Will Kobe Be Available? (UPDATED)

Either way it probably wont happen but if it did, I sure would't mind.  

I sort of anticipated some of the anti-Kobe sentiment here, with all the recent love-fest with the 'team' game philosophy.  But we won six championships with the greatest individual basketball talent ever, and while he adjusted to play with a team, both the Bulls of the '80s or the '90s were clearly focused on and initiated nearly all of their offense through Jordan.  So Sue and Nittany, were you complaining about the Bulls lack of a team game when Michael was here?  Did you want to dump MJ for a a more varied group of lesser talents?

No, Kobe's not Michael, but he is a great individual talent, and if we surround him with some of the Hinrich/Gordon/Deng/Tyrus/BWal group, I think we'll be championship contenders every year, and probably better off than we are today.

I think we'd be willing to give up Gordon, Thomas,  Thabo and all other bench players: Noce, Duhon, Khryapa.  While this is not fair value, it might be more reasonable next year if Kobe's threatening to leave as a free agent.  Also, Pax would likely explore dumping salary to attract Kobe is he did actually opt out.  Again, all of this speculative, and not where the Bulls will likely go.  But for god's sake, this is a daily blog devoted to the Bulls - if its theoretically reasonable, albeit unlikely, I think its worth discussing.  Being that Kobe has just made his declaration, and that Kobe loved the Bulls at some point, I think it deserves exploring - hopefully by Pax, but certainly by us.

He's one of the best three players (if not the best player) in all of basketball.

Personally, I hate the son of a biotch, but if he puts on the red and white, I can very quickly forgive him for his transgressions.

And, although he is aging a bit, he is still in his prime.

You have to think that the Lakers are now going to be willing to trade all of their other players to get Kobe what he wants.

Of course, it would be best if they just traded Kobe to the Bulls. :)

http://tinyurl.com/39jozp

throw in the #9 pick (after the lakers tell us who they want plus that evens the salarys after signing...), and our 2009 first round pick

we get kobe, 2010 first round pick, and the lakers 2nd round pick (48)

The Bulls would have no remaining frontcourt in that scenario.

Not to mention, the Lakers won't accept Wallace's contract, one would think.

Obv gordon is gone....kobe will replace him and it gives the lakers a cheap option for this year, and then resign him in the future

Tyrus is gone too; he has the most potental, and could be a star

gordon and tyrus for kobe wont cut it. We're then looking at giving up Deng, Noch + #9, or #9 and and future picks

We can't give up thabo and tyrus because too much is depending upon those guys in the future

Deng and Hinrich and Wallace for contractual and team based purposes will be staying

So the #9, and then if the lakers want noch, noch; if they don't a lot of future draft picks

3 or 4 year window for championships; then a few lean years with only hinrich and deng (we'll ahve few draft picks and only thabo in term of ypungsters), and we'll be something like the nets - a middling team until we can get some more picks and the cycle is restarted

and why i'm not replying is this:

You don't do the trade if u have to give up deng. Deng is going to be good on his lonesome, and to give up Deng + gordon + extras = kobe is asanine. The only trade that makes the bulls a better team on the whole is taking the solid 8 man rotation, upgrading on gordon, and losing out tyrus and finding a 4 via the MLE or minor trade

Hinrich, Wallace, and Deng all must remain bulls for the kobe trade to make sense

You can say whatever you want about him, that he is a horrible person or whatever.  Bottom line though is he wants to win as bad as anyone else in the league and he works hard.  

How much does Paxson love his little effort to make the bulls competitve? which I think he has done a good job with. Hopefully not too much.

Since the story came out hours ago, I always sort of thought he wasn't going to end up being traded.  But I figured, at least, he was angling to have management bring in better players.  Turns out, it wasn't even that - he just wants some low-level employee to be fired.

This is getting downright weird.