Kobe Rules out Utah

[fgrep15]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-lak ... nes-sports

The Utah Jazz is among the teams expected to have enough salary-cap space to court Bryant, but Bryant said he would not consider the Jazz, which he believes wronged Malone.

On that subject, he was effusive.

"Not the way they've been treating Karl," Bryant said. "They've been really unfair. Karl was here for 18 years, worked hard, put his heart into this organization. For them to let him go someplace else the following year, that's kind of dicey, to do that to a guy, that's not consistent. That's not loyalty…. The fact that he went somewhere, they should just let bygones be bygones. I don't understand the details of the relationship, that's not really important to me. But if you're looking at an organization, you've got to take that into consideration. I mean, that's just not right."

[.]

Good for him

[Matthew]

I think Utah wanted to resign him, but malone wanted a ring (or a chance at it). If kobe does leave for another team, do you think la might try and get penny hardaway to come to the lakers as some sort of replacement? I think he could play that kind of a role very well, especially if gp and malone return for another season.

[Stevan]

That's a bit hipocritical of Kobe, talking about loyalty and shit. The same guy who wants to leave LA/test free agency out of pure selfishness after they gambled on his ass when he was 18 and gave him a staring role. And let's be real, Kobe doesn't give a fuck about Karl Malone, they haven't even been together for a season. To even pretend to care "aww look what they did to Karl" is lame. Nobody actually likes Karl Kobe's just pissed off about the "skit".
And though I don't give a fuck about the Jazz, how about a different perspective...

Family dinner: Another reason the Jazz isn't your ordinary NBA team. To celebrate its victory in Seattle last week and re-entry into the playoff race, the entire team went for an impromptu dinner after the game. It was noted by free-agent-to-be Gordan Giricek, who said: "I don't want to say anything bad about Orlando (which traded him for DeShawn Stevenson), but the guys never went out to dinner together, and they do that here all the time."

And Utah management let Malone and Stockton stick around even after they got stale...

[Matthew]

Stevan don't hate on kobe! It's not his fault he's a jerk!

[Andrew]

If Kobe is suggesting the Jazz didn't show Malone any loyalty this past offseason (which is the impression I got from his remarks), then I disagree. The Jazz were certainly interested in retaining Malone from what I read in June/July of last year, but ultimately the Mailman decided to sign with the Lakers.

[GloveGuy]

I don't know if it was the Jazz organization as a whole who was responsible for this, but wasn't there a little skit that the Delta Center guys did on the P.A. concerning Kobe's current situation?

It was like Karl Malone (not the actual one) saying "Well atleast I'm not where Kobe is" or something like that. It was just a little joke but it was pretty disrespectful to both players. It might've just been the workers at the Delta Center who were behind it.

[Ruff Ryder]

I don't know if it was the Jazz organization as a whole who was responsible for this, but wasn't there a little skit that the Delta Center guys did on the P.A. concerning Kobe's current situation?

It was like Karl Malone (not the actual one) saying "Well atleast I'm not where Kobe is" or something like that. It was just a little joke but it was pretty disrespectful to both players. It might've just been the workers at the Delta Center who were behind it.

Man, where have you been! That was a month or more ago. Yes that's right, there's a thread somewhere about it.

[Andrew]

I don't know if it was the Jazz organization as a whole who was responsible for this, but wasn't there a little skit that the Delta Center guys did on the P.A. concerning Kobe's current situation?

It was like Karl Malone (not the actual one) saying "Well atleast I'm not where Kobe is" or something like that. It was just a little joke but it was pretty disrespectful to both players. It might've just been the workers at the Delta Center who were behind it.

That skit was certainly in poor taste, and I don't blame Kobe for ruling out Utah. I just disagree with his suggestion that Utah wronged Malone this offseason. The Mailman decided to sign with Los Angeles, there was little Utah could do about it. Unless there was a huge disagreement that somehow managed to stay behind closed doors, no one was really to blame there; Karl simply decided to move on.