In a typically-interesting interview with GQ that was published earlier in February, Kobe Bryant told Chuck Klosterman this about the Lakers’ plans for the 2015-16 season, one that will probably serve as Kobe’s last year in the NBA:
The Lakers are not going to make the playoffs this year, and it seems unlikely that they will challenge for a title next year. So if titles are your only goal, why even play these last two seasons?
I know what Mitch [Kupchak, the Lakers GM] tells me. I know what Jim and Jeanie [Buss, the team owners] tell me. I know that they are hell-bent about having a championship caliber team next season, as am I.
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The Lakers, as was the case last summer when they attempted to surrounding Bryant with stars, will once again have significant cap space to work with in a market that would seem to want to encourage players to leave their current environs in order to come to Los Angeles. Stars like Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge might not want to leave their current winning teams to play for less money in LA, but Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak could possibly put together a full roster of well-meaning vets via savvy signings and salary cap space-encouraged trades.
Speaking to reporters as the Lakers prepared to begin the final two months of their lost season, Kupchak more or less put the kibosh on that idea:
“This team primarily has been Kobe’s team now for almost 18 or 20 years,” General Manager Mitch Kupchak said in a wide ranging interview with media, “and we’re much closer to the end of those 18, 20 years than we are to the middle or the beginning. So at some point we have to start a new run.
[…]
“To jeopardize the next five or seven years,” Kupchak said, “bring in old veterans that make a lot of money, just to win one more year, because that’s Kobe’s last year or could be his last year, I’m not sure that fits into doing it the right way.”
No, that would not be doing it the right way. Even if the hypothetical high-priced-veteran-players-that-could-also-pair-with-Kobe-for-a-ring existed. To date, few Laker fans have come up with a cogent list of candidates that were also going to be realistically available this summer.
Kupchak, who told reporters that this subject “was not something you would talk about” with Bryant, went on:
“We’re going to look to do this the right way,” Kupchak said, “which is to try to make prudent decisions about youth and veterans and making commitments to players under the existing rules. I’d love to be able to put together a young team that can win 55 games next year, but it’s not that easy.”
No, it is not easy. Those teams have really never existed. There have been young and exciting teams cobbled together out of a series of lottery picks that have shown glimpses in the playoffs, but these were not 55-win teams. The young Thunder, even when making the playoffs in 2010 after three years with Kevin Durant, still fell five wins short. Those out-of-nowhere 2007 Golden State Warriors featured quite a few players in their prime. And it is far easier to go from 35 to 45 wins than it is to go from 45 to 55.
As the Lakers stand, they might have to settle for going from 21 wins (their current 2014-15 pace) to 31. That’s just how these things work.
Kobe knows this. He’s not acting out of touch or defiant in the face of GQ, because truly what is the guy going to say? He’s going to admit that the Lakers are likely just rolling over during his last year, sustaining cap space and acquiring assets as they attempt to make a big splash when his contract comes off the books in 2016? Bryant is as severe a competitor as the game has ever known, and he’ll sometimes take the loss if it meant shooting for the win his particular way, but he’s no dummy in this regard.
It’s just that “yeah, the 2015 offseason is probably going to be a lot like the 2016 offseason” isn’t much of a party line moving forward. Nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to say that.
Save for Mitch Kupchak, apparently.
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