next season the Laker's have Kobe and Nash's broken bodies, Nick Young (player option), and Robert Sacre under contract.  That's a lot of room to work with.  (If Kobe would have taken a smaller deal, if would have been better, but I digress.)  If Nash retires after this year, they can work out a deal to pay him smaller amounts over a longer period of time (so I've read), which would give them even more money to play with.  Are they going to get a championship team next summer?  No.  But they may be able to get some Luol Deng's, or guys of that nature to put out a respectable season, unlike the rest of this one, which isn't looking pretty.