It's a dumb article. Sessions left because he was an exclusively run and gun player stuck on a slow team. And I don't know how anyone can feel bad for Bynum. When he became dominant, Kobe praised him saying they couldn't have won a ring without him. He later said Kobe stunted his growth, left LA, and became a locker room cancer. And Pau has nothing bad to say about Kobe, they're friends. Buss, who's supposed to be victim, sacked everyone in the org with ties to Phil Jackson, even guys with 20+ years, and thought it was a brilliant idea to build an entire team around a 38 year old Nash. He's now got 2 ex coaches on his payroll because none of this ideas worked. The guy is the west coast James Dolan, except Dolan was smart enough to hand the keys over to Phil Jackson Meanwhile here's Henry Abbott, defending all the Smush Parkers of the world
^ the article, which I can only assume is closer to sources than some random dude on a message board, implies differently. I'll put it on Kobe... Because history is history. Pretending like Kobe hasn't had issues with almost everyone (including Pau at times) doesn't make it so. I noted the Buss/Jackson split as the one Buss issue to complain about...
Except Buss and his siblings only source of income is coming from the Lakers franchise. Dolan owns a giant media company and dabbles with the Knicks. He sacked Phil and his people because there was a power play happening behind the scenes. The only reason he had to sack two coaches is because of Kobe.
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/writer/ken-berger/24443132/three-years-after-nixed-cp3-trade-nba-still-feeling-reverberations wat if CP3 went to the lakers? hmm....
The focus of the article was about why the Lakers are where they are right now, and why it isn't likely to get any better during the rest of Kobe's career. Kobe might deserve the money for his life time contributions, but it doesn't change the fact that his contract hamstrings the franchise. You can argue against the existence of the salary cap if you want, but this is the system that is in place and if you want to contend your team better have a handle on it. I don't blame Kobe for taking the contract offered to him, but that contract combined with Kobe's abrasive personality, desire to be the first option on offense, and drop in effectiveness means they are likely a lottery team for the rest of his career. Certainly Buss isn't helping the situation any as he is the one who gave Kobe and Nash the contracts they have. People who expect the Lakers to just sign another star just because they always have in the past may very well find themselves disappointed as long as Kobe is around.
Gotta laugh. Lakers did this to themselves. No quality additions via FA and Randle was a big question mark coming out of Kentucky. Probably the worst defensive backcourt ever with either Lin and Kobe or Kobe and Nash
And you're trusting a journalist who's a known Kobe hater. Paul George already called out the article yesterday If income is the most important thing to him, he should just sell the team He sacked both coaches because the coaches sucked. Mike Brown gave a team with 4 all-stars (including 2 big FA acquisitions) an 0-8 preseason record. Imagine you guys got Bosh and couldn't win a single preseason game - everyone would be trashing McHale right now. And D'Antoni gave the franchise the 2nd worst record in team history. There's no defending coaching performance like that
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Now how crazy does that Kobe story sound to you ? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MediaReachingAgain?src=hash">#MediaReachingAgain</a></p>— Paul George (@Yg_Trece) <a href="https://twitter.com/Yg_Trece/status/524297654570713088">October 20, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Over some random dude on the internet?? Um... absolutely. I listened to the guy's interview on Cowherd this morning. Granted, anonymous is anonymous and you never know. But this is a professional journalist. When he says, emphatically, that if you give 99% of executives in the league truth serum, and they'd all say the same thing if not worse, and that all of his sources are 100% legit and he spent a year working on a story, checked and rechecked with his sources, etc... well, I'm going to give him teh benefit of the doubt. But it's not like anyone actually needs those anonymous sources. The idea that Kobe is an EXTREMELY difficult dude to be around is not some crazy new revelation. We already know that he's beefed with Shaq, Dwight, Nash (passive aggressively), Bynum, most of his coaches, etc. None of which is to say Kobe's brash personality is a hindrance, necessarily. Clearly the dude has 5 rings. But it is what it is... it's not as if the Lakers didn't have the pieces. They had the pieces. Sure, Nash, Kobe and Gasol are old/aging... but they got Dwight to come on board. Nash and Dwight clearly didn't like playing with Kobe. Gasol may be a Kobe friend or whatever, but action counts... he's no longer a Laker, despite an equally lucrative offer. Gasol is STILL a really really good big. He was basically 20, 11, 4 assists and 2 blocks per 36 last year. He's no longer a Laker. And with all that, the Lakers had plenty of cap room to entice any of this offseasons free agents, and have the biggest advantage in the entire league... being in LA. No one came. The article could have 0 quotes and sources and just be about facts. And the facts point to the obvious. Players don't like playing with Kobe. Coaches have difficulty coaching him. He shoots too much. The end.
I'm not really sure what part of it is supposed to be crazy? The fact that Kobe is an ass to role players? That's been known for years. Thowing team mates under the bus publicly to "motivate them"? He has done that to even his friends like when Kobe publicly discussed that Gasol's conditioning and urgency were lacking before a game last year where Gasol struggled; ignoring that Kobe went on the score 30 points on 30 shots that night in the loss. The fact that Kobe's contract restricts the Lakers ability to do much? Just common sense. The fact that Kobe wants to win as long as he is the primary reason they are winning? Remember his shooting boycott in game 7 of the playoffs against the Suns in 2006 after getting heat for shooting too much the game before? Which was preceeded by a similar act a year earlier against the Kings when the media dared to suggest he was shooting too much? [youtube]HGoxIvuPtmo[/youtube] Or the fact that this year he said he can still be the best player on a championship team? He isn't looking to play the Dwyane Wade or Tim Duncan supporting role for some other star. It's hard to imagine what star is willing to come play the supporting role for him again at this stage of his career. So what's the crazy part? To be clear it's Laker management's fault for how they are dealing with Kobe regarding the team's salary cap problems. Kobe has two more years under this huge contract and as a result of that contract combined with other poor decisions by management, Kobe's age and health, and abrasive personality, it's highly unlikely the Lakers will be contenders again with him on the roster. You can argue they wouldn't be contenders without him either, but at least they could start the rebuilding process. Instead we will likely see Kobe have his MJ with the Wizard years by turning the Lakers into the Wizards.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>“<a href="https://twitter.com/flea333">@flea333</a>: henry abbott your <a href="https://twitter.com/espn">@espn</a> kobe article is absolute garbage and a blatant irresponsible attack. "Go get'em, Flea</p>— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) <a href="https://twitter.com/PhilJackson11/status/524678101989851136">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
^ haha. Did you read the article even? What you are doing is showing the truths to it. Kobe is beloved by the LA celebrity set... Exactly what the article says.
All that abrasive personality talk is overrated the truth is, people only wanted to play with Kobe when he was a basketball player, but when he started sucking and be injury prone while demanding the same salary and touches on the floor, nobody wanted to be near him anymore. In from 2006-2009, probably there probably wasn't a single player in the NBA that didn't want to play with Kobe, because they know that was the best chance to get a ring, but when Kobe turned into Slowbe people naturally considered other options.
