There’s a moment in the classic 1997 episode of Seinfeld, “The Little Jerry,” when Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer are crammed into the back of Marcelino’s store, about to send Kramer’s rooster (which he named “Little Jerry Seinfeld”) into a cockfight.
Elaine, meanwhile, has been dating a man she thinks is bald by choice before learning he’s actually losing his hair. He asks her to marry him, before the follicular end comes.
“Well, it’ll be a couple of years before he’s completely bald,” Elaine says, considering the offer. “Those’ll be good times.”
“Marriage is a big step, Elaine. Your life’ll totally change,” Jerry replies.
Elaine pauses. “Jerry, it’s three-thirty in the morning. I’m at a cockfight. What am I clinging to?”
I mention this because for the Lakers, we’ve reached the end. It’s three-thirty in the morning, and they’re at a cockfight.
It’s time to stop clinging.
The Dwight Howard/Steve Nash trades blew up spectacularly, Howard bolting to Houston while Nash crumbled, physically. It was a smart gamble, but the Lakers lost big. Still, they went into last season selling the idea that if you squinted just right, if Kobe Bryant came back healthy, Pau Gasol turned back the clock a little, Nash stayed healthy, Little Jerry ran from here to Newman’s in under 30 seconds, and so on, the Lakers would be competitive. And, of course, they signed Bryant to his two-year, $48.5 million extension, essentially sight unseen in the wake of his Achilles tear. We saw how that went.
Last summer they continued a neither-fish-nor-fowl strategy of faux competitiveness.
They offered Pau Gasol, thriving in Chicago but useless on a team without postseason prospects, a big contract including, as Gasol revealed a few weeks back, a mind-numbingly inappropriate no-trade clause. For every smart deal like the one they pulled with Houston, absorbing Jeremy Lin into their cap space and sucking up a first-rounder from the Rockets for their trouble, there was the complete waste of time and money on Carlos Boozer. These moves, and others, happen because the Lakers pathologically refuse to acknowledge what they are.
They hint at rebuilding, that it’s a process and people need to be patient, but at the same time have never given the fan base enough credit to be genuinely honest. It’s not a question of “tanking,” one of the most misappropriated words in basketball, but fully embracing reality, acknowledging the team needs to be stripped down to the studs and rebuilt, using every means available. Even those methods — gasp! — used by plain old teams without their rich history and cache. Management believes Lakers fans only understand the language of superstars, and have given them virtually nothing in which to invest themselves over the last couple seasons. (In fairness, one of those things — Julius Randle — broke his leg in the first game of the year.)
Instead, they went all in on Kobe, selling his mythology, his star quality, and the concept, however misguided, they could (at least kinda, sorta) build one last winner around him. Or, failing that, provide fans a reason to show up at Staples, turn on Time Warner Cable Sportsnet, and generally avoid looking behind the curtain to see what the wizards are doing.
Yet despite having made Kobe their golden goose, the Lakers did a horrendous job protecting him. Byron Scott, whether he had Bryant’s tacit approval or not, ran his star into the ground over the first 30 games, grinding his body to a pulp. And now, despite taking games off to try and get his body right, Bryant’s season is in doubt thanks to a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder.
The injury represents another idea laid in ruins for the Lakers. It should be abundantly clear that whether Kobe is able to come back this season or is out until next, counting on him staying healthy enough to be a foundational component of a genuinely competitive team in the brutal Western Conference is an impossibility. There will be no Hollywood ending.
3:30 am. Cockfight.
L.A.’s current rebuild strategy, loosely titled “Please, Please, Please Star, Choose Us!”, isn’t a strategy at all; it’s a get rich quick scheme.
It’s time to start the painful work of 100 percent dedication to rebuilding. Where every move, no matter how small, is geared towards restoring the Lakers to glory as fast as possible, no matter how ugly things are in the interim. It can’t happen without management being straight with fans, explaining what they hope to do, how they hope to do it. Sell a vision. Remember, too, it’s not like the current approach is working. The Lakers are on their way to the worst season since moving to L.A. more than 50 years ago… after setting the same distinction last season.
It also can’t happen without the front office being honest with itself. So as the trade deadline approaches, the Lakers have to find any and every deal helping them gain assets. Build, even incrementally, towards the future. Find new homes for Jordan Hill and Lin, and anything else not nailed to the floor another team might want. Find minutes for Jordan Clarkson, Ryan Kelly, and Tarik Black, young guys with potential to develop into rotation players by the time the Lakers are good again. If it means fewer minutes for Boozer and Ronnie Price, who cares?
When summer comes, kick the tires on big free agents, but home run swings aren’t a substitute for singles and doubles. Eventually, those put runs on the scoreboard. The Lakers are still a Rockefeller franchise, but in the modern NBA, even Rockefellers have to spend some time at Wal-Mart. So while Kobe’s injury is a major downer for their fans, whether at Staples Center or the legions turning out on the road, it also provides an opportunity.
