[h1]Bryant to Chicago? That's just a lot of wind[/h1]
Bulls, Lakers to meet at Staples Center tonight, and everywhere Kobe looks there's a potential future teammate. But forget about a deal.
November 18 2007
Just think, both of Kobe Bryant's favorite teams together on the same floor!
Yes, it's the Lakers and the Bulls, in whatever order he has them, who will meet tonight as both teams continue to figure out where they're going.
Everywhere Kobe looks, there's a potential future teammate!
It's not true but I don't want to get in anyone's way with the media set to climb all over the event like ants at a picnic and for the same reason:
It's there.
Actually, despite the continued yearning of Bulls fans, Bryant's remote chance of going to Chicago ended two weeks ago.
Having seen talks that were only exploratory and brief mushroom out of control, General Manager John Paxson is now reportedly focusing on lower-key players like Memphis' Pau Gasol in deals that won't make headlines for a week.
Happy with his uncomplicated, up-and-coming young team, Paxson just wanted to know if the Lakers were holding a fire sale like Minnesota's for Kevin Garnett.
Aside from that, the Bulls weren't interested. Having sold all their seats through the terrible post-Michael Jordan years, they're not risk-takers.
They're also 180 degrees removed from the level of drama they featured in their dynastic days. Now they get upset about Ben Wallace's headband.
Unfortunately, Paxson's young team emerged from a week of trade rumors looking as if it had seen its own ghost. Meanwhile the diverse opinions Bulls fans first expressed about Bryant coalesced into a single plea:
When will Kobe be here?
When the Bulls lost their home opener to Philadelphia, fans started chanting "Kobe! Kobe!" No one expected that to last but no one expected the Bulls to keep losing.
At 0-4, the Chicago Tribune's K.C. Johnson wrote that the chants were "now as much a part of home games as Benny the Bull."
"As hard as we work as a team," said Luol Deng, "to hear boos and the 'Kobes' when we're losing that much, it definitely hurts. I think since I've been in the NBA, this is the lowest I've felt."
The players were even happy to head out on their dread circus trip. Said Kirk Hinrich: "We're excited just to be on the road. There's a lot of stuff kind of going on here in Chicago."
It was still going on, too. Last week a Sun-Times gossip columnist noted Bryant "may be purchasing basketball legend Michael Jordan's massive home in Highland Park."
Meanwhile, back on Kobe's current team . . .
With Jordan Farmar and Andrew Bynum continuing to improve, the team Bryant is already on could grow into the best option he'll ever have.
Not that Kobe will soon concede that point, which would mean everything he said last summer didn't just embarrass him, he was wrong on top of it.
Now there are two Kobes. The one you see is an exemplary player and teammate. The one nobody sees is still looking for a way out.
Bryant now freezes out the entire Los Angeles press corps except for routine basketball stuff or to make a public show of something. If any real feelings get out, it's through one of his confidantes with the Worldwide Leader in Sports.
These days we watch ESPN the way the CIA watched the Soviet leadership atop Lenin's Tomb on May Day.
Last week ESPN's Ric Bucher recycled an old story that Kobe had knocked down a Detroit-Lakers trade, which carried the absurd suggestion the Lakers had agreed to take Rip Hamilton, who's 29, and Tayshaun Prince, who's 27.
Bucher then worked as the sideline reporter for Friday's Lakers-Pistons telecast, where the story was briefly mentioned but laid off on a Detroit radio station.
Of more interest was Bucher's conclusion:
"I was told today that as of now Kobe's distrust of the front office remains and he would like to be playing for a championship elsewhere."
Bucher set himself up last summer when he announced Kobe would never wear a Lakers uniform again. However, having known Ric a long time, there's one thing I'm sure of:
He's not making this stuff up.
He's close enough to Bryant to get it firsthand or, at Kobe's direction, from Rob Pelinka, Bryant's agent.
Bucher isn't allowed to quote them, which can leave him dangling, especially if he takes them at their word, which they often overstate.
Nevertheless, exposed as he was through Bryant's rescinded vows of summer and the failed trades of fall, Bucher keeps coming back with stuff about what Kobe's thinking, which I believe.
Lakers officials now insist they're even more resolved to keep Bryant -- but no one from Jerry Buss down will come out and say he's not going anywhere this season.
If they're trying to keep Bryant from getting upset, I don't think it's working.
Buss may not be decisive but Bryant is. As long as they leave the door open, Kobe can keep intriguing -- give me this again, he distrusts
them? -- to get to the "elsewhere" of his dreams.
As far as Lakers fans are concerned, they can't tell whether it's the best of times or the worst of times and they may not find out for a long time.
Or they may get the bad news tonight on "SportsCenter."
In the meantime, everyone lives moment to moment. This is what we're left with: The Season the Lakers Walked on Eggs.
