Well, maybe Houston has some playoff hopes yet. The bottom part of the Western bracket hasn't exactly surged out of their sights while the Rockets struggle.
Yeah right. I dislike Kobe as much as anyone, but he's the only impact player on that team. Sure enough his shot selection leaves a lot to be desired, but who else on the Lakers shows up to play every game? Not Nash. Not Howard. Definitely not Pau. Not Artest. Whatever heart the Lakers have would be gone without Kobe.
impact player yes - negative impact ..how in the world the others would show up when he is not passing the ball..any of the lakers stars could average 30 ppg if allowed to shoot so much.... this game pau scored 25 and kobe 26 and Kobe took 17 shoots more than Pau!!!!...God it must be frustrating to be his teammate....hes a cancer....
there are 15 teams in this league that have roster weaker than lakers and who have no Kobe Bryant and still managed to get better score this year than lakers...
Damn, what's happening to the Lakers?? we're all b..ing about Houston but look at LA: KB24, DH12, Nash , Artest and still losing, while Kobe is playing out of his mind really tough to be a laker fan!
Lakers are a really good team when Kobe passes. When all the bigs were out he became a humble passer. He's most interest is winning the NBA scoring champion right now.
The guy just refuses to do the things out of his character right now (pass up shots to get his big men going or allow Steve Nash to be more dominant), which is necessary for his team to succeed. The first quarter was just awful. The guy kept chucking and chucking when he clearly did not have it. Sure, he plays with the most intensity on the team right now. But when you see one player chucks and chucks, other players must lose a little bit every single damn time. It's ridiculous really. Kobe has lasted this long b/c he constantly re-invents himself and makes himself better as an individual player. It's time for him to re-invent himself and make himself the ultimate teammate. This team has too much talent to suck balls like this. As a basketball fan, it's painful to watch.
You do realize that the Lakers have been injured all year right? Nash, Howard and Pau have been on the court together for around five games. If you took Kobe off the Lakers this year they wouldn't even have 10 wins.
No argument about Kobe's shot selection, especially early in games when he's cold as ice. But if you seriously believe any other Lakers player could average 30 ppg, no use in even discussing this with you. Neither Pau nor Dwight brings enough energy to regularly score that much. Kobe is the only one who always plays with urgency and leaves it on the floor every single night. Kobe chucks waaay too much and, unfortunately for the Lakers, is concerned about the scoring title. But without him, the Lakers would be weak pudding. With him, they have at least some bite. Some of the close losses would have been blowouts.
Who cares if they've had injuries all year? They're old and frail. It's who they are with the players they've signed. They made their bed and now they have to lie in it. All I can say is, "HA HA!!".
Have you ever played basketball with a ballhog? It affects everything. You know you're not getting the ball so you don't put in the same effort. And when you do touch the ball, you are out of rhythm. In this case, it's even worse, because the ballhog in question is the fourth most efficient option on the floor. It's not like he's LeBron or Durant where some high volume of shots would at least be justifiable, and it's not like his teammates are scrubs either. Explain to me why, if Kobe has such a positive "impact", his teams always have superior records when he is sidelined for any period of time? This was the case in the Shaq years and in the Gasol years and it will def. be the case in the Howard years if we get a chance to see it.
The problem is this thinking that the Lakers need a player averaging 30, or even close to that. That is ridiculous with their roster. When one guy dominates the offense, the other pieces are weakened because the defense knows who is getting the ball. When you have an unstoppable scorer in his prime like Shaq, LeBron, or Durant, it is acceptable because those guys demand doubles even when you gameplan for them. But the Lakers have no one like that this year yet Kobe is playing like he is still this huge offensive threat. Look at the Clippers. That is the epitome of balanced scoring. Everyone thinks that they just have this amazing bench but guys like Odom, Barnes, Butler, Green, etc. are on every team. The Lakers have players like Clark, Meeks, and Jamison who are just as capable but they get sporadic minutes and limited touches because the offense consists of one guy dominating the ball for 40 minutes. And that doesn't even account for Nash, Howard, and Gasol who are out of their comfort zone with another supremely ball dominant, non distibuting player. Of course part of that is coaching, but you are kidding yourself if you don't think Kobe is demanding that he be the alpha in whatever scheme the coaches implement.
i agree with this. teams work when players know their respective roles. this comes as an issue when you have too many stars on one team. you place 1 or 2 stars on one team, the rest of the players will know their role, and play to their strengths with given effort. however, if you have a team consisting of multiple stars who all feel as if they can offer the same amount of impact on the floor, then they are going to feel a bit disgruntled not getting the ball and adding their game thing into the mix. in this case, players become out of sync with their play, as they themselves were once the one's getting the ball, and being the main option of their teams.
Explain to me where you get your stats from. Kobe played every game for the Phil Jackson/Pau Lakers except for 9 during the 09-10 season. The Lakers had a worse winning percentage in the games without Kobe. Why make it up stats to make yourself look right?
MJ was a ballhog....I could also probably name you a bunch of other HOFer's who played as selfishly as Kobe and still won.
W/e, Kobe's gonna be Kobe. You can say the same thing that if you surround Kobe with the likes of Odom, Hill, Clark, Battier...He'd win ALOT of games. Unfortunately alot of "star" players in today's league all use the "I don't get involved on offense enough" excuse, and feel entitled to having the stat of the night instead of getting the W. If Yao was on Kobe's team, he'd find a way be just as effective. I'm not saying Kobe's previous championship teams weren't stacked...but this one isn't all that impressive truth be told.
I'd say it's not so much the number of shots most of the time with kobe it's the degree of difficulty on a lot of his shots. Most other teams in the league today move the ball for more efficient shots, Kobe is just from a different era of basketball. We're seeing a huge shift towards team play within super teams now. The other thread discussing league scoring leaders covered this well. Overall team effiency ^, individual scoring \/. Of course guys who volume score can get hot and win games for their teams still but more often than not (17-23 times for the lakers) volume shooting doesn't work anymore because it's competing with ball movement and spread scoring which actually looks prettier and is way more fun to watch.
