Former NBA Player and Sports Radio Host Would Not Play with Kobe

In reaction to a story by ESPN The Magazine that many NBA players have turned down a chance to join the Los Angeles Lakers because they do not want to play with Kobe Bryant, former NBA and UCLA great Marques Johnson was asked on The Beast 980 today if he would want to join the 2014 Lakers if he could and he said “probably not.”Johnson’s comments were made in response to a question from co-host Jeanne Zelasko on their live and local morning program, “The Home Team.”“I’m probably going the Pau Gasol route,” Johnson said. “Even though he said he would love to have retired with Kobe, just the way this team is kind of unfolding right now, that’s what I’m looking at more than anything else. If it was a team that was worthy of a championship, maybe.“But just the way things have kind of disintegrated over the last year or so with Pau leaving and then Dwight Howard a couple of years ago, it just doesn’t seem like this thing is headed in a positive direction.”