I agree practice is very important. Here's some insight on Spurs practice, which i thought was a good read. http://pda.sports.ru/tribuna/blogs/messina/710302.html
How intense is he if he hasn't been to practice? Its not about having Kobe's mindset, he's not the end all be all. If they did nobody would pass, play defense and everyone would blame everyone else. Nobody cares to deal with that kind of garbage and if it was you, you wouldn't put up with it either. I'd Love to see the entire team freeze him out one game.
Kobe went to Dream for post lessons...all we really need to know. Dream wouldn't need to go to Kobe for scoring, passing, shooting, or ball-handling tips. Hell, not even for trash-talking tips.
Kobe probably could lead a little in his best days but he aint a leader in the locker room. You can watch the proof.
Kobe Bryant's On/Off Splits Minutes Lakers ORtg Lakers DRtg Lakers Net Rtg Kobe On 779 102.5 115.5 -13.0 Kobe Off 287 107.6 100.0 +7.7 NBA.com
Teammates yell at each other all the time, on good teams and bad. I don't think Kobe's act now is going to be productive and will likely induce more eye rolls than motivated play. The thing is, Kobe talks about doing everything to win, but he doesn't play any defense and takes ill-advised shots. People tend to tune out the preaching when the preacher himself doesn't practice what he preaches. If you look at ESPN's "Real Plus Minus," the SG with the lowest Defensive RPM in the ENTRE NBA is none other than Kobe Bryant. Dwight left for Houston not because Kobe tried too hard to win, but because Kobe didn't try hard enough while asking everyone else to. I bet Pau Gasol left for similar reasons. I bet many of the teammates thought "How about you play some defense and actually show up to every practice like the rest of us do?"
I love his motivational tactics, so old school. I can imagine Larry, MJ, Charles and Hakeem pulling **** like that. So old school...
The Clippers used to be the NBA hell. if you hated a player, you prayed that he would be shipped to the Clippers. Now it's the Lakers.
Lin slipped out of the frying pan and in to the fire. This will make him better though if he survives it. Lakers might go on a win streak.
Lin was actually playing quite efficiently, at least statistically, with FG % close to .500 and FT % close to .900 for the season just before he got benched for...Ronnie Price. Then he started sucking totally. Kobe, on the other hand, was playing really really inefficient basketball. But I guess he told the coach to bench Lin? What is going on?