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[QUOTE="OrangeDW, post: 1739369, member: 2458"]
He didn't hurt the Lakers or make it hard for them to be relevant.  They were going to be horrible either way, Kobe's presence is the only thing that kept them at all "relevant"(not good, just relevant) and kept butts in the seats.

As I said earlier, the Chris Paul trade being vetoed is what led them to being in this position.  With that trade, the Lakers had acquired a superstar who would've given them a chance to win a championship right then(this was 2012, when they were still in the mix and going for it), and who would've been a franchise building block for the future and someone they could rebuild around.

Instead they didn't get him.   Gasol as a Laker was basically ruined, from that point forward and they pretty much had to trade him.   They desperately went for Nash, mortgaging more of the future for what ended up being a complete flop.

Kobe had zero negative effect on these last 2 years, IMO.   Nobody good would take their money anyway(they tried for Carmelo, Lebron, etc.), so they filled out their roster with cheap, short contracts, and basically gave the rest to Kobe, and sucked bad enough to get some high draft picks.   Now they've got 3 very promising young players in Randle, Russell, and Clarkson and even Nance looks like he's got some potential.  Plus they'll have a high pick this year, as long as it doesn't fall outside the top 5.   They're in decent shape going forward, provided a couple of those guys develop into all star type players(I think Russell and Randle both have a pretty good chance of that).
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