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Can the Lakers improve with Kobe Bryant making $30 million? | Ball Don't Lie - Yahoo! Sports
Due to those issues, some think the franchise should take more drastic measures. Kobe Bryant is set to make more than $58 million over the next two seasons, topping out at $30.4 million in the 2013-14 season making him the highest-paid player in the league by a wide margin. At that time, Kobe will be 35 years old. And while he's still a superstar, it's hard to imagine any perimeter player that age being worth that kind of money under a restrictive collective bargaining agreement.
So, as difficult as it is to imagine the Lakers without Bryant, Beckley Mason of TrueHoop writes that it might be in their best interest to part ways with Bryant:
Whether or not they knew league-wide austerity measures were in the offing in 2010, when they gave Bryant his last big extension, there's no debate that, in basketball terms, the Lakers drastically overvalued their star wing. He is now a volume scorer who is still an excellent player, but the fact is that players better than him -- like Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul -- are paid way less. Even supposing that, despite his age, Bryant's game somehow remains at its current level, the market price for a superstar has fallen precipitously since his last contract.
By the time Kobe's current contract nears expiration, it will be one of the worst in the NBA -- not because he will have deteriorated beyond recognition, but because the outrageous sum will have such a limiting effect on the Lakers' options. [...]
Is he worth destroying the most formidable frontline in the NBA?
Because, as everyone seems to tacitly acknowledge, that's how much Kobe Bryant costs.