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Agent Zero

The Results Of Kobe's Trade Demands

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Hey guys, what's good? I came across this interesting article about how Kobe's trade demands from couple of years ago could have changed some things so I figured I should share it:

 

Back in 2007, Kobe Bryant was throwing a temper tantrum in Los Angeles, alternately demanding to be traded yet also saying he wanted to stay in LA. At the same time, Kevin Garnett was being shopped around by the Minnesota Timberwolves. He ultimately went to Boston, where he immediately helped turn the franchise into a champion... beating Bryant's Lakers in six games.

 

But it almost worked out differently. On the Dan Patrick show today, Garnett revealed he was pretty close to becoming a Laker.

 

On nearly joining the Lakers in 2007.

 

"I was pretty close at the time... It was my choice not to go to the Lakers. There was a lot going on (in LA) so I wanted no part of it."

 

Patrick asked Garnett if his reluctance had anything to do with the Kobe Bryant/Phil Jackson feud. KG would only say "a lot was going on."

 

That's as close as you're going to get to KG flat out saying Kobe Bryant's actions that summer cost the Lakers his services.

 

Enter the "butterfly effect."

 

First of all, and I won't dwell too much on this, the resulting player movement would have been league changing. The Celtics may never have returned to championship form. The Grizzlies wouldn't have made the moves that got them the playoff success they enjoyed this past season. Where would Pau Gasol have gone? Would Paul Pierce have asked out of Boston? We can speculate on that forever, but there is one definite chain of events that doesn't occur.

 

If Kevin Garnett had gone to Los Angeles, Javaris Crittenton would not have been traded to Memphis in the Gasol trade. That means he would not have been traded to Washington. And that means the Gilbert Arenas gun incident never happens.

 

Where do we go from there? Who knows. Without the gun incident, maybe Arenas doesn't get run out of town. He may have, because he still acts like an ass whenever he can, but the circumstances almost certainly would have been quite different. Maybe John Wall goes somewhere else. And Orlando's fate certainly changes as well.

 

And it's possible Javaris Crittenton wouldn't be sitting in a jail cell, too. His life would have been markedly different. Without the trades, perhaps he would have stuck around in LA. Or he might have ended up in Minnesota. Who knows what a change of scenery would have meant for his career. Maybe that would have put him on a different enough path to avoid whatever happened the night that young mom was shot and killed.

 

If Kobe Bryant had played nice with the Lakers in 2007, Kevin Garnett may have become his teammate, Gilbert Arenas might never have been associated with guns, and a young woman in Atlanta might still be alive.

 

It's amazing to see how closely tied seemingly unrelated events are.

 

http://www.bloguin.com/crossoverchronicles/2011-articles/september/kobe-bryant-may-have-cost-the-lakers-kevin-garnett.html

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Well, everything in life is controlled by decisions, big or small. One decision leads to another. One decision can change your life. Every decision actually changes your life, since you are altering something. Might be altering your life or someone elses. You decide to walk this path, the other doesn't get available until later or even closed for good.

 

But this is kind of a weird article but it's not BSing, but it's almost saying that Kobe's to blame for a woman being killed. Well, we all make these kinds of decisions. Who knows, we might get a hint of road rage and decide to speed through traffic, swerving between cars and we get home, safe, think all went well... but we don't know if our actions caused someone to get a heart attack and is sent to the hospital where that person gets better, but while walking down the corridor, accidentally bumps into the water cooler, which falls down and water spills into the electric socket, causing a fuse to blow and thus that corridor losing power for a split second, leading to a equipment failure in room 407 which cuts oxygen supply to a patient, who dies... So we are kind of responsible for his death.

 

Everything happens for a reason. I once watched a video about traffic jams, why they happen. Have you ever been in traffic jams that seem to be there for no appearent reason? It's because someone hit the brakes unexpectedly, causing the cars behind him to slow down from 60mph to 15mph, and that effect continued for a good mile, causing traffic to eventually stop and it takes time for it to get going again.

 

So we could find endless amount of "what ifs" in history. It's just how the story unfolds :)

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Yeah, that article is BS to the extreme.

 

If you're going to go by that logic, you can put responsibility for that shooting on pretty much anything. If the Hornets hadn't traded Kobe to the Lakers, none of that other stuff would have happened at that woman would still be alive. If Kobe hadn't been born at all. If the NBA hadn't grown in popularity. If the Axis powers had won World War II. Etc.

 

Past events have an effect on present circumstances, but people are still responsible for their own actions. And aside from that, at this point we don't even know for sure that Crittenton was responsible for the shooting.

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I strongly agree with both of you, but I found the article to be more about notifying you how these particular events were related rather then putting the blame on somebody. Or at least that's why I posted it; to inform you about the relation.

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I strongly agree with both of you, but I found the article to be more about notifying you how these particular events were related rather then putting the blame on somebody. Or at least that's why I posted it; to inform you about the relation.

 

It's always kinda weird but in a sense amazing to look back and see how our lives and other peoples lives can change and take a new path with small changes, decisions and paths. A lot of "what ifs". But like Trivia Master said, we are of course still responsible for our own actions, but those actions might have been triggered by a minimal decision by someone else (who doesn't even know you or know about what happened) and it might have ended up badly for us.

 

Everything is connected in one way or another. Every move is made in response to another.

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It's always kinda weird but in a sense amazing to look back and see how our lives and other peoples lives can change and take a new path with small changes, decisions and paths. A lot of "what ifs". But like Trivia Master said, we are of course still responsible for our own actions, but those actions might have been triggered by a minimal decision by someone else (who doesn't even know you or know about what happened) and it might have ended up badly for us.

 

Everything is connected in one way or another. Every move is made in response to another.

 

Well said.

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I kinda read that as a way of saying "Dwight, if you don't shut up about not wanting to sign any extensions and keep insisting you want to test Free Agency, you might be scaring off the exact types of teammates you want". If Kobe hadn't been crying, then he would have had KG with him, and probably would STILL be winning titles even today. No, seriously. They'd lift the lockout today to let Kobe/KG win a title.

 

Maybe there's some kind of "KG" level star (maybe even a point guard) that REALLY wants to come to Orlando, but isn't willing to pull the trigger because of what he's hearing about Dwight maybe not staying. Maybe that player (stick with a point guard), instead elects to go to a different team (like New York), on the cheap. Then, with the addition of that player (keep thinking point guard), they win the next x amount of championships, making even Miami look like a JV squad.

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