Kobe Is Getting a Big Deal

By TIM KAWAKAMI

Jan. 28, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Kobe Bryant, who recently declared himself “a Laker for life,” is on the verge of signing a six-year contract extension believed to be worth about $70 million that will run through the 2004-05 season, when he will be 26.

Laker Executive Vice President Jerry West said Wednesday that a deal with the 20-year-old basketball prodigy was “imminent,” and a beaming Bryant later said that the extension already had been agreed to in principle.

“We all knew it was coming up pretty soon,” said Bryant, whose original three-year rookie contract is due to expire at the end of the 1999 season. “But I don’t think people expected it to happen this quick.

“It’s quite a relief. So, we don’t have to go through the whole season with people asking, ‘Well, when is the deal? What’s happening?’ ”

The NBA has given teams a seven-week window (which opened Jan. 21 and will close March 13) to use the so-called “Bird rights” to extend the contracts of second-year players for any salary up to the maximum, regardless of salary-cap limitations.

According to the new labor agreement, players with five or fewer years of experience can earn a maximum of $9 million per season to start any new contract, can extend their deals a maximum of six seasons, and can negotiate an “out” clause allowing them to become free agents after the fifth season of the extension.

Bryant was scheduled to earn $1.3 million this season before the lockout. It is the last year of his original deal.

The new deal, which will start with the 1999-2000 season, is believed to be worth close to the maximum Bryant can earn under the new collective bargaining agreement--a salary of $9 million next season, and a maximum $1.125-million increase each season after that, topping out at $14.62 million in the 2004-05 season.

Bryant’s new deal, then, will be very similar to the six-year, $70.86-million package that the Philadelphia 76ers recently gave to Allen Iverson and the deal Shareef Abdur-Rahim signed with the Vancouver Grizzlies. Iverson and Abdur-Rahim, like Bryant, were drafted in 1996.

And the deal for Bryant, as with Iverson, is believed to have the “out” clause after five seasons.

The Lakers and Bryant’s side understood that it was in everybody’s interests to get this deal done, Bryant said.

“It was mutual,” Bryant said. “Both parties knew that we wanted to get this deal done. We wanted to get it over with.

“It’s a class organization, so you know there’s no back-stabbing, nothing going on. You don’t have to worry about anything like that. You know Jerry’s going to take care of you. He’s going to give you what’s fair.

“You don’t have to worry about anything too much. I’m very fortunate to be in that situation, really.”

Bryant, who has been a key Laker substitute the last two seasons and probably will at least start the 1999 season in that role, skipped college and was the 13th overall selection in the 1996 draft.

He was drafted by Charlotte, then traded to the Lakers a few weeks later for center Vlade Divac.

Last season, seven months before his 20th birthday, Bryant became the youngest player in NBA history to start an All-Star game. He averaged 15.4 points last season.

West called agreeing to a long-term deal with Bryant “a logical process.”

This was a contract agreement clearly triggered by the new labor agreement, Bryant acknowledged.

The only Laker concern, before this labor agreement, was that, if Bryant became a free agent, another team would offer him a staggering contract at $20 million or $25 million a year that the Lakers could not afford or match (while also paying Shaquille O’Neal the remaining $96.2 million he is owed from 1999-2000 through 2002-2003).

That concern was eliminated by the new deal, which, interestingly, Bryant voted against during the union ratification process in New York.

“The voting thing was just my opinion, that was my opinion on the thing,” Bryant said. “It wasn’t for a big contract or whatever.

“It was for other points, other key points in the negotiations that I really didn’t feel would benefit players in the long run. So I went there, I voiced my opinion, I voted, that’s it.

“I can live with it.”

The important part, West said, is that Bryant and the Lakers want a long-term relationship, pointing out that other players, specifically Tom Gugliotta with the Minnesota Timberwolves, have turned down better offers from their old teams to join others.

“You can leave,” West said. “Tom Gugliotta left a better deal [to sign with Phoenix]. I think having a player that wants to be at a particular place, that’s important. That’s very important.”

And if Bryant is, indeed, a Laker for life?

“That,” West said, “sounds good to us.”

Laker Notes

With a little more than a week left before the beginning of the regular season, the Lakers returned to the Great Western Forum and Rick Fox lit up the house Wednesday night.

Fox’s shooting performance (four of four from three-point range in the fifth period) highlighted the Lakers’ five-period intra-squad scrimmage at the Great Western Forum before about 10,000.

It was the Lakers’ second public scrimmage, and Coach Del Harris said it was definitely a step up from Monday night’s outing at UC Santa Barbara.

“I thought we played a little better, a little bit more under control, a little less sloppy,” Harris said. “But we still obviously need to use all the time we have allotted to use to smooth our game out.”

Fox, who scored 16 points in the seven-minute final period, made seven three-pointers in the game, and scored 26 points.

Shaquille O’Neal, who made nine of his 14 free-throw attempts, led all scorers with 31 points, Kobe Bryant had 23 (with at least six assists) and Travis Knight and Ruben Patterson both turned in impressive 20-point outings.

Rookie guard Sam Jacobson suffered a strained hip flexor in the first quarter, did not return and is listed as day to day.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

WITH YEARS AND AVERAGE SALARY

Shaquille O’Neal (through 2002-2003): $16,585,714

Elden Campbell (through 2002-03): $7 million

Robert Horry (through 2002-03): $4,800,000

Eddie Jones (through 1999-2000): $2,350,000

Travis Knight (through 2003-2004): $3,400,000

Sean Rooks (through 2002-2003): $2,057,600

Rick Fox (through this season): $1,750,000

Kobe Bryant (through this season): $1,319,000

Corie Blount (through this season): $1,625,000