Kobe Bryant: I Took A Discount To Stay With Lakers

Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant is defending the $48.5 million contract he signed last year.

Kobe Bryant took a lot of heat from NBA fans for the two-year, $48.5 million contract he signed with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2013.

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In an era where we often see star players take discounts to help their franchise’s build championship teams around them, Bryant took a deal that paid him more than what his talent is currently worth.

However, Bryant does view his monster deal that way.

The five-time NBA champion told the Los Angeles Times that he believes he took a discount:

"“Did I take a discount? Yeah. Did I take as big a discount as some fans would want me to? No,” he said. “Was it a big enough discount to help us be a contender? Yeah.”"

In a sense, Bryant did take a discount, considering he could have asked for a max deal that the Lakers probably would have given to him because they couldn’t afford to lose one of their best players of all-time.

Still, let’s not pretend that Kobe made some great sacrifice. Bryant could have taken a deal like the three-year, $25 million deal Dirk Nowitzki signed with the Dallas Mavericks this past summer and opted for a deal that overpays him from strictly a basketball standpoint.

This isn’t to knock Bryant. He took what was offered to him and he’s entitled to that.

But the Lakers are among the worst teams in the NBA right now and it’d be foolish to believe Bryant’s contract is somewhat responsible for that.

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