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Kobe Bryant, more than anyone else, is responsible for the struggling state of the Lakers, writes Michael Ventre.

If Laker fans have doubts about Bynum, how do they think other GMs view the kid? Potential trade partners don’t want just a risky Bynum, they also want an established veteran of Odom’s caliber and probably another player and draft picks, which means that, if the Lakers did bring in another star, he and Bryant would be toiling alongside a playground team because of the gaping hole in the roster left after such a deal. For a reference, just check out the Kidd-Vince Carter-Richard Jefferson paradigm and count how many championships it has amassed.

While I believe Jerry West is the best general manager in the NBA of the past 30 years, the fact is that most of his magic had been accomplished under different rules. He was able to go out in the summer of 1996 and outbid the Orlando Magic for the services of Shaq; that, plus the drafting of Bryant, Derek Fisher and the signings of Robert Horry and Rick Fox soon after laid the groundwork for three straight titles. Those championships didn’t happen until the fourth season of the Shaq-Kobe alliance, after the Lakers hired Jackson.

Jerry West enthusiasts tend to credit him with everything save the discovery of a polio vaccine and the invention of the Internet. When they look back at his career all they see are parades and banners. But West went from 1988 to 2000 without bringing the Lakers a championship. And they had some lousy seasons in between.  And although West did a solid job rebuilding the Grizzlies in Memphis, they never got past the first round of the playoffs.

Excellence in the job of general manager/team president is cyclical, usually marked by periods of prosperity followed by periods of rebuilding. If it was easy to build a championship-caliber team, even the Atlanta Hawks might have had one by now.

For Bryant to petulantly suggest that he wants out if the team doesn’t bring in West and make major improvements is probably the most blatant example of the inmates running the asylum in NBA history. Bryant brought this upon himself because of his own stupidity.

There are different kinds of stupidity, just like there are different kinds of cancer. Bryant may seem outwardly shrewd, but his fatal character flaw has always been his pathological ego. It got him in trouble in Colorado, it caused him to pop off to Jim Gray about Shaq on national TV, and now it’s causing him to demand changes in management.

Bryant’s stupidity is the result of an insufferable ego that trumps any hint of good judgment. He’ll never admit that the Lakers are the way they are because he personally delivered them into Paul Pierce-Ville.

That’s why they need to trade him.

And this time, there will be no deadline. Many teams around the league would probably love to have Kobe Bryant, because many of them are run by dreamers who see the extraordinary basketball talent and ignore his selfishness. The Lakers could get a bountiful package of players and draft picks, and begin to move forward toward better days.

Kupchak would then be thrust into the unenviable position in history of having traded both Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant on his watch.

The difference will be that the former move shattered the franchise, whereas the latter will save it.

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Nathan Denette / AP

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