Los Angeles Lakers GM Kupchak admits pleasing Kobe Bryant more important than developing youngsters

Already mired in a lost season, Los Angeles Lakers fans have more bad news to hear about their ball club after their team’s general manager, Mitch Kupchak admitted that developing the squad’s young players is not a priority for the Hollywood team.

"Under normal circumstances, at some point, you would probably concentrate on just developing all your young players," Kupchak said in an interview with ESPN. "But we can't do that right now.”

Kupchak went on to state the reason why the Lakers can’t fully commit to developing the Lakers youngsters this season.

"This [season] is really a justified farewell to perhaps the best player in franchise history. And, God-willing, he's going to want to play every game and he's going to want to play a lot of minutes in every game, because that's just the way he is,” Kupchak added.

Kupcak’s latest statement will most likely earn the ire of the Lakers diehard fans—but not the Kobe Bryant loyalists-- who want to see their players develop into legit star or starters fast and who want to see the team correctly rebuild for the future.

This season, only the 23-year-old Jordan Clarkson has averaged more playing time than Bryant in the Lakers roster. Clarkson is averaging 31.9 minutes per game while Bryant is averaging 30.4 minutes per game although the 37-year-old veteran has missed a number of games this year to various injuries.

Meanwhile, 21-year-old Julius Randle and 19-year-old D’Angelo Russell average nearly 27 minutes per game although both young guys have lost their respective start jobs earlier in the season.

Perhaps more worrisome for the Lakers fans is the fact that Bryant still leads the team in field goal shooting; Kobe jacks up 17.2 shots per game (on 34.1 percent shooting) while Clarkson (13.2), Russell (11.6) and Randle (10.3) complete the top four in highest shots taken per game.

Per basketball-reference.com, Bryant also has the highest Usage Percentage (USG%)—“an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while he was on the floor”-- in the squad at 30.8. Russell is in far second at 23.0, Randle at 22.7 and Clarkson at 22.1.

The Lakers are already looking forward to the NBA lottery with a record of 8-28, second worst in the entire league, through Wednesday's games.

Are the Lakers doing the right thing in still giving Bryant the shots, major playing time and high usage rate considering they have to develop the young guys for the future? Or is pleasing Kobe the right thing to do since the NBA veteran is in his “farewell tour” this season?