What to do with Kobe?
Considering the Lakers' ineptitude in recent years, it's amazing that it's taken this long for this to happen. But now it's official. Kobe Bryant has asked to be traded. So if you're the Lakers brass (Mitch Kupchak, Jim Buss, an the drunk-and-jailed Jerry Buss) what do you do? To me, there are only three available options:

A) Trade Kobe
B) Keep him and stay the course
C) Finally give up on the Andrew Bynum experiment and get Kobe some help

Let us first examine option A. What would happen if the Lakers were to trade Kobe Bryant? First of all, it would be years before this scenario could turn out well for the franchise. Kobe, along with Tim Duncan, are the only two pantheon players still in their primes today. Keep in mind, the pantheon is reserved only for those dominant, multi-ringed players that define their generations: Jordan, Magic, Bird, Russell, etc. Is there any way to get even money for Kobe right now? Of course not. He's the best player in the NBA. You would have to get a superstar and an All-Star back in return, and no team both has them and is willing to give them up. The only thing other teams are willing to offer is a package of young emerging stars, draft picks, and maybe one established All-Star.

A Phoenix package of Shawn Marion, Boris Diaw, and picks is enticing. So would be Chicago's Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, and Tyrus Thomas. But would neither would equal Kobe's worth not only to the Lakers, but to the city of Los Angeles. Right now he is the only reason the Lakers sell out and have the nerve to keep ticket prices as high as they are. Los Angelenos don't go to Staples to see Brian Cook's shooting, or for Smush Parker to go 2 for 7. They come for the possibility that Kobe could drop 60 on any given night. No player or package of players the Lakers could get in return can offer that same excitement. Not even close. Even if the team were to improve with a trade, they certainly wouldn't be championship caliber. And only that level of a team would justify spending hundreds of dollars to watch a basketball game.

Option B is for Laker management to keep Kobe, tell him they're doing everything they can to win now, but continue at the pace they were on anyway. This would seem to calm the waters for a little while and buy the Lakers some time, but in the long run it wouldn't work either. It wouldn't take long for Kobe to figure out that nothing is changing. Then you'd have a disgruntled superstar wasting away his prime on a team of scrubs. Kinda like what happened the last couple years, except Kobe would be angry instead of hopeful. This would be a disaster. He would turn on the organization, continually complaining to the media and throwing management under the bus.

Keep in mind, Kobe with Laker fans is a little like a toned down version of Barry Bonds and Giants fans. Outside of San Fransicso, everybody hates Bonds, and outside of LA, everybody hates Kobe. If the Lakers were to keep him and leave him unhappy, his constant jabbing at ownership and complaining of his situation would get old. There are two more full seasons left on his contract before he can opt out. Two more. People would turn on him. They would get tired of hearing it after two whole years, and Kobe's only group of support (the Laker fans) would just want him to go away and end the pain. I would rather see Kobe traded than for this scenario to play out.

The third possibility seems like the most sensible. These days, however, most NBA teams seem to require complete and utter lack of common sense for their management teams. The Lakers need to up and trade Andrew Bynum already. They first drafted Bynum on the recommendation of Jim Buss, and since then he has become Buss' pet project of sorts. Once he started showing flashes of improvement, "Drew" became a coveted and valuable trading chip. But what's the point of having a trading chip if you're not gonna trade it? Buss has been reluctant to let Bynum go, for he sees the kid as a symbol that he'll know what he's doing when he inherits the team in future years. What he fails to realize is the mere fact that we can get value for the guy is validation enough. It was a good pick. Now it's time to let him go.

In the past year or so, the Lakers could have OK'd deals that would have brought Jason Kidd, Carlos Boozer, or Ron Arterst to the team, if they'd only been willing to give up Bynum. Yet, they were unwilling to do so, hoping that Bynum would develop further. Let's be clear about one thing: Andrew Bynum is never going to be great. He might be a quality player, a solid center in the league, and might even make a couple All-Star teams. But he will never be good enough to be a franchise center. The Lakers are stupid for not realizing that already. It is obvious that the team has visions of the future, while Kobe has a desire to maximize his prime potential. They are on two different planes of existence.

If you're the Laker brass, you cannot under any circumstances allow for scenario B. Either give up on Bynum and get Kobe some help, or get something for Kobe and rebuild. It seems unfathomable to me that they would have let it come this far, but here we stand. At least we now know they won't be renewing Phil Jackson's contract.