Plaschke: Kobe Bryant has another lesson for Lebron James – How to withdraw you

The news seemed to be routine.

The branches could be clamor.

At the end of last month, Lebron James exercised his option from $ 52.6 million with the Lakers for the next season. It was a expected transaction that, at first sight tired, it seemed not to be a big problem.

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Obviously he would take the guaranteed money, more than anyone else in the championship as well as Brooklyn could give him.

Obviously he would remain in Los Angeles, where his son Bronny sits on the bench and his house sits on a hill and his myriads of activities are seated beautiful.

Of course, of course, of course … but …

Wait a minute. There was a capture.

For the first time since James arrived here seven years ago, there was no second or third or fourth year on his contract.

The Lakers did not offer him an extension. They refused to guarantee him a place here after next spring.

For the first time in his career as a Laker-In reality, the first time in his entire career of 23 years-James will play this season with an expiring contract.

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In NBA Speak, this means two words.

Commercial bait.

Except James has a no-trade clause, and it is unimaginable that he would agree to go to another team that he should sell off their list to combine his salary.

So for the first time, Lebron James Wiley, elusive and flexible is blocked.

It is blocked in a team clearly satisfying the needs of a different superstar in Luka Doncic.

To find out more: Hernández: Can Lebron James help Deandre Ayton to turn into a reliable center?

He is blocked in a team that could see his contract not as a resource but an albatro.

It is blocked in a team that could try to get rid of him but cannot.

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He is blocked in a team in which he said he wants to end his career, but where the final one could eventually be out of his control.

It could perhaps get rid of thinking about 29 November 2015.

This is the date on which Kobe Bryant, one month in his 20th season, officially announced his retreat.

Remember it, right? What happened after was the most surprisingly delicious tour for the season of sport history.

“I thought everyone hated me,” Bryant said at that moment. “It’s really nice, friend.”

He hates him? America loved him and showed him that love in every Arena of the NBA across the country, standing from one coast to another while taking a road towards that extraordinary career final of 60 points.

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The Lakers were generally terrible, the limp Bryant was mostly terrible, but the nights were completely magical, the villain from the stone face that opened to a national respect and admiration that did not know it existed. It was important that he saw him before retiring. It has become infinitely more important than he saw him before he died.

At the end of the tour I wrote: “… a final act that, in the typical way of Kobe Bryant, was different from any other in the history of American sports. Opening to a world of which he never trusted, becoming accessible and embraceable after years of stony intensity, Bryant has used the last five months.

Bryant had said before the season that he would never have a farewell tour, who did not want to be praised as baseball enthusiasts praised the prolonged retirement trip of the Derek Jeter of the New York Yankees.

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“We are completely different people; I couldn’t do it,” he said.

Yet sad with an expiring contract just like James, Bryant eventually wanted to do something that James could consider, giving the organization an advantage for reconstruction while controlling his narrative.

Before Bryant’s decision could be leaked, he announced it alone in an open letter to basketball who was so touching that he became an Oscar winning film. He even organized a copy of the letter, sealed in an relief envelope in gold, to be put on the seat of every fan who attended the game of that night at the then Staples Center against the Indian Pacers.

Not exactly a shirt, huh? It was elegant, it was classy, it was perfect, just like the tour, initially criticized in this space as being selfish before your humiliated correspondent finally realized that Bryant was right, it was really, really beautiful.

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“It’s fun. I had fun,” Bryant said. “It was nice to go from one city to another and say thanks to all the fans and be able to hear him in return.”

Do you feel it, Lebron?

This is not a call to James to retire, but a call to James to start considering how this will happen and how class lakers would nail it if it had happened here.

Of course, the situations of James and Bryant are not comparable. Although James is 40 years old and Bryant was 37 years old, James is still one of the best players in the League while Bryant was statistically one of his worst. And while James is still physically powerful, Bryant has never completely recovered from his torn Achilles and has been mistreated and broken.

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James could have more gas in the tank while Bryant was clearly done.

But James himself indicated that he probably remained at most remain. And each season his wounds become more insistent and debilitating.

And now that the Lakers have a new property without bonds with James, and now that the current direction has already given this team to Doncic, James doesn’t have much of a future here.

He made noise to return to Cleveland, and perhaps after this season he will want to return where his career began.

But if he is also thinking about retirement after this year-a legitimate option for the first time-I should not wait to do it while walking off the pitch following a loss of early round by a mediocre team of Laker.

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Nobody gets a retired tour like the Lakers. And nobody has ever made one like Kobe Bryant.

Definitely in the twilight of his career, Lebron James can learn from both.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.