This might be a simplistic perspective on Kobe's free agency, but I think his decision between the Lakers and Clippers comes down to two things:

1. Loyalty/Money
AND
2. Winning

The league announced yesterday that the salary cap for this season would be $43.87 million. According to Chad Ford, that means the max amount the Clippers can offer Kobe is 6 years, $84.4 million; the max the Lakers can offer him is 7 years, $136.4 million, roughly $5 million more per year than the Clippers' offer.

Guess you could say the Lakers have the advantage there.

On top of that, you almost get the feeling that Kobe owes it to the Lakers and to the city of LA to re-sign. Not just because he's been a Laker his entire career, or because the fans at Staples, amid the rape accusations, gave him standing O's throughout the year instead of heckling him the way other arenas did. I'm talking about how the Lakers' brass threw all of its support behind him last season during his court proceedings, and how Jerry Buss, whether he'll admit it or not, got rid of his best player, Shaq, this off-season so he could hand the team over to Kobe. A franchise devotes that much of itself to you, and you can't help but feel a tug somewhere in your heart.

Right?

Let's remember, though, that this is Kobe Bryant, the player who, like Derek Jeter in baseball, is rhapsodized for his unconditional passion for winning. "He'll do whatever it takes to win," we're told. "He lives to win. He loves winning more than anything else."

ANYTHING? Even an extra $5 million per season? Even the loyalty of your owner and fans?

We'll see. I think we're gonna find out in the next few days just how much Kobe really cares about winning. Because right now, money calls and loyalty tugs -- and the Lakers chances of winning next year were fat to none, and fat just left town.

Let's assume Kobe re-signs with the Lakers. This is their projected lineup for the 2004-05 season:
C Brian Grant
PF Lamar Odom
SF Caron Butler
SG Kobe Bryant
PG Sasha Vujavic (Vujanovic? Vukasovic? Who cares?)
Bench: Kareem Rush, Luke Walton, Brian Cook, some other guys I've never heard of

Compare that starting five with that of the Clippers, if Kobe decides to sign with them:
C Chris Kaman
PF Elton Brand
SF Kobe Bryant
SG Corey Maggette
PG Marko Jaric
Bench: Chris Wilcox, Keyon Dooling, Shaun Livingston, Quentin Richardson (if he re-signs, which he probably won't), Bobby Simmons.

Alright, well, that Clipper lineup pretty much hammers the Lakers lineup out of the park. In Butler and Grant, Kobe would have two league-average players taking a combined 20-25% of the team's shots, one at the tail-end of his career, another who took a step back last season after a rookie campaign that was just so-so to begin with. Odom had a borderline case to be an All-Star last season, improving his rebounding, but continuing to be a turnover machine and low-percentage shooter.

The flip-side: Brand and Maggette are probably two of the top five players at their positions and are easily among the most efficient scorers. They're solid rebounders and defenders, and they're both young, and they're both getting better, making a Bryant-Brand-Maggette trio an even more intriguing prospect for the future. Plus, if the power forward/center position is so important in the West, and it probably is, not too many are better than Elton Brand.

Neglecting the dollars and friends for a moment, I just don't see a Grant-Odom-Butler frontcourt making much noise in the Western Conference. To steal a line from Jay Bilas, there's not a lot of upside there. They were hardly a force in the East, so logic tells me I shouldn't expect them to contend in the West, which is getting stronger and stronger by the minute (even with Shaq's departure). Point is, if Bryant really cares so much about winning, the Clippers situation looks a lot brighter than it does for the Lakers the next few seasons, strange as that may sound. If he wants to win, I don't think the Lakers should be #1 on his list.