Los Angeles Lakers: Time To Say Goodbye To Kobe Bryant? (Part 1)

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The Los Angeles Lakers should have amnestied Kobe Bryant.

WAIT!

Before you exit the article and block this website, allow me to explain.

Kobe Bryant has undoubtedly had one of the best careers in the NBA.  That being said, given the Lakers’ salary cap situation, Kobe’s health and their desire to rebuild into a contender in the near future, the argument for amnestying Kobe is stronger than you might think.

This is the first part of a three-part series in defense of the argument that the Lakers should have used their amnesty clause on Kobe Bryant. Be sure to check back in tomorrow for the second part of the series.

Now, onto part one.

Kobe Is An Unaffordable Commodity

When the Lakers decided to amnesty Metta World Peace, the motivating factor was purely financial, as it saved them roughly $19 million this season, per Eric Pincus.

Unfortunately, amnestying World Peace did not put the Lakers under the $71.7 million luxury tax threshold. Understanding why this is important requires a bit of background knowledge regarding the new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

When the recent CBA was introduced, one of the major changes it included was a modification in how teams that violated the luxury tax threshold would be punished. In the past, teams that were over the threshold paid $1 for every $1 their team salary exceeded the tax level.

For example, in 2012-13, a team whose salary was $75.307 million, $5 million over the tax level of $70.307 million, would pay an additional $5 million in taxes, for a total bill of $80.307 million.

With the new CBA, teams will now pay an incremental rate based on their team salary. Here’s how the numbers breakdown:

Data courtesy of Larry Coon.

Laker fans love to mention how their front office is notorious for not caring about paying the luxury tax, but if amnestying World Peace is any indication, the impact of the new taxation may be having an effect on how Jim Buss feels about exceeding the tax threshold.

But wait, there’s more.

Starting in 2014-15, teams that are serial violators of the tax threshold (dating back to 2011-12) will be subject to a “repeater tax.” Essentially, if you are a taxpayer in at least four out of any five seasons, your tax rates go up.

A lot.

For the Lakers to avoid being subject to the repeater tax rates, they need to stay under the tax threshold for two straight seasons (2013-14 and 2014-15). Unless the Lakers are able to dump a few contracts, like Steve Blake‘s $4 million or Jordan Hill‘s $3.5 million, they’re likely to be a taxpaying team yet again.

Had the Lakers opted to amnesty Kobe, relieving themselves of his $30.45 million salary , they would have been well under the luxury tax and would have only had to remain under it one more season to wipe the slate clean.

If the Lakers could have avoided the luxury tax by amnestying Pau Gasol, why would they ever consider amnestying Kobe?

Well…

This Isn’t The Kobe Of 2008

For the sake of argument, let’s pretend that Kobe will be fully healed by the time the season starts. Let’s also pretend that Kobe stays healthy and posts the exact same numbers he did last year[1]. Based on the statistic, Wins Produced[2], created by Wages of Wins, Kobe’s overall production in 2012-13 earned approximately 10 wins for the Lakers.

According to Arturo Galletti at Wages of Wins, the value of one win is $1.47 million.

Even if we increase the value of a win to $2 million, the Lakers would still be overpaying Kobe by $10 million.

To put into perspective how much the Lakers are paying Kobe per win produced, let’s compare his value to a few other top NBA players.

According to this data, the Lakers are paying nearly twice the price of a win for every win Kobe produces, while Durant produces wins for his team at nearly $560,000 less than the established value of a win.

What if we assume that the players on this list were all paid as much as Kobe?

Finally, let’s assume each player produced the same number of wins as Kobe.

No matter how you cut it, Kobe’s production last season doesn’t justify his $30 million salary.

Just to be fair to Kobe, let’s take this a little further by assuming he produced at the level of his 2008 MVP season and the 2002-03 season where he had a career-high 14.1 wins produced.

Even at his very best, Kobe’s numbers do not excuse paying him as much as the Lakers do.

Given that Kobe’s production does not warrant a sufficient reason for him to be making $30 million and his massive salary puts L.A. in a precarious cap situation, the Lakers should have at least considered amnestying him in order to protect themselves from paying an exorbitant amount of money in the coming years.

In part two of this series we will address the idea that Kobe’s “clutch” shot making in big games adds to his value, as well as discussing his recent injury and the effect it will have on his future.

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[1] This is the scenario Andres Alvarez establishes in his discussion of Kobe at The NBA Geek.

[2] For a better understanding of how Wins Produced is calculated, I encourage you to read Wages of Wins methodology here: http://wagesofwins.com/how-to-calculate-wins-produced/