Lakers' "Ghost" Haunting the NBA

Almost a year ago, after tours in New York and Orlando, Trevor Ariza returned to Southern California, where he’d played his high school ball, winning a state championship, and played his lone year (2003-04) of NCAA basketball at UCLA. Ariza, a second-round pick (43^rd overall) of the Knicks in 2004, spent 3+ seasons with the Knicks and Magic, playing sparingly, putting up nothing-special numbers on series of nothing-special (a generous assessment) teams. There was never any doubt about his athleticism, but not many predicted that Ariza would emerge as the second-coming of Michael Cooper.

The November 20, 2007 deal that saw the Lakers sent a package of Brian Cook, a seven-footer with a good outside shot (but not good enough to justify his lack of improvement in any other area) and another athletic defender, Maurice Evans, to the Orlando Magic, in exchange for Trevor Ariza, hardly had the look of an impact move. While the Lakers were getting younger by acquiring Ariza, then just 22 years of age, Evans (29 at the time) had been playing very well in a similar role as the team had run out to an unexpectedly strong start. Why rock the boat? As it turns out, Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak (to whom I owe several apologies!), knew exactly what he was doing! Ariza was not a younger, more athletic version of Mo Evans, the departure of Cook freed up floor time, which was well-spent, as it was during these minutes that the emergence of Andrew Bynum took place.

Despite losing much of 2007-08 to a broken foot, Ariza brought a level of speed, athleticism and defensive intensity to the 2/3 position that is matched by only one other Laker- Kobe Bryant. It is exactly this that has made Trevor Ariza so valuable; while Kobe Bryant can match Ariza in terms of both physical tools and defensive prowess, he is also counted on to be the Lakers’ most dominant offensive player. Trevor Ariza makes it possible for Kobe to not have to guard the opposition’s best offensive player, protecting him from foul trouble as well as fatigue from having to play the most challenging role at both ends of the floor.

But as good an on-the-ball defender as Ariza is, it is his ability to find the ball and make plays coming off the weak side that truly set him apart. It's this talent that has led Lakers' coach Phil Jackson to call Ariza "the Ghost", saying that "Sort of a stealth player. Just all of a sudden he shows ... and he's gone. He's a blip and he's away." Not only is Ariza as good as there is in the NBA at coming from a ballhandler’s blind side (2.2 spg), he's an excellent rebounder (5.2 rpg; ~10.6 reb/48 minutes) as well. Also, he’s proven to be a solid, and ever-improving, offensive player as well, averaging 10 points a game, while shooting better than 50% from both the field (51.2%) AND 3-point range (54.5%), and not giving away possessions (.7 TO/g).

Following a trade that turned very few heads at the time, Trevor Ariza has turned out to be an outstanding find for the Lakers, contributing defensive intensity and incredible athleticism to what may already be the NBA’s deepest and best team- all while flying under the radar.

Let's See What We've Got

It’s time to stop protecting Andrew Bynum- let’s throw him into the fire and see what we’ve got. By now everyone knows that last season the Lakers’ belief in Bymun’s potential as a franchise center led them to pass up the opportunity to acquire Jason Kidd, drawing the ire of Kobe Bryant and contributing, at least in part, to his desire to leave the Lakers. The Lakers’ front office made an executive decision and now the team has to live with it- but let’s start living with it already! Bynum is entering his third year, he’s visibly bigger and stronger than last year, he showed some flashes of his potential last season and had a very impressive preseason this year (He wasn’t terrible in his 19 minutes on Tuesday night either- just 4 points, but 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals and NO turnovers). What more are we waiting for? Name Andrew Bynum the starting center, start giving him some serious minutes and let’s see what the kid can do. Not that it was a conscious decision at the time, but dynamic duo of Mitch Kupchak and Jim Buss indirectly chose Andrew Bynum over Kobe Bryant last season. Time to start living with that decision.

Note: Apparently Bynum was late in arriving at the arena on Tuesday night, understandably leading Phil Jackson to bench him for a good portion of the game as punishment. However, let’s hope we’re not in for a season’s worth of 19-minute outings for Andrew Bynum.

How The Lakers Got Here

Will Kobe Bryant be traded?

There’s no doubt that until the issue of Kobe’s future with the Lakers is resolved, this will be the biggest question surrounding the 2007-08 Los Angeles Lakers. In looking to assign responsibility for the breakdown in the relationship between the league’s best player and his front office, it’s easy to be simplistic and resort to using absolutes to point the finger at the various players in this bizarre game. But it’s not a black-and-white issue. For more than three years trouble has been brewing, with several members of the Lakers’ organization adding to an increasing frustrating situation, culminating (for now) in one of the greatest players in franchise history demanding to be traded away from the only that he’s ever played for. So is the foundation of the dispute in Lakerland personal or professional? Actually, it’s both.