Whatever it is they’re the Lakers are clinging to, they can stop now.
Brian Kamenetzky is a regular contributor to SheridanHoops.com. Follow him and his brother, Andy, on Twitter.
Aw, this was a very good post. Spending some time and actual effort
to produce a great article… but what can I say… I procrastinate a lot and don’t seem to get anything done.
The Lakers swung and missed badly. The irony is that the winners of the Laker trades were the two rebuilding teams, Phoenix and Orlando. Phoenix has been competing for the 8th spot in the west for the past 2 years and Orlando got their next center and pg out of that deal as well as other draft picks.
Kobe is now old. The CBA has made it hard for big spenders to recoup from their mistakes until the last year of their contracts. Plus the RFA rules make it hard to go the FA route for the next star. The lakers could go trade but, they have hamstringed themselves with their strategy as most of the team is part of that Mike D era and would not fish out the next star.
With Kobe’s career coming to a close the lakers do not even have assets to pull a Pau Gasol-like trade. If fans remember rightly, those assets kept the lakers very respectable and winning but, not championship worthy. The grizzlies knew that they weren’t going anywhere that season so they set themselves up for the future with Marc and all the smaller contracts. It ended up being a win-win for both teams as the lakers won their back to back and the Grizzlies set themselves up to be good now.
Unfortunately Byron Scott will take the blame but the real blame rests in the old-school thinking in the front office. Careers are short. Kobe is no guarantee and so until the front office gets smart with their assets, there is nobody that will come that will bring the championships back. Laker nostalgia can only go so far. The money may spend the same but, championships and wins define legacies. The Lakers are not set up for that yet. Their best bet is to sign a few B-listers and then after that develop through the draft. There may be another Bynum pre-injury waiting in the wings.
Beautifully said, Brian. Somewhere underlying all of this is an arrogant “We’re the Lakers, we don’t have to rebuild, we reload”. The Celtics embraced rebuilding. Not only do they have some promising young players, they have 8 first round picks and 9 second round picks over the next four drafts. What kind of approach did the Lakers take? For example, they went after Carmelo Anthony, not the kind of player who you rebuild a team around. Melo’s not a fan of playing defense or playing “the ball can’t stick” basketball. He’s also not a young player. With his salary requirements, he would have tied up cap space and damaged the Lakers future for years to come. While they were chasing Melo, they let Isaiah Thomas get away. They had a real chance at acquiring Thomas, according to Thomas himself. But, he had to look out for himself and couldn’t afford to wait around while the Lakers’ Front Office was off chasing pipe dreams. Enough already! rebuild the freakin’ team.
One aspect people rarely see us the hiring of Byron Scott. Is he a good coach? Sure, not great by any means, though. I see his hire as a window to the plan. The Lakers cannot win in the loaded west, so give the fan base a familiar face to usher Kobe to retirement. To me, hiring him was acknowledging they were not going anywhere.
First off no one came out and said I dont like Kobe , and I don’t want to play with Kobe, second their are a lot of star players on losing team that would love to come to the Lakers , now as far as the Lakers , Kobe can still put up 24 ppg , second like Blake , randle can give the Lakers 17 ppg and 7 to 9 RPG , the Lakers need a Marc gasol, a Greg Monroe, to down the 5 ,next they need a sf , draft Stanley Johnson, next a pg Goran dragic, and go get a Gerald green , micheal Beasley, for you bench , to play with t black, swaggy p , Jordan clarkson, Ronnie price , with this team we are top 4 in the west top 6 NBA , go lasers
We suck. I wish I was playing in the playoffs again.
The Celtics rebuild is well underway while the Lakers haven’t even acknowledged they are in need of one. It’s not Jerry Buss’s NBA anymore and big-ticket free agents aren’t clamoring to put on the Purple and Gold. Laker fans–known far and wide as fair-weather lovers of style over substance–are in for a long, hard ride. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch of clueless front-runners.
Absolutely astute take! Completely agree as they should have started the process last season and stood pat with the development direction MDA was positioning the players for. I know you probably disagree with that but MDA would at least have a player like Clarkson already into the development rotation like he did with Kelly. MDA may have allowed Kobe to run himself into the ground just as Scott did but he’d have done a better job of managing the other players also in the process. They would still be bad defensively but have actual cohesion offensively that resembles consistency. Hell we may have even seen Linsanity 2.0 and that would be a very ggod thing for ticket sales. Linsanity could sustain the loss of Kobe temporarily.
Bottom line, the FO needs to defeine what direction they want to go and stick to it regardless of Kobe or anyone else. Tickesales will always come back in LA for the Lakers. The foundation is too deeply rooted. Example; Nick Young. Swaggy P was in LA three years ago but did not manifest on a Clippers team on the rise as Lob city. Then he joins the Lakers in the midst of the worst in franchise history and becomes Swaggy.
Sorry for all the bad grammar and spelling.