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Why Kobe should sign with the Jazz - and why it will never happen

All of a sudden, I have an insatiable appetite for crow. About seven years, $140 million worth. Just once, I'm hoping to be wholly and tremendously wrong.

For years, I've been a vocal and unapologetic critic of Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller, whose miserly spending ways have cost Jazz fans the chance to see a World Championship team. In a previous column, I wrote that Miller came across like a "gutless, penny-pinching coward." I'd like to eat those words. I'd like to regret them. But until Miller steps up to the plate and starts acting like the dedicated owner he so desperately wants us to believe he is, those words ring true to this day.

We're talking about a guy who, just a few years ago, said he would not re-sign Jazz legend John Stockton if it meant paying the NBA's salary cap luxury tax. We're talking about a guy who criminally underpaid for the services of future Hall-of-Famers Stockton and Karl Malone for the majority of their careers. We're talking about a guy who hasn't signed a big-name free agent since . . .okay, so he's never signed a big-name free agent. See what I mean?

He made a great offseason move four years ago, picking up Donyell Marshall in a trade with Golden State, finally adding another frontcourt presence to take some pressure off Malone. Not two years later, Miller squandered his best transaction in years, spurning Marshall and booting him out of town even though Marshall wanted to stay in Utah. Fast-forward to 2004, and the team is still in dire need of frontcourt help.

But we all believe in redemption, yes? Miller has a golden opportunity in front of him this year, an opportunity to atone for his past sins, to immediately put his team back on the map, and to shut me up about his spending habits. I'm talking about making the big splash of the summer and signing Kobe Bryant. Hey, with around $30 million in salary cap room, nobody's in a better position to sign him.

If you're laughing, I completely understand. You and I both know that such a deal would never, could never happen, not with Miller calling the shots. It's just not in his nature. And even if he was willing to make that kind of investment, which he isn't, it'd still be a longshot. After all, Salt Lake City isn't exactly the sexiest option out there.

Notice how no one--not ESPN, not Fox Sports, no one--is mentioning Utah as a possible destination for the most high-profile free agent in league history, despite the fact that the Jazz have more cap room than any team in the league. Miller has made it too painfully obvious over the years that he doesn't have the guts to go after Kobe, and so regardless of the best offseason opportunity Utah will ever see, Miller's mind is already made up, and everyone knows it.

Oh, but Larry--can I call you Larry?--I urge you to reconsider.

Just think about it for a second. With Kobe on board, you've got yourself a true franchise player and instant credibility. You've got yourself a player with three championship rings and a penchant for dramatic clutch moments that Utah fans are oh-so-familiar with (cough*Bryon Russell*cough).

You'd be adding Kobe to a Jazz team that proved last year it isn't nearly as far away as people think. A team that lost two Hall-of-Famers and still managed to finish with a winning record. A team that would have been the No. 4 playoff seed had they been in the Eastern Conference. Add Kobe to that lineup and the Jazz would only be a player or two away from being a legitimate Finals contender. Honest! You're telling me a Jerry Sloan-coached team with Kobe, Andrei Kirilenko, Matt Harpring, Raul Lopez/Carlos Arroyo, Raja Bell and Gordan Giricek couldn't shake things up in the West? Please.

Kobe, like all great players, always makes his teammates better - and Kirilenko, for one, is already on the verge of being one of the best players in the league. If Utah's young point guards could make some strides and the team can improve the center position, the Utah Jazz would be a team to be reckoned with. Add Bryant and two first-round picks in the mix and pick up another solid free agent for depth, and it would work out to a pretty nice offseason for Jazz brass. See? Isn't this plan coming together swimmingly? I swear, I should be running this team.

Hey, if I wanted to really go out on a limb, I'd say the Jazz should sign Kobe and bring back Karl Malone, seeing as how that whole "I'm-going-to-the-Lakers-so-I-can-finally-win-a-title" thing didn't quite work out as planned.

Of course, that kind of reunion is much too melodramatic. Such a scenario could only be penned by a Hollywood screenwriter - and a bad one at that.

But regardless of whether or not Miller is willing to shell out the kind of money needed to secure the league's best backcourt player, the character issues and Kobe's ongoing "legal troubles," as the politically correct insist on calling them, are bound to be at the forefront of any potential suitor's mind. Now before I get into a self-righteous rant about how Kobe is innocent until proven guilty (well he is, isn't he?), I will admit that his rape trial would definitely be an issue among Jazz fans--but only at first. It would pass as long as he put points on the scoreboard and a few more tallies in the win column. More than likely, Kobe will get acquitted this summer--in part because he has the best lawyers money can buy, and in part because the prosecution's case seems to get weaker by the day. If he does get off scot-free, sure, the controversy will linger for a while. But Jazz fans would get over it, just as they got over DeShawn Stevenson's statutory rape charge, just as they got over the revelation of Malone's two illegitimate children. Sports fans forgive and forget--just ask Ray Lewis.

(If, by the time you happen to read this, Kobe has already been convicted, just pretend I didn't say anything. In fact, just disregard this entire column.)

It's too bad, really, that the Jazz won't at least try to go after Kobe Bryant. Were the organization in different hands, the situation might be different. The Jazz might be the frontrunner at this point. Instead, Bryant's options are more limited. He could return to the Lakers, where he may or may not have to once again co-exist with Shaq, for a team that may or may not be rebuilding. Or he could go to the Suns, who have made no secret of their desire to bring him in.

The Knicks would be interested--because, of course, they're interested in any player who can increase their ever-ballooning payroll--but they have already ruined their salary cap situation so thoroughly and irrevocably, that's a practical impossibility.

The biggest rumor over the past year has been that Kobe would stay in L.A., and sign with the Clippers. But the notion that Bryant would willingly go to what is arguably the worst organization in all of sports is simply not very feasible, City of Angels or not. If Clippers owner Donald Sterling did somehow sign Kobe, he'd probably just get drunk and lose him in a poker game or something. You think I'm exaggerating.

When your team has the most salary cap room in the league and still no one expects you to make a splash in the free-agent market, that's a problem. Character questions aside, Kobe Bryant would be a perfect addition to the Utah Jazz, and the Jazz would be a perfect fit for him. He likes his solitude and wants to raise a family. Where better than the Salt Lake Valley? He wants to have a team to call his own. Where better than a young, talented team without a go-to guy? And yet the notion of Kobe in a Jazz uniform is still a laughable one. It's a pity--I really thought I was on to something.

Copyright © 2004 by Chris Bellamy

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