A Kobe Trade That Works

I saw that LA, Chicago, and Sacramento had a Kobe Bryant deal that fell apart. While it seemed odd at first, these teams could work out a deal to benefit all parties involved.

Thanks to the ESPN's NBA trade machine, I was able to come up with this deal.


The Lakers get Mike Bibby and Ron Artest from Sacramento and Ben Wallace from Chicago.

Sacramento gets Lamar Odom from LA and Ben Gordon from Chicago.

The Bulls get their man, Kobe Bryant.

In this deal, Chicago gets Kobe to essentially be Michael Jordon 2.0. They also get rid of Ben Wallace's bad contract.

Sacramento gets to officially start over, building the team around Kevin Martin (who can run a big point guard) Ben Gordon (who can be a short shooting guard, although they would check the player on the other team closest to their height), and Lamar Odom.

The Lakers get to still be competitive with Bibby, Artest, and Ben Wallace. These players would probably fit in better with the other Lakers than Kobe anyway, and perhaps Phil Jackson can contain Ron Artest like he did Dennis Rodman.

Here are the potential Lineups for each team.

Chicago Bulls

C Joe Smith
PF Tyrus Thomas
SF Luol Deng
SG Kobe Bryant
PG Kirk Hinrich

LA Lakers

C Ben Wallace
PF Kwame Brown/Brian Cook
SF Ron Artest
SG Luke Walton
PG Mike Bibby

Sacramento

C Brad Miller
PF Shareef Abdur-Rahim
SF Lamar Odom
SG Ben Gordon
PG Kevin Martin

All three of these teams are now quality teams, with problem players getting fresh starts.

The Bulls, however, transform from a good team to the best team in the league beside the Suns and Spurs, if that.