Kobe will probably stay in LA

[Maximus]

By Tim Povtak From | Basketball news including local Orlando basketball team, Orlando Magic -- OrlandoSentinel.com



Although it's great fun to speculate where Kobe Bryant could be playing if the Los Angeles Lakers really decided to trade him, it's just not very real.

It's more accurate to examine who the Lakers might be trying to land in hopes of keeping Bryant happy where he is.

Talk about trading Bryant to New York or Chicago or Dallas or Phoenix might give us a chance to put together a blockbuster in fantasyland, but it isn't going to happen in this league.

It's not going to happen this season.

Ever since Lakers owner Jerry Buss earlier this month told reporters in Los Angeles that he "would certainly listen" to trade offers for Bryant -- and fueled by Bryant's earlier unhappiness -- the general managers around the league have been scrambling to figure out how serious he was.

Buss is probably laughing somewhere.

The franchise that is more dependent upon the drawing power of a superstar than any other franchise in sports isn't going to let the biggest star in the game get away.

The Lakers never have tried to rebuild with prospects and draft picks, and they aren't starting now. Maybe that sells in Atlanta and Charlotte and Portland, but it's laughable in Los Angeles.

Maybe the Lakers would deal if the Cleveland Cavaliers offered LeBron James or the Suns decided to part with Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire, or the Magic gave them Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis, but none of those things is going to happen.

And this isn't Minnesota, where they traded Kevin Garnett to become the worst team in the worst division in the league, expecting to sell a future as bleak as a Minneapolis winter. Good luck with that one.

You can't sell it in Hollywood, the movie and celebrity capital of the world with the league's most expensive ticket. They don't want to hear the labor pains. They just demand a superstar.

The Lakers aren't seriously pursuing trade options for Bryant. They are just reinforcing his real worth, which is the highest in the league. It's why they are paying him almost $20 million this season, and it's why he's still the closest thing to Michael Jordan we've ever seen.

The Lakers are busy revisiting earlier trade talks with Indiana, New Jersey, Utah and Phoenix, exploring what it would take to land Jermaine O'Neal, Jason Kidd, Andrei Kirilenko or Shawn Marion to play alongside Bryant, enhancing his star power.

The problem is that their assets to offer are limited. Other teams like young center Andrew Bynum and veteran Lamar Odom, but not much else on their roster. Kwame Brown still is intriguing, but he needs a good start this season to raise his value.

Despite the denials in Indianapolis, O'Neal still looks like the most likely top player to be traded. The Pacers are a mess, and they can sell a we're-starting-over theme for a couple of years.

The Lakers aren't going to do what the Timberwolves did with Garnett. And they aren't going to repeat their own mistake of a few years ago when they traded Shaquille O'Neal and his inflated contract demands, sending him to Miami for something less than the Heat's best player.

Bryant can't become a free agent until after the 2008-09 season, and only if he wants to leave behind a $25 million payday. If the Lakers are going to be contenders again -- and the whole league benefits when they are -- it's not going to be by trading away Bryant.

It's by adding another top veteran to play alongside him. Everything else is just talk.