Letters: What to do about Kobe Bryant

I no longer know whether Kobe will play or rest.

I no longer know whether having him on the court helps or hurts the Lakers.

And, with the top-five protected draft pick, I no longer know whether to root for the Lakers to win, or to lose.

Other than that it’s all very exciting.

Anthony Moretti

Lomita

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Someone needs to say it: Kobe, at this point, you’re embarrassing yourself. You’re tarnishing your legacy. It’s hard to watch you play at this level (three for 19 vs. the Heat, and there have been other similar games). Another year and a half of this? Of sitting out games with no specific injury, just old age? Of missing last-second shots again and again and again? Come on. Do the right thing. For yourself, if not the rest of us.

Frank Shapiro

Chatsworth

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Like an old boxer who should have known better, Kobe’s time to hang them up has come involuntarily. How sad to see it end like this. His playing days and minutes on court controlled of Byron Scott and the Lakers management.

Kobe can still salvage this inglorious situation by retiring on his own terms.

Rogelio Peña

Montebello

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And the hits just keep on coming with the news, maybe we should shut Kobe down to “preserve” whatever is left of his skills. This signing by the Lakers, and more specifically Jim Buss, is more akin to a golden parachute than a hard-earned paycheck.

I guess if you want to reward Kobe for all the years, that’s fine, but again, by doing so, you have hamstrung the organization for years to come.

I just wish Jim Buss had stuck to horse training, which was also disastrous for him, but it didn’t affect tens of thousands of fans.

Steve Owen

San Diego

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I clearly see Kobe’s shutdown plan as a future NBA players union contract demand: Any player with at least 15 years of employment can deny their team services under these conditions: 1. The team is losing too many games. 2. The networks have routinely dumped their national TV appearances. 3. The team desires to preserve future draft picks.

All of these demands fall under the basic human rights of privileged players; To be iced, rested, coddled and massaged in order to conserve their body and mind for hopefully, another multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract.

Eric Metzler

Idyllwild

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If the goal is for the Lakers to preserve their draft spot, shouldn’t they encourage Kobe to keep playing?

Fred Stern

Los Angeles

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The Lakers should turn Kobe into the NBA’s first closer. Bring him in fresh for the fourth quarter, then watch him run rings around the other team.

Dan Kelly

North Hollywood

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So Kobe is too old to play 40 minutes, but obviously wasn’t too old to sign his name to a two-year, $48-million contract.

Charles P. Martin

Los Angeles

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As long as Kobe is going to be out of the lineup anyway, could he do us hockey fans a favor by sitting on the Kings’ or Ducks’ bench during those games? Maybe that would generate the coverage of our two NHL playoff-bound teams that instead seems to be focused on a last-place basketball team going nowhere but down.

Andy Freedman

Los Angeles

Ohio statement

Ducks are quite versatile: They waddle, run, swim, dive and fly.

They also lay eggs.

Paul H. Brown

Newport Beach

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I will start by saying that I am a Pac-12 football supporter, although I am not a fan of Oregon and its rude and arrogant fans. That being said, it was still disheartening to see the team that easily won our conference get totally dominated in the championship game by Ohio State. For a number of years now they have won our conference but have been exposed as soft and undisciplined during the bowl season. It is time for the rest of our conference to catch up and compete nationally, because there is apparently nothing Phil Knight can buy to get Oregon over the hump.

Alan Abajian

Alta Loma

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Certainly Oregon didn’t expect to win the national championship dressed in Raiders colors. At least Donald was dressed in green and yellow.

Gary Zarubick

West Covina

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Ohio State’s Urban Meyer now qualifies as the worst role model in college coaching, not only for piling on the score at the end of the national champion ship game but for excessively acting it out on the sidelines. He will join a previous leader in this category when Jim Harbaugh returns to the Big Ten. Both will almost certainly come in ahead of Nick Saban next year in the bad sportsmanship competition.

So much for the fiction that college sports builds character.

Glen Mowrer

Santa Barbara

Sanction this

Now that the NCAA has done a total 180 with Penn State sanctions, when is Pat Haden going to man up and go after the NCAA? He has just lain down and allowed the NCAA to treat him and USC like its personal soccer ball. Since the near death penalty the NCAA gave USC, it has given every other offender a slap on the wrist, even though the other violations were more serious than USC’s.

Willis Barton

Los Angeles

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Now that the NCAA has restored all of Joe Paterno’s wins, it’s time to restore USC’s 2004 national championship. Whatever USC did is infinitesimal compared to what happened at Penn State. If the NCAA is willing to overlook the disgusting crimes that happened at Penn State, doing the same at USC only makes sense from an organization for which logical decisions are few and far between.

Erik Schuman

Fountain Valley

The pro game

Hey Dallas Cowboys, your loss to the Packers was biblical: “The referees giveth and they taketh away.”

David Waldowski

Alta Loma

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Best Hail Mary throw of the season involved Mike McCarthy’s red challenge flag on Dez Bryant’s catch.

Konrad Moore

Bakersfield

Nothing for L.A.

Poor Mayor Garcetti! Instead of crying over losing his bid to host the Olympics in 2024 (when he will be out of office) or trying to bring an NFL team here (forget it!), he should be trying his utmost to sate the 70% of his constituents who will not be watching their team on TV again this season. C’mon, Mr. Mayor, how about you concentrate your efforts on a settlement between Time Warner Cable (boo, hiss), and the Dodgers. Hey, it’s your city, do your job!

Manny Katz

Encino

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Dodgers Chairman Mark Walter is a hugely successful businessman who directs billion-dollar operations. If one of his employees ever concocted a TV deal that alienated 70% of his organization’s client base, I assume Walter would demand an immediate resolution or the employee would be fired. So, Mr. Walter, until your ill-advised cable money grab brings Vin Scully and the boys to TVs across SoCal, either put the Dodgers on KDOC or …

Jeff Green

Long Beach

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Enough already about a new NFL stadium and team. Here’s the obvious answer: L.A. gets an expansion team that plays all its games on the road. The team will be known as the Vagabonds, and will have a suitcase as its logo. With this arrangement no one will have to pay for a stadium, overpriced tickets, parking spaces or warm beer. Plus, there will be no increase in traffic or crime. Additionally, no games will be blacked out on TV. Seems to me like everybody wins. Or am I being too visionary?

Ron Fogel

Lake Sherwood

Sweet Lew

The statement in Bill Plaschke’s story about Wednesday’s USC-UCLA basketball game that the Trojans’ Bob Boyd was the only coach to beat John Wooden at Pauley Pavilion is incorrect. In the first game ever played at Pauley, Wooden’s two-time defending NCAA champion Bruins were soundly defeated — by the UCLA freshman team, coached by Jerry Norman and led by a teenager named Lewis Alcindor, later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Bart Robertson

Torrance

Tiger trap

Given his hire by LSU, will Ed Orgeron now be called Coach Eaux?

Nick Rose

Newport Coast

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