Bob Keisser: Surgery, not counseling, for Lakers, Kobe

If marriage counselors were true to their deepest, most sincere and scholarly feelings and didn't have a profit motive involved in keeping a couple's name in their daybook for six months or more, they would send most of the deeply conflicted couples they see off to their respective corners with two blessings.

One, that they they find happiness somewhere else. Two, that they detach as soon as possible lest someone gets hurt, and we're not talking about their feelings.

No one can argue that the Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe Bryant are deeply conflicted, yet everyone with the slightest feelings for the franchise and the star player are hoping to find some way to keep the two together.

I care as much as anyone, but the reality is as apparent as the long couch in the therapist's office: Kobe is gone. If not now, soon.

Even if the Los Angeles Lakers were to make a trade that improves the team to the degree that satisfies Kobe Bryant, it doesn't mean that Kobe Bryant will stay here any longer than two years, when he can opt out of his contract. If winning was truly the only thing on Kobe Bryant's mind, after all, then he and Shaquille O'Neal would still be teammates.

We're dealing with bigger issues than anyone has thrown out onto the court. Anyone who believes the rupture in the relationship can be traced to some nameless insider putting the blame for O'Neal's departure on Kobe's shoulders probably thinks Angelina Jolie was the only thing that came between Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.

For the sake of argument, let's say the Los Angeles Lakers find a way to bring Kevin Garnett to the team and give the team the two-star system most everyone in the NBA believes is required.

By the time the 2009-10 season arrives, two years from now, Kobe Bryant will be 31 and Garnett will be 33. The Western Conference will likely be a tougher conference next season and beyond than it has been with multiple teams making moves forward.

Garnett could arrive and make the Los Angeles Lakers better, and the Los Angeles Lakers would still be first-round fodder. The team still wouldn't necessarily have an answer for San Antonio's size, Phoenix's pace or Dallas' depth. Two years later, older and with more mileage on their bodies, they would be less of a solution.

What would Kobe Bryant do then? One would have to be quite the blind optimist to think Kobe Bryant would then stay in L.A. simply because the franchise made the effort to be better. There's been too much damage to this point and Kobe Bryant simply doesn't seem motivated to make it work.

A professor of psychiatry at NYU's School of Medicine, Peter Fraenkel, says motivation is the key to repairing a damaged marriage, and if one side isn't motivated to put some work into the relationship, it's not going to survive.

Kobe Bryant is a brilliant basketball player but also a serial franchise killer. He's been at odds with virtually everyone in the organization.

His trade demand was quite an affront to team owner Jerry Buss, who cleared the way for the Los Angeles Lakers to become Kobe Bryant's team. Buss, with Kobe Bryant's interests in mind (as well as his own wallet), broke up a team that had been to the Finals four times in five years. That's the kind of commitment that should have created lifelong loyalty for Kobe Bryant.

Kobe Bryant has taken shots at Jim Buss, the son of Jerry who has been handed the reigns of the team for the future, taking an axe to the family tree.

He's made it clear he doesn't respect GM Mitch Kupchak, a loyal soldier to the family. He intimated he wants Jerry West back, knowing full well that the Buss-Kupchak-West relationship is too complicated to make it possible.

He now has an arms-length peace with coach Phil Jackson, but this seems like a matter of convenience for both men. Considering what Jackson has said and written about Kobe Bryant, I doubt Kobe Bryant will ever truly forgive Jackson. At the moment, it's to his advantage to have Jackson on his side.

Everything he has said about the team's shortcomings reflects on his teammates. He's bashed Andrew Bynum, but it's more telling that there's not a single player on the team that he's defended. He's literally said he doesn't care about the children.

So seriously, how much is really going to change in the next two years?

Buss isn't going to sell the franchise. He isn't going to take his son Jim out of the loop. He's not going to reinstall Jerry West as GM, and West doesn't want the job. He's not going to fire Kupchak, and even if he did, he certainly wouldn't put the franchise into the hands of Kobe Bryant's only ally, Jackson. Jackson himself is probably going to call it a career soon, too.

Adding one star player isn't going to make everything lovely for everyone involved. To quote Neil Young, "Ooh, ooh, the damage done."

A psychologist told Time Magazine a few years ago that the number of positive and negative factors in a relationship is the key to whether a marriage can be saved, and that only 31 percent of conflicts ever get resolved.

Anyone out there see any positives in the relationship? If so, please call the Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe and offer your services.

Buss needs Kobe Bryant because every financial aspect of the franchise is tied to Kobe Bryant. But if the reality is that Kobe Bryant walks in two years regardless, then it's time to stop trying to repair that which can't be fixed and prepare a new blueprint.

The two sides are way beyond Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil or Dr. Melfi. They don't need a therapist. They need a surgeon.

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