Loyalty at the heart of the Matt Duchene trade debate

When it comes to sports contracts that scream “loyalty,” perhaps none are louder than Kobe Bryant’s $48.5 million paid last year and this year. Now 37 years old, Bryant is a shell of the player who deserved $20-plus million – he played in less than half of the Lakers’ games last year, for crying out loud.

But for all the money the Lakers are spending on Bryant, J.J. Jerez, writer for Mile High Sports, reminds us that Bryant helped make the Lakers that money several times over during his tenure, not to mention the five world championships he helped deliver.

Perhaps a Kobe Bryant to Matt Duchene comparison is unfair – Duchene is a great player, but not head-and-shoulders above the rest of the league as Bryant was for many years – but Jerez thinks there is a lesson the Avs can learn from Kobe.

The Lakers could have demanded the world for Kobe, but they were never going to get a combination of players who could equal more success.

The Avs need defense, but without other high-value tradable assets to shop, Jerez thinks Colorado should hold pat on Duchene and continue to build around him. Other teams may want players like Nathan MacKinnon or Gabriel Landeskog, but they are simply off the table, says Jerez. Even if Duchene is a possible asset to be moved, Jerez says Colorado won’t get a top-six player in return and they can’t afford to keep letting those players leave.

In the past 16 months, Colorado has parted ways with Ryan O’Reilly and Paul Stastny – both considered cornerstones at one time just as Duchene is now. Stastny walked as a free agent, netting nothing. O’Reilly (plus Jamie McGinn) yielded Nikita Zadorov, Mikhail Grigorenko, J.T Compher and a draft pick that ultimately became A.J. Greer.

Colorado, as Jerez suggests, doesn’t need more players; they need consistency. Jerez isn’t the only one who sees roster turnover as one of the biggest problems for the Avalanche. The guys from The Sin Bin on Mile High Sports AM 1340 hit on this same topic Sunday.

Jerez says Colorado must at least wait until the new year before making any real decisions on Duchene. In the meantime, he thinks shopping goaltender Semyon Varlamov and winger Jarome Iginla could yield more positive results until then.

Can Duchene lead Colorado to multiple world titles like Kobe? Probably not. But they have a better chance of making the playoffs with him than without him at this point.