Now that we see how everything turned out, perhaps that little meeting that Kobe Bryant had with Rajon Rondo earlier this month was more then just “two A-holes having breakfast,” as Rondo put it.
The Los Angeles Lakers were one of the first teams to make an offer for Rondo when the Boston Celtics put the veteran point guard on the market. According to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports, a deal could not be reached when the Lakers refused to include rookie Julius Randle.
During a recent chat with Sam Amick of USA Today Sports, Kobe was not shy in expressing his disappointment over the Lakers’ inability to land Rondo.
“Oh yeah,” Bryant said when asked if he was bummed out that Rondo was traded to the Dallas Mavericks. “Of course. Of course. But all you can do is control what you can control. We did our part. We did what we could. … It’s not from a lack of effort. It’s not from a lack of smarts, so I trust the process. It’s hard going through this (expletive), but our management will figure it out.”
Kobe was quick to point out that he trusts LA’s management group and is confident they will “get things turned around pretty quickly.”
It should be noted that the Lakers and Celtics are fierce rivals. While both teams stink at the moment, the last thing Boston would want is to trade Rondo to LA and have it come back to bite them down the road. For that reason, the price for the Lakers was probably slightly more steep than other teams.
And given the way the Lakers performed against the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday and some of the stuff Nick Young said after the game, you have to wonder if management should think about trading Kobe and starting a total rebuild.