Not only has the front office failed to produce a championship contender in the post-Shaq, a series of personal agendas and conflicts have created an air of distrust throughout the Laker organization. What happened? How did we get here? Well…

The trouble with the Lakers can be traced back to June 2005. Fresh off an embarrassing NBA Finals loss against the underdog Detroit Pistons, the Lakers, whose “4 Hall of Famers” lineup (Kobe, Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone and Gary Payton) fell three wins short of its ultimate goal, were entering a period of transition. In the days following the end of the season, with Phil Jackson on his way out of town, the relationship between Shaq and Kobe now beyond repair and the local media screaming for change, general manger Mitch Kupchak and the new Lakers front office kicked off their legacy of personnel mismanagement.

In late June 2004, it became obvious that the organization would have to make a difficult decision. Shaquille O’Neal’s desire for a huge-money contract extension, combined with Phil Jackson’s exit, the advancing age of the rest of the Lakers’ core and the inability of Shaq and Kobe to coexist any longer led Mitch Kupchak to acknowledge that trading Shaq was indeed a possibility- thus alienating the team’s star center and surrendered any leverage the Lakers may have had in trying to deal him. Then, on July 14, 2004, the Lakers traded Shaquille O’Neal to the Miami Heat for a package of two talented young forwards (Lamar Odom and Caron Butler), power forward Brian Grant and a future first round draft pick. Obviously it would have been very difficult (impossible?) to receive equal value for Shaq, but Kupchak’s inability to add a legitimate star to the roster in the deal was an early signal of the tough times that were to come.

The following day, after briefly (and publicly) flirting with the idea of leaving the Lakers as a free agent, Kobe Bryant signed a seven-year, $136 million contract, feeding the public perception that the team’s only reason for trading Shaquille O’Neal was to appease Kobe. This not entirely true. The fact is that while Kobe Bryant was probably not heartbroken to see Shaquille O’Neal shipped out of L.A., Jerry Buss’ desire to avoid a) paying the NBA’s luxury tax and b) paying Shaq about $30 million a year into his 30s were the primary drivers behind the deal.

The 2004-05 season was a difficult one that saw the Kobe-led Lakers struggle to a 34-48 finish and just the second trip in franchise history to the NBA Draft Lottery. On draft day, Mitch Kupchak and new wing man Jim Buss (a far cry from the days of Jerry West and Jerry Buss teaming up in the front office), son of Lakers owner Jerry Buss, selected Andrew Bynum, a 17 year-old center from St. Joseph’s High School in New Jersey with 10^th pick in NBA Draft. Though he’s blessed with NBA size and has shown flashes of potential, a teenage center is hardly an ideal addition to a team looking to quickly return to contention (as had been promised to Kobe Bryant prior to his re-signing). This is especially true considering the fact that more polished, experienced players like Sean May, Danny Granger and Hakim Warrick still on the board.

However, the 2004-05 season was not without its bright spots. The newly acquired Lamar Odom (15.2 ppg, 10.2 rpg, 3.7 apg) and Caron Butler (15.8 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 1.4 spg; and the only member of the 2004-05 Lakers that was NOT deathly afraid of Kobe Bryant) put together very strong all-round seasons. Despite the risky selection of Bynum in the draft, the combination of Bryant, Odom and Butler, signaled the possibility of a rapid return to contention for the Lakers- then disaster struck! While it could be argued that the Lakers had to trade Shaquille O’Neal, the decision to trade Caron Butler to the Washington Wizards for Michael Jordan’s ill-fated #1 overall selection, perpetual underachiever Kwame Brown (who received a 3-year, $24 million contract extension upon arrival) will never be justified. It’s not clear which of the Keystone Cops in the front office signed off on this deal, but this trade could prove to be more damaging to the Lakers than the Shaquille O’Neal trade.

Following the return of Phil Jackson, the Lakers have progressed, making consecutive appearances in playoffs, even pushing the heavily-favored Phoenix Suns to the brink of elimination in 2005-06. However, at no point during this period have they contended for either a conference, or NBA, championship. The issue of finding a consistent floor leader to play alongside Kobe Bryant was nearly resolved before the 2007 trade deadline when the Lakers had the opportunity to acquire Jason Kidd from the New Jersey Nets. Inexplicably, the Lakers passed on the opportunity to team the league’s top offensive weapon with its top playmaker because Jim Buss, the West Coast equivalent of Hank Steinbrenner, was unwilling to part to part with “his guy” Andrew Bynum in exchange for the opportunity to once again be relevant in the Western Conference. It was this episode, combined with the Lakers’ lackluster playoff showing against the Suns and the realization that his front office was willing to risk the remaining years of his prime over personal agendas that led to Kobe Bryant’s trade request and.

So… that, in about a thousand words (I should have just used a picture!) is a breakdown of the managerial decisions that hampered the Lakers’ rebuilding effort of the past three years. While the petulance of Kobe Bryant and the arrogance of Jerry Buss to humor him in his game of chicken have not done much to help the situation in Lakerland, it’s the inability of the Lakers’ front office to devise a coherent plan for building a contending team around Kobe that has landed one of the NBA’s great franchises is disarray.

Tomorrow- could Kobe Bryant actually be traded? If so, what will the market bear?