The Los Angeles Lakers pulled off one trade before the deadline sending point guard Steve Blake to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Kent Bazemore and MarShon Brooks. The move was more about saving money as the Lakers back $4 million in salary cap space and luxury-tax implications. While the move might help Los Angeles in the offseason, but certain teammates are not thrilled about the deal.
Kobe Bryant took to Twitter to express his displeasure over his teammate of four seasons being sent to a conference rival. The star tweeted out, "Not cool with Steve Blake being gone AT ALL One of my closest teammates and psycho competitor GS picked up gem #smartmove." So while the Lakers are busy trying to set themselves up to acquire a few big names to play with Bryant, the moving of Blake hurts the team's current status, making the star unhappy.
Mitch Kupchak said the move was not necessarily about creating salary cap space, but more so to acquire young talent to evaluate for the future.
"It really got to the point where we needed to free up some time in the backcourt to look at Jordan [Farmar] and give Kendall [Marshall] the time that he's earned and let's review and evaluate where we are with those two players," Kupchak said, via ESPNLosAngeles.com. "And the other part of it is, we got back two young players that are developing."
Bryant has been rather vocal this trading period about certain moves the Lakers appeared to be targeting. He defended Pau Gasol as the team dangled him for several months. Multiple teams inquired about the big man's price tag while Bryant requested Gasol goes nowhere this season. The Gasol trade was never finalized and Bryant says he is done giving his input on free agency decisions. Kupchak believes otherwise.
"I'm sure he'll tell me the players that he'd like to have, and if it's in line with what we would like to have, then I think there will be some influence," Kupchak said. "But if we're on opposite ends, then there probably won't be much influence."
While the Lakers might not have much hope for the current season, Kupchak has faith that next year will be a big improvement. With Bryant returning healthy and money to spend on free agents, the future could be bright in Los Angeles.
"Next year we're going to have Kobe, who is healthy," Kupchak said. "And we will have a good draft choice and we'll have dollars to spend on free agents. So, it depends on who we can get in this summer. I don't think that we'll use our cap money to patch together a team for next year. We're looking to bring something to Los Angeles. "
