Los Angeles Lakers: Amnesty Kobe Bryant? It’s the Right Move

Kobe Bryant won’t be around for the playoffs, even if the Los Angeles Lakers are, after tearing his left Achilles’ tendon on Friday, April 12. Photo Credit: Keith Allison (Flickr.com)

After Kobe Bryant went down Friday, April 12, with a torn left Achilles’ tendon and subsequently underwent surgery the next day, the questions already were pouring in?

When can Kobe be back? Will he be the same?

And then the big one: Should the Los Angeles Lakers consider using the amnesty clause to get Kobe Bryant’s $30.5 million salary for 2013-14 off the books?

According to the Los Angeles Times, Bryant will miss six to nine months with the injury. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said that having Bryant back for the start of the 2013-14 season is a “realistic goal.”

But with the Lakers currently broiling in salary cap hell, perhaps the unthinkable should be considered.

Los Angeles has four players who would be eligible for the amnesty clause. Bryant, with one year and $30.5 million remaining on his contract, is one. The others are Pau Gasol (one year,  $19.3 million), Metta World Peace (one year, $7.7 million) and Steve Blake (one year, $4 million).

To be eligible to be amnestied, a player had to have been on the team’s roster in July 2011.

Assuming Dwight Howard re-signs with the Lakers for a maximum deal, he would be paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $20.5 million next season. That would put the Lakers’ payroll at more than $100 million—assuming World Peace does not invoke his early termination option and the club renounces their rights to their other impending free agents, including Earl Clark and Devin Ebanks.

That means the Lakers would get a luxury tax bill from the NBA for somewhere in the neighborhood of $85 million.

By invoking the amnesty clause, the Lakers could free $30.5 million from their books and save a ton in tax payments.

But beyond that, their situation would improve in many other ways. The Lakers would be able to actually add to their roster as they would have a full midlevel exception. The biannual exception would also be available to them and the team would be able to participate in sign-and-trade deals. Because of their position above the luxury tax threshold, none of those options are currently available to the Lakers.

And the best part is that the Lakers could bring Bryant back in 2014-15. Teams that use the amnesty clause are prohibited from re-signing that player until the amnestied contract would have expired.

In Bryant’s case, that would be the summer of 2014.

How is this not a best-case scenario for everyone involved?

Bryant gets an embarrassingly large stack of cash and a year to get himself back into playing shape, without the burden of having to try to rush back.

The Lakers get some relief from the cap and can try to put a roster together that has a bit fewer miles on the tires.

The move wouldn’t be without some risks, of course. The fan base in Los Angeles may very well go indiscriminantly nuts were the Lakers to cut Bryant.

But there’s a way around that.

If it’s Kobe’s idea, why wouldn’t the fans accept it? If Bryant were to go public and ask the Lakers to use the amnesty clause on him, he’d look like the good guy (a good guy surrounded by the proverbial overstuffed bags of money, but still a good guy).

And he’d be back the following season.

Of course, that sort of deal is strictly verboten. And if you think gentlemen’s agreement between players and clubs don’t happen with alarming regularity, I have some oceanfront property I’d like you to consider buying.

It’s just outside of Grand Forks, N.D.

Of course, Kupchak said Saturday he hasn’t even considered such a move.

“That’s not even something that we’ve discussed,” Kupchak told the Times. “That’s the furthest thing from our mind right now.”

Maybe it shouldn’t be.

NOTE: Salary data from hoopshype.com.