Kobe Bryant is not going to be traded until he makes a stink

Save for a draft-night dalliance that saw him briefly wearing a Charlotte Hornets cap, Kobe Bryant has been a lifelong Los Angeles Laker. He has a binding contract that will pay him more than $48 million combined this year and next to play with the Lakers until the summer of 2016. He also owns one of the NBA’s few no-trade clauses, meaning that any Lakers deal involving Bryant would have to receive Kobe’s full support to make it NBA-legal.

Because Kobe’s Lakers started the year off by losing their first five games, and because Kobe is Kobe, some have wondered if the Kobester is long for Los Angeles. Not content with the out and out “no, I’m not getting traded”-message Bryant gave Yahoo Sports’ Marc Spears last week, dutiful reporters are still pressing the question.

To Kobe, there’s no question at hand here. He’s not going to ask for a trade.

For now, at least. From Sam Amick of USA Today:

“It’s not going to happen,” Bryant told USA TODAY Sports when asked if the temptation to change teams might still grow from here. “It’s not going to happen. You go through the good times, you’ve got to go through the bad times.”

[…]

“It’s not going to happen,” he continued after finishing with 21 points, six rebounds and four assists [during Sunday’s win] against the Hornets,. “I have a no-trade clause. [Lakers governor] Jeanie [Buss] and [Lakers executive vice president of basketball operations] Jimmie [Buss] aren’t sending me anywhere.”

Let’s be clear, here. Kobe Bryant will never be a hundred percent lock to stay in Los Angeles for the duration of his contract, but if he were to ever be traded from the Los Angeles Lakers, something will have gone terribly, terribly wrong.

The idea that New York Knicks president Phil Jackson would want to trade the suddenly serviceable Amar’e Stoudemire to Los Angeles as a way to acquire the NBA’s most infamous triangle offense-disruptor is laughable. Jackson knows that he’s working from the bottom up in New York, establishing a mindset in terms of both the team’s offense and overall philosophy, and you can be more than assured that he doesn’t look at Kobe as a sort of quick fix.

The Lakers, and by extension Kobe, are also aware that one swift move or two isn’t going to change much for this franchise. Taking in Stoudemire’s expiring contract would knock Kobe Bryant’s $25 million off of next year’s books, but IT WOULD ALSO KNOCK KOBE BRYANT OFF OF THE LOS ANGELES LAKERS.

Working in a vacuum, without even giving a nod to Bryant’s history with the Lakers, it’s important to understand that even with Kobe’s ridiculous contract on the books the Lakers will have solid enough salary cap footing this offseason. If the team does the sensible thing and declines Jordan Hill’s $9 million option, the Lakers will have just six players under contract and potentially nearly $30 million in cap space this summer if the franchise hangs on to Ed Davis and Robert Sacre.

The lingering question surrounding a hypothetical free agent’s willingness to play alongside Bryant will still be there, but it is important to note that the Lakers at least still have options moving forward. They don’t need to make a massive, franchise-shifting move in order to save their future. Bryant, weirdly, still is the future.

A trade would only work if it were pitched in an effort to accommodate Bryant, and Kobe has given every on-record indication that he wants to stay with the Lakers for as long as they’ll have him. The Lakers made a point to not waive the sadly waive-o-ble Steve Nash in order to preserve as much cap space as possible for next summer. The team acquired Carlos Boozer and Jeremy Lin during the offseason, two players working on contracts that expire this summer. This season doesn’t count. This upcoming offseason does.

The Lakers got their first win Sunday, but this figures to be a long, tank-worthy season. The team is shooting for a high lottery pick to pair alongside the returning Julius Randle next season, and for cap space this summer after it (purposely?) whiffed during the 2014 offseason. The team’s only consolation is that Kobe Bryant will be encouraging those who have already bought their seats to actually show up for games, and that local ratings will stay huge just as long as Kobe suits up.

They’re not going to trade that money-making nugget just to completely clear house. The fact that Bryant is a Lakers legend barely even factors into it on basketball terms.

The only way Kobe Bryant is getting traded from the Los Angeles Lakers is if Kobe Bryant asks to be traded from the Lakers, and even then there aren’t a whole lot of teams with the contracts to exchange with Los Angeles, much less the need for a guy making $48.5 million over the next two seasons while shooting 39 percent spread out over 23 shots per game. Until Kobe starts fuming, we should probably just back off this line of questioning for a while.

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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