Same here but so far he's only playing about 28 minutes a game. If we can keep him below 35 minutes I think he'll be alright.
i said it at the time: stephenson and thomas instead of lin and hill. as you said, nobody worth it is taking the max next year, either. if the lakers had some decent players on the roster, they might convince a star to jump. nobody's jumping into this mess, though.
I was definitely on board with the Thomas/Stephenson. I think @Doc Brown was the champion of the Lance movement, but there was plenty of support here. For some reason the Lakers didn't want to go that route. As for Isaiah Thomas apparently he and the Lakers had mutual interest, but the Lakers waited on Carmelo and while we waited Phoenix made him a great pitch and he ended up there instead. Also Kobe advocated for the return of Hill once Pau left.
Stephenson was waiting for a longer contract, more lucrative contract from Indy. The Lakers weren't in the market for a 3+ year contract with the new TV deal coming up. He really surprised everyone when he took the Hornets deal at the price. Same deal for Thomas, but Thomas was a RFA sent in a sign-and-trade.
Agreed. It's not kobe's fault that things panned out this way because management had options. But....had Kobe been paid a more reasonable $14-$16mil, management's options change dramatically. I can't crunch the numbers now, but iirc, they could have their cake and eat it too ( sign young B+ players to multi year deals and still have enough financial flexibility to offer max deals in '15 and '16.
Actually, that's the one positive; he's played 29 minutes in Houston and 28 in Phoenix. He'll be on a similar minutes program since we have a B2B. Either way, he'll shoot 22-25 times these next two games. We're fielding a D-league roster and Kobe is going to go into gun slinging mode.
As far as I am concerned, Kobe can shoot as much as he wants. At least he can get some satisfaction from being a top 3 scorer this season. If he can stay healthy, of course.
