Kobe Bryant voiced his thoughts on how the management should make a decision about either to trade Pau Gasol or keep him at Los Angeles Lakers. General manager Mitch Kupchak responded in a statement that the team will keep its options open.
"As general manager of the Lakers, I have a responsibility to ownership, our fans and the players on this team to actively pursue opportunities to improve the team for this season and seasons to come," Kupchak said in the statement. "To say publicly that we would not do this would serve no purpose and put us at a competitive disadvantage. Taking such a course of action at this time would be a disservice to ownership, the team and our many fans."
Kobe Bryant defended Pau Gasol saying the four-time All-Star could not be fully invested in the season with the trade speculation lingering around. He said he prefers to keep Gasol.
"Nobody else is going to say it," Bryant said. "I'm the only one with cojones big enough to say it, so I said it."
"I don't know why you would trade Pau Gasol," he said on ESPN Radio. "We won two championships with him. He's definitely a great player. A top-two guy in the league at his position. So it's like, I don't really understand any of that stuff, but I don't have any say in it. I just have to keep going in and playing hard."
Magic Johnson, the vice president of Lakers, commented about Kobe Bryant's challenge to the front office, "I'm proud of Kobe for being a good teammate and being a good leader and voicing his opinion." He added that Lakers must make "one or two trade" before the deadline on March 15.
But Johnson thinks Kobe needs to sit down with Jim Buss, the Laker's vice president of player personnel, not Mitch Kupchak.
"[Kupchak is] not running the team," Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. "Jim Buss is running the team. So, Mitch has to follow the direction of Jim Buss and what he wants. I wouldn't say Mitch is the problem or anything. He's going to do his job.
"... I think what Kobe really probably wants is just be informed. As a leader, as a future Hall of Famer, as a guy who has brought five championships to the Lakers and the fans of Los Angeles, he just wants to probably have more communication, probably like he did when Phil Jackson was there and he worked well with Mitch. I don't think that Kobe feels he's got that type of relationship or the communication has been there with Jim.
"So, I think what has to probably happen is sit Kobe down [and] Jim, sit him down [too] and say, 'Hey, Dr. Buss was the master at taking you to lunch or taking you to dinner and really going over what he thought about, or what he was thinking and what he wanted to do with the team and Jerry West was great at that as well.' Kobe, Mitch and Jim just got to get on the same page and it will be OK."
