For Your Health; Lakers Oops! Ariza and Odom

So what’s on my mind this beautiful afternoon? It’s not that I don't care about Richard Jefferson dumping his fiancé the weekend of their wedding and then not letting his friends and guests know about it until a mere two hours before the ceremony; nor do I want to miss the opportunity to talk feverishly about President Obama’s thrilling first rainbow of a pitch in the all-star game which thank God made it to the catcher (better than Bush’s first.) It’s the fact that the Lakers are making some big mistakes right now, and that’s what’s important here.

You want Kobe to win six don’t you? I do. I want Kobe to win at least two more so we can furthermore and realistically debate him as the best ever; at least comparable to “His Airness” (MJ). But then Kobe fans around the world…unite with me on this one issue; what in the heck are the Lakers doing this offseason?

Let’s talk about ingredients to Kobe’s fourth championship for a brief moment, (and the Lakers 15th championship, as if that’s whats important). Well for one, we have Kobe. Oh, and then of course there was Kobe again, the Big Gas (Gasol), Lamar Odom, and ladies and gentleman Mr. Trevor Ariza. Bynum acted his attitude, Fisher pretended he was Robert Horry, and there was some bench play. Am I missing anything? Ok we can include Luke Walton and his eye liner.

So now let’s fast forward only a few weeks down the road. Trevor Ariza will be forced to play with “The Big Injury,” (Tracy McGrady), and “The Bigger Injury,” (Yoa Ming), Lamar Odom and his agent have seemed to forget that the difference between 52 million and 55 million dollars is the mere difference between being a winner and a loser, Kobe has publicly stated he wanted both of those guys back, Ron Artest will pretend that he didn’t almost lose it against Kobe and his ever so jarring elbows in the playoffs, and well yes of course, Luke Walton still dawns the ever so delightful yet peculiar eye liner.

In essence the Lakers have swapped Ariza for Artest, misplaced their negotiation tactics for what seems to be a stalemate with Lamar Odom, and let Derrick Fisher get older.

Artest is a good player; a defensive wizard, at times a good shooter, an alright ball handler, and a player I hate to watch play the game of basketball, let alone make millions of dollars doing so. The swap for Artest was a very bad basketball decision. With Ariza still “a rising” to his maximum potential, and his play this past season, especially in the playoffs, are the Lakers telling me they would rather have an aging, slower, self proclaimed “hood”, (look it up),fallen star rather than playoff hero, and high flyer Trevor Ariza? Well, in point of fact, that is essentially what the Lakers are telling me, and actually have already done.

So I’ll make my point here plain and simple. Artest is, a bad influence, a bad decision, quite frankly a bad person, and a worse fit for the Lakers than Trevor Ariza.

Will I still route for the Lakers when they make it back to the playoffs so Kobe can win his fifth? Well Of course I will, after all its Kobe Bryant. But, at the same time I’m going to be prepared. This is not the same team as last year with Ron Artest and possibly no Lamar Odom. In the time you read this sentence, Derik Fisher just got even older, and Bynum has been bothered by something else.

The Lakers should have focused on one thing this off season; keeping their team together. That means keeping Ariza and Odom. They didn’t. So prepare yourself Kobe fans. Embrace the off season championship feeling, and pray to everything that is almighty that Ron Artest doesn’t come out of the locker room wearing his own version of Luke Walton eye liner. Hey, it’s for your Health.