Lakers’ fans shouldn’t get too excited over Arenas trade talk

WASHINGTON -- When the Chicago Bulls announced Thursday that they were pulling out of the Trade-for-Kobe sweepstakes, my mind went to the one player in the NBA the Lakers should want in exchange for Kobe Bryant.

If I ran the Lakers and I was going to accommodate Kobe and trade him, there’s only one player who would be on my radar, a player who could sell a ticket or two in Los Angeles, a player who can score nearly as much as Kobe, who’s younger than Kobe, who might get along with the existing Lakers better than Kobe does.

And that, boys and girls, would be Gilbert Arenas.

Look, there are only a handful of players who would give the Lakers even close to equal basketball value for Kobe. Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Dirk Nowitzki, maybe Tracy McGrady, maybe Carmelo Anthony.

It’s an elite group. And each of those players, except McGrady, is untouchable to his current team. Well, just a hair outside that group is Arenas. OK, not one of those guys is to the box office what Kobe is, but if the Lakers trade Kobe they’re simply not going to get anything close to that star appeal.

Arenas is from Los Angeles. As much as he has come to love D.C., L.A. is home. Arenas has also said he’s going to explore free agency after this season. So if the Bulls are out, it simply makes sense that the Lakers, if they’re still trying to trade Kobe, would look to the Wizards and ask about some package that centers around Arenas.

Arenas knows this. He wrote in his blog this week, “For the last couple of weeks people have been calling me saying, ‘Are you coming back to L.A.? They’re talking about you and Kobe getting traded for each other.’ And I’m like, ‘Sounds nice . . . NOT!’ Nothing against getting traded, but that would be a dumb thing on the part of the team who is accepting me because, don’t they know I’m (going to be) a free agent? To all my friends at home who want me to become a Laker, if you have NBA LIVE ’08 you can fantasy draft me, because otherwise, I don’t think that’s happening any time soon.”

Of course, that ignores the point that if the Lakers wanted Arenas they could simply offer him a contract extension.

And it ignores another larger point: The Wizards aren’t going to trade Arenas and a couple of other players for Bryant. Team President Ernie Grunfeld has said multiple times, for the record, that the Lakers have not called the Wizards about a Kobe-for-Arenas deal.

That, of course, was before John Paxson, the Bulls GM, announced Thursday, “There’s not going to be a deal done.” There was the rumor of a three-way trade that would land Ben Gordon and Shawn Marion in Los Angeles, Tyrus Thomas in Phoenix and Bryant in Chicago.

There was another rumor that had Gordon and P.J. Brown going to Sacramento, Ben Wallace and Ron Artest to the Lakers and Kobe to Chicago.

The rumors were flying so fast and furious, Bulls players were showing the strain before the season-opening loss in New Jersey Wednesday night. “I think today sends a message to our players that nothing’s going to be done,” Paxson told reporters in Chicago.

So, what’s next? If I was serious about trading Kobe I would call the Wizards about Arenas, who at 25 is four years younger than Kobe and much cheaper at the moment.

And if I ran the Wizards I’d say: Thanks, but no.

Start, as everything does, with the money. Arenas makes $11 million while Kobe makes $21 million, plus gets a 15 percent lump sum in a trade clause. So, the Wizards would have to include at least a couple of other players.

Maybe Antawn Jamison or two of the younger players the Lakers probably aren’t interested in. Kobe loves Caron Butler, so he probably wouldn’t sign off on any deal (Kobe has to approve the trade) that would send Butler back to the Lakers, and the Wizards would be crazy to deal their best two players anyway.

If the Wizards did that they’d be the Washington Lakers, a team with nothing more than Kobe.