"I don't know who I'm going to pass the ball to there (in Detroit)," Zeke told some reporters shortly after the draft.
Thank goodness the Pistons had also selected Kelly Tripucka in that same draft. Ole Kelly was never one to shy away from a shot.
Kobe Bryant took Isiah Thomas' concern about the 1981 Pistons to the nth degree Sunday night. He took 46 shots in 42 minutes, and scored 81 points in the Lakers' 122-104 win over the Toronto Raptors.
After all, who is he going to pass the ball to on the Lakers?
Must not be Lamar Odom, who can play the game but not in Kobe's stratosphere. Apparently not Smush Parker, because Smushie is a point guard and it's his responsibility to pass to Kobe, not the other way around. Not Chris Mihm, who's never been much of a scorer. Not Kwame Brown, who is still a babe yet. And certainly not anyone from the bench. The Lakers' reserves scored a whopping five points in 59 combined minutes against the Raptors.
Get outta my way!
(teammates included)
I'd say Kobe Bryant is simply doing these days what bored superstars do, when they don't feel anyone else on the court wearing the same colored jersey is worth a hoot.
There's been some talk -- boy, has there been some talk -- about Bryant's 81-point explosion, and most of it isn't good. The words "selfish" and "ball hog" and "that's not how you win championships" have been bantied about.
But here it is, folks, plain and simple: Kobe Bryant is bored.
Earlier this season he scored 62 points in a game in which he sat out the entire fourth quarter. That's an 81-point pace, too, if you want to do the math. He is averaging almost 36 points a game. And the Lakers play at not much above a .500 clip in the meanwhile, despite Kobe's astronomical scoring numbers.
But that's okay with Kobe. He's just a guy who loves to shoot the basketball and have some fun, and since there's no one with whom it is worth sharing the ball, why not jack it up nearly 50 times and let the chips -- and the records -- fall where they may?
You see, there it is: boredom. The team is so-so, the teammates aren't going to make people forget Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the rest, and a championship isn't in the offing this season. So what else is there to do but score a bucketful of points and make people forget things like feuds with Shaq or rape charges?
Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak better get on the phone and find his superstar a playmate, or else Kobe is going to keep shooting and shooting and shooting, while the team keeps winning, then losing, then winning, then losing. It is readily evident that Kobe Bryant finds nary a person on his own team in whom he can entrust the basketball. So to break the monotony, if nothing else, Kupchak needs to secure another scorer.
Or maybe not. One of the reasons the Lakers lost the 2004 NBA Finals to the Pistons, I am convinced, was Bryant's reluctance (refusal?) to get Shaquille O'Neal more involved in the offense. Maybe the worst thing that could have happened to the Lakers was having Kobe's long three-pointer beat the Pistons in Game 2 of that series. After that, Bryant became downright incorrigible on the court. And the Lakers fell meekly in the next three games. Shaq had had enough, and fled to the southern Florida coast, a hop, skip and a jump away from Cuba, for goodness sakes.
Sometimes in the NBA, when a player is spot-on and his scoring totals for a particular game spike, it is because the shots just happen to fall or the flow of the game sends the ball and scoring chances in that player's general direction. In those instances, it is wise to feed the "hot hand" and even rely on that strategy to gain victory. But with Kobe Bryant, as with Michael Jordan in his early, Baby Bull years, it's not that way. Instead, it's a simple matter of "I'm better than anyone else on my team so just give me the damn ball and get out of my way."
Or something like that.
Again, send slings and arrows Kobe Bryant's way, if you must. Grumble all you want about his ballhogging or his selfishness. Puff out your chest and declare that championships can't be won with one player scoring 81 points and the other 11 players scoring 41 combined.
Kobe knows all that. He's just bored.
And who's to blame for that, really?
6 comments:
Bored, I can buy that, just like I am bored from talking about him. I am also bored with A.I., with T-Mac and any other of the "stat-whores" out there.
People can say it is greatness until they are blue in the face. But greatness is not defined by stats, my friend, greatness is defined by how you make your teammates better. Until Kobe involves his teammates, like Jordan once learned to do, he will not be a great player, just a good player that pads his stats. Furthermore, if you ask me, he doesn't even have any championships yet, those titles were more Shaq than they were Kobe.
Peace.
How the hell do you figure those championships were more Shaq than Kobe? It was easily equal. It wasn't Shaq hitting shots at the end of games to carry the Lakers. Why? Because he was on the bench to prevent hackashaq.
It's funny, when folks don't put up stats, they aren't living up to their expectations. When they do, they become stat whores. whatever sports dude....
Bored...don't know about that. Not wanting to lose a game to the damn Raptors...keep in mind, his options were Lamar 'Mr Inconsistency' Odom, who was well on his way to '0 for' night in the middle of third quarter. This is supposed to be the number 2 option but he's too soft....Smush is more aggressive looking for his offense but like you said he is a point guard so there's only so much he can do. When you're shooting 60%, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO HAVE THE BALL.
Bored or selfish? It's 6 of one, half dozen of the other, in my mind. Kobe is one of those talents that don't come along very often. But don't the best players make others around him better? Bryant has never done that, it's kind of hard when you never pass the ball. Kobe's going to be double and triple teamed the rest of the season, and you know that he will still jack the ball up, rather than pass to an open man.
I'm surprised the Zen Master puts up with it. Jackson seems to be in a win now mode, rather than building for the future. He'll get a few more wins with Kobe playing pop-a-shot, but at what cost to the other 14 guys on the roster? If I'm Lamar Odom, I want out of town so I can play play on a "Team," not on the Los Angeles Kobe's.
The zen master, for all his overrated-ness, is probably doing this to Kobe on purpose. I mean, he already has his rings, he already has the cash (10 million a year, right?), I mean think about it for a second! He already made Kobe take him back, which made Kobe look like a bigger ass then he already is! Next he is letting Kobe do whatever the hell he wants so that Kobe can fall flat on his face, realize he is not a god and the NBA will see him for what he is... a selfish, diva, premadonna that only cares about his stats and not his team.
If you ask me it is the only smart thing Phil Jackson has ever done... besides jumping on the bandwagon of teams at the right time. Peace.
Imagine what the spin would be on this story if people actually liked Kobe.
Bored. Fine. Maybe. But selfish. Okay, maybe that too.
However, I wouldn't call him selfish just because he scored 81. He's selfish because he's showed a history of being such.
In defense of the guy, at least within context, he could've done this a few weeks ago when he sat against the Mavs. But he chose not to because the game was already out of reach. I'm sure he also thought that it might appear 'selfish' to continue, so, he sat in an effort to appear more 'team-oriented.'
As you might expect though both choices didn't work out for a guy that people already don't like regardless of what he does. That's right. Whether you heard it or not Kobe received noteable criticism for not trying to make history the first time he had the chance.
Now he decides to go the other way and gets chastised again. Poor guy can't win for losin'.
So, what have we learned...
The moral: Destorying sports dynasties and breaking ski bunnies in half would be bad pub for even the pope.
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