Has Kobe Bryant Earned His Keep? Comparing Career Contract Costs to Wins

After Kobe Bryant signed his new $48.5 million contract with the Los Angeles Lakers, fans took to every available medium and expressed their opinions about it, with many skeptical he wouldn’t prove it a smart move by the Lakers.

Having barely played this season, we got to wondering: did Bryant earn his salary at other points in his career? When was the last time the Lakers were getting a good deal on their MVP?

Is Black Mamba Worth Every Penny?

Depending on whom you ask, the opinions you’ll hear about Kobe Bryant’s latest contract with the Los Angeles Lakers are just as polarizing as Black Mamba himself. Legions of haters would emphatically say it’s a selfish move for Kobe to agree to a two-year, $48.5 million deal with the Lakers, knowing that he’s nursing a serious injury (torn Achilles) and is already at the ripe age of 35.

On top of that, he had yet to play a game at the time he signed it, so along with Kobe, the Lakers front office was also heavily vilified and ridiculed. That amount could have easily been stashed for the upcoming offseason where big fish like LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and others may be there for the picking.

The fact that Bryant has been paid a mesmerizing amount of $5,075,634 per Lakers win this season also helped the cause of his detractors.  So far, Kobe has only played six games (he was forced to miss the rest of the season due to an ailing left knee) leading the team to a tawdry 2-4 record. The numbers paint an ugly picture:

Haters aside, there are those who viewed this deal as befitting of a franchise legend. Kobe deserved the contract not for his future value on the floor, but because of his past contributions to the team.

Given that thinking, how cost-effective was Kobe while he was putting up numbers game-in and game-out?

For starters, since Bryant came to the fold of the Lakers, the team has had only two losing seasons (2004-2005 and 2013-2014) and missed the playoffs just twice (including this season). Over that span, the Lakers won five championships, with Kobe’s fingerprints all over each one. Furthermore, Bryant has a career average of 25.5 PPG, including three seasons where he averaged 30 or more a game. Ridiculous.

All these factors point to Bryant being an indispensable player for the Lakers all over his career. He’s being paid millions for a reason and he has earned it in the past by delivering five Larry O’Briens to the Lakers’ trophy case and ticket revenue to its bank accounts. While the man’s come at a cost, in this case the revenue on and off the court more than justifies it, even for a victory lap or two.

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