People are always willing to put up with more from star athletes when they are playing at a hall of fame level. It's hard to argue with someone who is playing at a hall of fame level when they dog you out for making a mistake, even if they are an ******* in the way they do it. That same throwing team mates under the bus and dogging them out isn't quite as tolerable when the level of play is no longer hall of fame level. Still Shaq and Kobe had their falling out when Kobe was still in his prime. Plenty of role players decided that they would rather play some where else. They are role players so obviously you keep a prime Kobe happy over trying to appease them, and Jordan was just as much of an ass to role players. People will say Sessions and Bynum aren't a big deal to piss off, but they are just named examples. The agents interviewed said that they have had lots of free agents who weren't willing to go be Kobe's whipping boy. Exactly who we will likely never know. So the abrasive attitude is just one factor that was overshadowed by Kobe's greatness when they were a title contender, and no longer is now that they are a likely lottery team.
sources: kobe is an a-hole. w who knew right? Still want someone to kick him for making battier bleed and not even a foul was called! ^still mad five years later.
Phil Jackson isn't in the LA celebrity set. Neither is Paul George, who called the article crazy. Indy had just made it to the Eastern Conference Finals and offered him a 5/30 contract, why the hell would he leave Sessions left LA for contract security, not because of Kobe. The guy was scared the FO would flip him if he took his player option so he became a FA and signed a 2 year Lebron chose Cleveland over LA because he's from Cleveland, not because he didn't wanna play with Kobe Melo was persuaded by PJ to stay. But he even admitted after LA gave their pitch, he thought he'd be moving to LA Pau left LA because he's been dangled in trade rumors every season since the CP3 trade. The FO didn't want him and it's been a joke for the past 3 years that Pau must have had stockholm syndrome CP3 wanted to play with Kobe before Stern nixed that. So much for the idea superstars don't wanna play with Kobe Meanwhile all the complaints from Lakers players over the past two years haven't been about Kobe being a bad teammate. They've been stuff like this <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Jordan Hill says "I wouldn't be back" if Mike D'Antoni stayed. Why? Hill: "I didn’t fit his system" <a href="http://t.co/XC2IpbXtTN">http://t.co/XC2IpbXtTN</a></p>— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarkG_Medina/status/524709209208664064">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Article is garbage. Unless you're Smush Parker
Pau and Kaman had the same complaints last year Lakers roster sucks period. Hill's not worth $9M but he's a good 20 mins/game energy guy. Boards and banging in the paint and his baby hook. Ed Davis is a better 5 but seems like the FO doesn't want to start a $1M/year guy over a guy they just gave $9M.
The last time a rookie played with an obsessive egomaniac like Kobe he never recovered and reached his full potential. Spoiler
The only thing i don't like about the Lakers are that some fans won't admit to the 02 incident being rigged.
Kwame Brown was drafted by the Wizards, not LA, and Jordan treated him worse than anyone ever did. Calling him a f***** and making him cry in front of his teammates With Laker rookies, Bynum played next to Kobe and became an all-star. Farmar was drafted, left and took a paycut to come back and play next to Kobe. Darius Morris called Kobe the best teammate he ever had. Ebanks said he valued Kobe's mentorship. Glock and Vujacic got their nicknames from Kobe. Fisher's not complaining.
Bynum's lone All-Star berth had little to do with Kobe Bryant. One could argue that Bynum would have gotten a couple more All-Star appearances if Kobe had gotten his wish and had Bynum shipped off for Kidd, KG, etc. during that fiasco. Farmar? The guy is from Cali. He went to UCLA. Why wouldn't he want to play closer to home? Darius Morris called Kobe the best teammate he ever had? THE Darius Morris? Steve Nash, 2-time MVP, called Kobe him a Mother F***in A**hole. Find me a legitimate example of a player that played BETTER when he played with Kobe than when he played without Kobe.
This is the retort article for the Abbott Kobe bashfest. Reading both articles gives a more balanced view. http://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2014/10/20/7024989/la-lakers-kobe-bryant-espn-downfall
The retort is fairly well written, but it is from the Editor in Chief for a Laker's blog. I think this response in the comments there has merit: I never interpreted the Abbott article as saying it's all directly Kobe's fault. Kobe's contract can be a reason for the Laker's current situation without it being Kobe's fault. It's management's fault for offering the contract. Likewise with making Kobe a focal point of a likely lottery team, or deciding to keep Kobe over Dwight if they wanted to build for the future. It's not Kobe's fault management made those decisions, but they were decisions that centered around Kobe.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Jeanie Buss: "Any free agent that would be afraid to play w/Kobe Bryant is probably a loser and I’m glad they wouldn’t come to the team."</p>— Chris Dempsey (@dempseypost) <a href="https://twitter.com/dempseypost/status/525296816800006145">October 23, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The thing I HATE the MOST about the FAKERS is that we have a godammn thread and people come on it and talk about the F88king LAKERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hahaha well played Jeanie, well played... <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/lmkPlCiPjhU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
She's on First Take, actually complimentary about Dwight and that whole situation. Dwight Howard was a wonderful player for the Lakers. He did everything he was asked to do. I regret he played from day one. He was not 100%. I remember the day the trade was made, folks calling for tickets. I told them wait til January because we don't know when he'll play. He was a great player in the organization. They chose Mike D'Antoni over Phil and MDA did not suit Dwight. He saw playing for MDA wouldn't make Dwight the best player he could be. Dwight didn't stay because the team was being built for Nash, not Dwight Howard.
