Wha? Fu-- What the? Wha...?

It's all falling apart for the Lake Show. The wheels have come off and Jerry Buss has finally (FINALLY!) been outed as the drunken bastard who wrecked the car. All the misinformation around Kobe, all the lies, all the deceipt, all the reluctance to be a competitor these past three seasons... it's finally caught up to Buss and Kupchak who are now rivaling the likes of Isiah, Ainge, and Babcock for GMs with the least sense, hell-bent on being recognized as absolute trainwrecks. In Buss' case, trainwrecks that blow a code red on the breathalizer with a 23-year-old prosti in the car.

The analysis is going to fly in from all directions and the trade rumors will swirl for ever until a trade finally happens -- likely another fifty cents on the dollar firesale, like with Shaq. I'm just not ready to deal with it, yet. It's too soon and I feel too jaded, too angry, too used by this organization to do anything, right now, but vent. Maybe punch a wall or Jerry Buss in the face. I mean, what do we have with this freaking team? Odom's having surgery (good luck trading him, now), Kwame (still makes me sick that he's on the roster at all) is having surgery, Luke Walton's a free agent (and why would he ever come back if Kobe left?), Phil Jackson can only turn great teams into elite teams and not bad teams into good teams -- so he's a waste -- and Shaq has corroborrated everything that I (and the rest of the world, as of this morning) know to be true. But hey, at least we have Andrew Bynum, right? The slime so closely associated with Hollywood is by no means restricted to the movie industry. Not in this town.

A desperate plea: Kobe, you're completely in the right. Completely. And if anything, it's Buss and Kupchak who should be getting carted off to the morgue instead of you bolting out of town to play in what? Chicago? Dallas (God forbid)? But please, please, as a fan who you've no personal connection or obligation to, stay. I don't think I could stand it, as a Lakers fan, if this franchise gave away the two most dominant players in the league in so short a span. I might never recover. My benders will stretch for months instead of the casual days. And in the likely event that you refuse, know that I understand your Machiavellian mind. You know full well that you're the biggest attraction in the league. Hell, I watch this team every night almost exclusively to see you light it up. But just as you know you're the reason anyone watches the Lakers, you know that the Lakers -- THE LAKERS! MIGHTY FRANCHISE THAT THEY ARE! will offer no reason for fans to watch them once you're gone. None. And this team deserves punishment like that if those two clowns remain in charge. They really do.