PDA

View Full Version : Buss' big Kobe gamble pays off



KoriEllis
09-03-2004, 04:20 PM
Buss' big Kobe gamble pays off
Lakers owner gets $130 million relief after Bryant case dropped

By Michael Ventre

msnbc.msn.com/id/5907044/ (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5907044/)

I’m surprised Jerry Buss didn’t suffer a collapsed lung this week from the sigh of relief he surely produced when the charges against Kobe Bryant were dropped by prosecutors in Eagle, Colo. I envision Buss falling back into a comfortable chair, opening his collar, rocking his head from side to side in bliss, putting his feet up on an ottoman, as one young, leggy model-actress type dabs his forehead with a cold compress while another fetches him a strong cocktail.

Buss gambled and won, at least on the issue of Bryant’s availability. When you plunk down $130 million for a basketball player, it’s always an extra special feeling when you find out he won’t be incarcerated for the next 20 years.

Buss decided to place the entire future of the Lakers’ franchise in the care of Bryant, who many believe is the best all-around player in the game. To that end, he expelled Bryant’s enemies this summer. Shaquille O’Neal is now in Miami, where reportedly he is breaking an occasional sweat in preparation for an NBA season of revenge. Phil Jackson is here and there, mostly in Montana, but for now out of coaching.

The Lakers’ owner did everything he could to create a Kobe-friendly environment, free of the restrictions of Jackson’s triangle. There is less turmoil in the Sunni triangle than there was around Bryant last season.

His riskiest move, though, was not the dumping of Shaq and Phil, but the bestowing of a maximum contract to Bryant, an unrestricted free agent this summer. That’s a lot of jack to give anyone who is on trial for felony sexual assault. If somehow — and granted, this takes some suspension of belief — Mark Hurlbert and his fellow legal eagles of Eagle had their act together, and the alleged victim stepped up and testified, there was an outside chance that what Buss would have gotten for his $130 million was an occasional supervised chat with Bryant through Plexiglas.

Instead, Bryant is not only a free man, but earlier than anyone expected. If the criminal trial had moved forward with opening statements on Tuesday, it would have lasted at least four weeks, which would have cut into Bryant’s preparation for the 2004-05 NBA season and training camp. Even if he were acquitted, the new-look Lakers would have been behind schedule. With a new coach, new system and lots of new faces, this is a team that couldn’t afford to come slow out of the gate.

I still believe Buss was cuckoo for breaking up the Lakers and putting so much power in the hands of one player. It’s not easy to build a championship club. If it were, men with more money than Buss, men who are hungrier for success than Buss — men like the Maloof brothers in Sacramento, or Mark Cuban in Dallas — would have done it long ago.

Jerry West pulled off an extraordinary coup in 1996 by acquiring both Shaq and Kobe. Buss made a shrewd move by spending the dough to hire Phil Jackson in 1999. Trashing all that because of an infatuation with a 25-year-old star who bears some resemblance to Michael Jordan shows either a lack of understanding, or an incredible amount of hubris, regarding the difficulty of constructing a winner.

But now, at least, the central element of Buss’s grand plan — Kobe Bryant — is safely in the fold.

Now there can be no excuses.

Last year was a difficult one for Bryant. He had to shuttle back and forth between Los Angeles and Eagle throughout the season. He had to deal with questions from the media about where he would play in 2004-05. He had to hear every aspect of his life discussed in public, especially on the subject of adultery. He had to answer allegations of tanking games in order to prove to people how much the Lakers needed him. He had to endure another year with Shaq and Phil. He had to try and lead his team to a championship with two major additions, Karl Malone and Gary Payton. Ultimately, he had to figure out how to defeat the Detroit Pistons’ defense, which he never did.

All of that is over. Smooth sailing from here on out.

All he has to do now is win three championships almost single handedly. Piece of cake.

I say three because in order for Buss’ plan to be perceived as a success, Bryant will have to at least equal the Lakers’ championship output while Shaq and Phil were on board. Anything less is a failure.

First and foremost, now that Buss has Bryant, he has to hope that this Kobe Bryant is the same Kobe Bryant he wagered on. Remember, Kobe was clutch and awesome during the five years under Jackson. But he had so much help. When defenses have to worry about the most dominant big man in the game prowling the paint, it makes operating from the perimeter that much easier.

Don’t forget, too, that during those years the Lakers had experienced role players who took a lot of the heat off Bryant and made it easier for him to excel, guys like Robert Horry, Rick Fox, Derek Fisher, Horace Grant, Ron Harper and Brian Shaw. Kobe was spectacular, to be sure, but now his safety net is nonexistent.

These Lakers are comprised of players like Vlade Divac, Brian Grant, Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Luke Walton, Brian Cook, Chucky Atkins, Chris Mihm, Devean George and Slava Medvedenko (no word yet on whether Malone will return). It reminds me of years ago when Moses Malone boasted that he could win an NBA championship on a team made up of himself “and four guys from Petersburg (his home town in Virginia).”

But Moses never had to back it up. Kobe’s situation is not far off from that.

For now, at least, Buss can sit back and count his winnings. As rolls of dice go, they don’t come any bigger.

Michael Ventre writes regularly for NBCSports.com and is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.