Trade Deadline Madness - what rightsizing does to your other employees

[CORRECTION: @teamkb24 is "the Kobe Bryant fans™ Official Fanpage." According to Bryant, he does not have a Twitter account.]

Before I continue, let me just say that I DON'T subscribe to the theory that everything good about the Lakers is performed by Mitch Kupchak, and everything bad about the Lakers is performed by Jim Buss.

And, let me also say that the Lakers' trade of Derek Fisher (and Luke Walton) can be a potential positive. A sports team is not charged to make people feel happy - a sports team is charged with winning games. And if the Lakers can win more games without Derek Fisher than they can with him, then Fisher should be moved.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, there are morale issues associated with any trade. I'm sure that Kobe Bryant [whoops, a fan of Kobe Bryant] knew exactly what he was doing when he tweeted this:

If someone will make me shed a tear, it's the Lakers. Derek Fisher, my man.

This is an appropriate time to revisit a December 2011 post on NBA Grapevine:

Stephen A. Smith is known for his brash opinions, but his recent prediction that Kobe Bryant will demand a trade from the Los Angeles Lakers is going to make him look like a fool....

Kobe has undoubtedly been dealing with a lot lately, being that he’s reportedly getting a divorce and he was already upset about Lamar Odom being traded.

I just can’t see the guy leaving L.A. though.

He’s won five championships with this franchise, and they’ve done everything they could to appease him in the past.

As of right now, they have regressed, but it won’t stay that way for long. I have a hard time believing that a franchise like the Lakers won’t be able to pull off a move that could bring in another big-time star to play with Bryant.

That post was written before Kobe spoke out in support of Pau Gasol, and of course was written before Derek Fisher left the Lakers.

Stephen A. Smith's Los Angeles radio show will presumably be pre-empted tonight for college basketball, but I'm sure that he's going to explode when he's next on the air.