Jeanie Buss: ‘Any free agent that would be afraid to play with Kobe Bryant is probably a loser’

Let’s pretend, for a moment, that Kobe Bryant is some wonderful, cheerful, galoot of a man. That he is super swell to work with, and that his on-record tough guy musings spat out in an expletive-laden style that reminds of a 11-year-old who just realized he could use blue words is just a show for the media. Let’s pretend that, behind the scenes, Kobe Bryant is the ideal teammate, and that he’s promised many things to prospective Los Angeles Lakers teammates through the years.

Promised that the storied franchise will be theirs, all theirs, once Bryant retires and the salary cap shoots way up upon his retirement.

Assured that he’d willingly give up shots and the ball in order to develop a more harmonious partnership with a free agent partner. Or partners.

Pointed out that there are still grapes to be eaten in California, and that he’d sacrifice whatever it takes to win, even if that means abandoning the spotlight and ceding the reins of the offense.

Let’s just try to live in that world, for a moment. It may take a Brando-like sense of method acting to put yourself in that spot, but give it a try.

Now ask yourself, in the face of a kinder and gentler Kobe Bean, does this make Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony, Paul George, Pau Gasol, or even LeBron James “losers” for wanting to play elsewhere? Laker president Jeanie Buss sure seems to think so.

From an appearance on ESPN on Thursday:

“Any free agent that would be afraid to play with Kobe Bryant is probably a loser, and I’m glad they wouldn’t come to the team,” Buss said during a “SportsCenter” interview Thursday.

All of this noise comes on the heels of a much-ballyhooed and much–derided feature from ESPN’s Henry Abbott, who used a retinue of anonymous sources to pin the blame on Kobe Bryant for the Lakers’ demise since the championship season of 2010, and the likely nasty two seasons to come in the final two years of Bryant’s ridiculous $48.5 million contract.

Buss, like most of us, has made her way through the tome:

“I read the story,” Buss said Thursday. “I don’t agree with any of it. If there is somebody that’s on our payroll who is saying things like that, I’ll soon get to the bottom of it, and they won’t be working for us anymore.”

As with all things Kobe, and as what should have been the case with the initial ESPN piece, there needs to be a bit of nuance here.

Rebuilding through free agency in the modern era, even with one star or near-All-Star (as a diminished Bryant is, post Achilles surgery) already on hand is no way to build a champion. A team needs younger assets, pieces delivered via trade, and role players that are already in-house. Had Bryant put his ego aside and signed for a contract along the lines of what Dirk Nowitzki recently re-signed for (three-years, $25 million for a player that is better than Bryant right now), and if we’re still working under the assumption that free agents would love to play with a Kuddly Kobe, that’s still a massively long shot that the Lakers would be able to cull together a contending roster full of free agents during the last offseason. On top of that, teams just aren’t dumping overpaid-yet-productive players on other teams with cap space via trade these days. The salaries have evened out, and not even the Brooklyn Nets are dealing Deron Williams just for a trade exception.

General manager Mitch Kupchak understands this, and while he was well aware that he was basically signing away two years of his life by giving Bryant a two-year, $48.5 million contract extension, that’s what you do when you want to keep a job. That’s what you do when you’re mindful of the fact that each potential Bryant partner had plenty of reasons to say “no” to Los Angeles. All Mitch had to do is look at the list. There are actual people on it, with real names.

Dwight Howard? Even with his back worries, he’ll eventually make all the money he can handle, and he left a limping Bryant (who had just torn his Achilles two and a half months prior) to work for a team in Houston with a far younger and healthier shooting guard in James Harden, one that won just as many games as the Bryant-led Lakers the year before.

Paul George? He may be from Los Angeles, but the Pacers could offer him far more money than El Lay to stay in Indiana and play for what was then a championship contender. He would have had to wait out his rookie contract, play for less money on a qualifying offer, and explore unrestricted free agency all while hoping that he didn’t suffer a career-altering injury while working his way toward El Segundo. Sadly, George would suffer that sort of injury just a month after he would have purportedly signed with the Lakers. Signed for, again, far less than he’ll make in Indianapolis – an area he actually likes.

Chris Bosh? If anything, he should have taken less money to go to the Houston Rockets, and work in a killer lineup with Howard, Harden and an ostensibly re-signed Chandler Parsons. Instead, he understandably chose to take as much money as possible to stay in Miami, a place his family is just-as understandably comfortable with. He won’t win another championship there, but he wasn’t winning one alongside Kobe either.

Pau Gasol? The guy seeks challenges, and we dig that. The idea of he and Joakim Noah flinging the ball around the Chicago frontcourt, working in a multi-cultural city, appealed to him. He took less money and moved to a climate that involves tortuous winters, and this is where our doubling down on the idea of Kobe Bryant as a model teammate is starting to crack.

LeBron James? Why does he need to play alongside an aging Kobe Bryant (and lord knows who else in L.A.) at this point in his career? Especially when he can go back home to play alongside one of the league’s best point guards, knowing that that Kevin Love deal was already just about signed off on even before James announced his free agent decision. Play at home, make a ton of money, and create perhaps the league’s best roster in a week … or go play with Kobe?

Carmelo Anthony? The Knicks won’t be winning a championship either, but he and his family like New York, and they like making as much money as possible. Anthony, as it has been since his AAU days, also likes being the face of a franchise – something he was never going to be in Los Angeles. Kobe Bryant (the guy that didn’t bother to stay in Los Angeles during the opening of free agent negotiations), of all people, should understand this.

Losers, all?

If you want to peel back on the idea of Kobe as a model teammate, fine. Carlos Boozer didn’t even choose to play for the Lakers this year, and he lives in Los Angeles. Jeremy Lin was traded there, Jordan Hill had to be overpaid to stay there, and prized free agent signee Ed Davis strangely wasn’t receiving any offers elsewhere. This summer was as big as free agency whiffs come.

The Buss family was wrong to offer Kobe Bryant that much money, but the Buss family (that makes their money off of the Los Angeles Lakers, with no other outside revenue streams) was also right not to alienate a fan base that has already bought tickets, and suites, by entering into an unsettling relationship with their appointed Mr. Laker.

Kobe Bryant was wrong to take all that money, especially when he bleats on about wanting to win more than anything else while gumming up the team’s cap picture, but he was completely correct in taking as much as he possibly could from a family that has made so much off of him.

Mitch Kupchak was wrong to ignore his better basketball instincts in signing off on the deal, but he also likely knew that each free agent turn involves individuals with different agendas, and sometimes the timing isn’t right.

Sometimes the timing is right, and for whatever reason you’re allowed to pull in Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant in the same summer, or grab Dwight Howard and Steve Nash in the same summer, or deal for a Hall of Famer like Pau Gasol weeks before the trade deadline.

Sometimes, a series of individuals all decline – not en masse, just at various points – to come to Los Angeles to play with Kobe Bryant. For whatever reasons.

And, as always, a bit of nuance needs to be tossed out there.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops