Rather than humor Bryant, they didn't trade Bynum for Jason Kidd, who, great as he is, wasn't the answer in Dallas where the Mavericks ran isolation plays and wouldn't have been the answer in the triangle offense's two-guard front.
Rather than cut costs, Buss, who already had a team that could contend for years with Bryant and Bynum, took on a commitment that could reach $96 million in salary and luxury tax the next three seasons to get Pau Gasol.
(Not that that was an act of charity either. Who do you think will pay that tab?)
(You, that's who.)
Bryant wasn't alone in his suspicions. In the Lean Years, a lot of people in the organization thought Buss was cutting costs to save for his estate tax bill.
Phil Jackson once even mentioned it. I told him that wasn't the way I saw Buss. "Then," I noted, "there's your $10-million salary."
Finally, despite Bryant's personal attack, Buss never stopped hoping he would stay, even if he wavered in Honolulu last fall, saying he would "definitely" listen to trade offers.
When Bryant took that as yet another betrayal, demanded to be traded anew and to participate in the process while sitting out three days of practice the week before the opener, events seemed to be tumbling out of control.
You wouldn't think they could have gotten here from there, but here they are.
Bryant, asked daily about last spring's meltdown, suggests, however whimsically, that it had its pluses ("It takes pressure sometimes to make a diamond").
It's understandable. It's just not enough, or even close.
The Kobe Bryant who started on this journey had some ability to figure out when he was wrong, although it was never the thing he did best.
What he always did best was be a totally stand-up guy when he realized he was wrong. It'll be interesting to see if that Kobe survived.
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mark.heisler@latimes.com
