You'll notice if you go to Kobe Bryant's Web site that his farewell message has been re-posted to the top of the page with today's date on it. The folks running that site have done that a couple times before, so it's questionable whether it's news that they did it again. Unless, however, you take it as a direct message from Kobe. If so, it's the latest in a weekend of developments that appear more and more to show the so-called "road ahead" ultimately leads elsewhere. And I'm becoming more and more persuaded that the final destination will be Chicago. After word came out late last week that Bryant had met in Barcelona with Lakers owner Jerry Buss to reiterate his trade request, Broderick Turner of the Riverside Press-Enterprise pushed the story forward by reporting that Chicago and New York were two of the three teams on Bryant's short list of franchises he would accept a trade to. ESPN colleague Ric Bucher moved the story further forward by reporting Saturday that the third team is the Phoenix Suns, and I'm hearing rumblings that Dallas could make the list, too. I'm also getting strong signals that the "list" will be a fluid thing from Kobe's end. I've been saying since this story first broke that Kobe could very well wind up with the Bulls or the Knicks. The latest information I'm getting is that Bryant feels the Bulls are a more desirable destination because he feels they're better equipped than New York to compete for a championship. I expect the Lakers to take one last hard run at placating Bryant by trying to make a deal to bring a top-caliber talent to L.A. to join Kobe. I was hearing at Game 4 of the NBA Finals in Cleveland that Los Angeles was making a push to acquire Shawn Marion from the Suns in a sign-and-trade deal that would send Luke Walton, another player and the Lakers' first-round draft pick to Phoenix, if the Lakers could draft Spain's Rudy Fernandez at No. 19. In any case, I expect the Lakers to bring a proposed acquisition of some kind to Kobe a few days prior to the draft and ask if that'll be enough for him to withdraw his trade request. And if Kobe says no, I expect the wheels to go in motion quickly. Any trade to Chicago would be a sign-and-trade deal (involving either Andres Nocioni or P.J. Brown) and thus could not be announced until after the free-agent signing moratorium ends July 12. But if the parameters of a deal were agreed to before draft night, the Bulls would be picking for the Lakers at No. 9 if that pick were to be included in the package Chicago would be sending to Los Angeles in a Kobe deal. I wouldn't count Knicks president Isiah Thomas out, and I'd love to hear what he has to say about the idea that the Bulls would be better-equipped after a Kobe trade to win the East than the Knicks would be after a Kobe trade, but he's in his bunker and is not speaking publicly. If Isiah is somehow going to be working behind the scenes to change Kobe's mind, that probably won't happen until late this week after Bryant returns from Europe. Stay tuned.
As dumb as Mitch may appear to be, I don't think he lose all the common sense cells in his brain to trade Kobe to a Western Conference team, let alone a Division rival! New York has NOONE a good GM would want for Kobe. Deal can't happen there. So it's gotta be Chicago.
