In between taking plenty of nights off, plenty of shots on nights he does play, and trashing his current teammates, Kobe Bryant is setting his sights on next year with Rajon Rondo. In Steve Buplett’s piece from the Herald this morning, Kobe spent time laughing at the state of the Celtics’ current roster (see John’s morning dump) and also dropped this ultimatum:
While Mavericks owner Mark Cuban expressed confidence his club can and will sign Rondo to a new deal, Bryant told the Herald he’s not about to cease working on getting him to LA.
“No way,” Bryant said. “I’m not done. I’m not stopping until he signs an extension.”
Hmmm decisions, decisions. Re-sign for max money with a competent owner, great coach and deep roster, or go play with an aging, me-first star, a mess of an ownership situation and a depleted roster? If anyone can make this decision tough on Rajon, it’s master recruiter, Kobe.
I obtained access to a series of texts that Kobe sent Rondo as part of his courtship. Just call me the Bob Kravitz of NBA reporting, because this is definitely going to lead to tampering charges for the Lakers.
Kobe’s reasons Rajon should come to the dumpster-fire that is the Los Angeles Lakers:
“I’ll take you to breakfast in LA all the time. By all the time I mean only the mornings after games where you play off the ball and let me ‘do work’ on offense.”
“I saw you only took three shots in a game against the Knicks earlier this year. That’s when I knew in my heart that you needed to be here. There’s only one thing I like more than going to Germany for witchcraft/blood treatments and that’s point guards who know their role and do not take my damn shots.”
“If Robert Sacre (he’ll be our starting center next year, but don’t worry, it’s not like we’ll let him do anything) wins the opening tip, I’ll let you do your weird ball routine once every 15 games. The other 14, you know, I’ll handle the ball after the tip because… well… Kobe!”
“You don’t really have a nickname yet. I’m amazing at coming up with nicknames. Well, usually just for myself. I don’t really do it for others, but I could make an exception. Black Mamba and the Brown Penguin. How good does that sound, Rondo?!?!”
“I’ll begin trashing Jeremy Lin, Ramon Sessions and Smush Parker in interviews and tell everyone it’s unfair that I hadn’t gotten to play with a real point guard until you got here. I guess begin isn’t the right word… I’ll keep trashing them, though.”
“You’ll get to play Connect Four with Nick Young. I played Connect Four with him on the plane once. He asked me how many he had to get in a row to win. Actually, I just heard about that from someone else. You think I actually talk to teammates on the plane?”
“If you don’t sign here, I’ll kill you in cold blood. Hahahaha, I’m playing man…. No, but actually, I’m kind of serious :)”
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