Kobe Discussion: Clash of the Titus! (671)

Phil was a hippie with a weird offense.

"Can D'Antoni win a championship?" Avoids answering that question

charvin wrote::man10: Phil was a hippie with a weird offense.

"Can D'Antoni win a championship?" Avoids answering that question

Yeah, his responses to the D'Antoni questions seemed pretty damning considering where he stood on his hiring at the time...

phoenixrisingla wrote:

Chillbongo wrote:

therealdeal wrote:He's still got to find the balance that Magic enjoyed.

This is true, as much as I <3 Kobe, I agree that he struggles to find a balance which is unfortunate.

Real, any chance you were listening to Night Side with Jay from Compton last night? AM 710

He's not Magic. He was never close to haveing the same game as magic. He didnt want to be like Magic.

Kobe is a scorer. Fans (me included) get hypnotized by his skill and his ABILITY to do everything on the court, but a Tiger cant change his stripes.

He sees himself as a scorer. He thinks his position should focus on scoring. He values scoring about everthing else.

This is why we love him and its the same reason we scream at his through our TV screens sometimes. But it is what it is. He aint changing. Let's enjoy the last 1.5 season we get to see it.

Actually you're wrong phoenix, Kobe very much first idolized Magic. He's said it multiple times and a bunch fairly recently. He said he thought he'd like Magic but he stopped growing and when he realized he wasn't going to be 6'9" he changed his thought process up.

Obviously he's one of the greatest scorers ever, but he's showing everyone in the world right now that he can do anything he wants on the basketball court. If he wanted to be Magic Johnson, he could give it a damn good try.

Here's his quote:

Bryant, who is averaging 26.4 points a game this season, said that when he was young, he wanted to be a point guard in the mold of Magic Johnson.

"My idol was Magic growing up and I just so happened to not grow to 6-9" (Johnson's height), said Bryant, who is 6-6. "After that, when I realized I wasn't going to be 6-9, that was the end of that dream."

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/30/health/la-sp-lk-kobe-bryant-suggests-that-if-he-were-a-point-guard-hed-be-the-best-20130130

If this season wasn't already depressing...you have to start thinking about life after Kobe....

Which is why I am so ashamed and disgusted with management. You have Kobe Bryant nearing the end of 'his career. You know what works for him. You've seen and experienced multiple championships through it, yet you ignore your biggest asset...your franchise player...to go with a gimmick that is way past its shelf life. I don't intend to show any disrespect towards Nash, but management really f'd up on this one. You did Kobe wrong and you did the fan base wrong. I've really soured on them and they need to come together and collectively make this right to all the people they wronged through their ego-driven decision process.

Chillbongo wrote:

therealdeal wrote:He's still got to find the balance that Magic enjoyed.

This is true, as much as I <3 Kobe, I agree that he struggles to find a balance which is unfortunate.

Real, any chance you were listening to Night Side with Jay from Compton last night? AM 710

Balance. He found it alright up until last year. The dude did win 5 chips, lead a team of nobodies to the playoffs and almost took out #1 PHX.

Last year. Brown's system. Zero shooters. Clogged middle. Bynum horrible at double teams. He shot more. Why? If he didn't shoot from oustide, who else was gonna make shots to open up the middle for Bynum?

This year. D12 whines about touches. Pau whines about touches. Nash ineffective as a PnR distributor, his bread and butter. Bench players wanting and needing touches. Defense wasn't being played. So when Kobe decides to change, probably at the teams request, we start to play D. We win 3 straight.

Balance? Do you really expect Kobe to endanger this sudden "team spirit" and happiness because guys are satiated with their touches by shooting more against PHX? I don't.

Balance is real easy to achieve when you've got teammates who aren't so sensitive. We talk about Magic having such good balance....well he played with 3 HOF'ers and role players who didn't complain and played D. He played with those guys for a long period of time.

This is Kobe's first year with these guys. We are losing. Losing bad. It's not the best situation to find balance. Kobe is walking on eggshells. It'll be alot easier if these guys played D without regard for "getting involved". But sadly that's not the case.

To ask him to find balance this soon, with these group of guys, is just asking way too much. Second new head coach. Second different system. Now it looks like its a third one.

I'll tell you this, these guys couldn't have played and meshed well with MJ.

Can't wait for those documentaries

NO KOBE WILL NEVER RETIRE. HIS NBA CAREER IS A MOVING DOCUMENTARY

therealdeal wrote:

phoenixrisingla wrote:He's not Magic. He was never close to haveing the same game as magic. He didnt want to be like Magic.

Kobe is a scorer. Fans (me included) get hypnotized by his skill and his ABILITY to do everything on the court, but a Tiger cant change his stripes.

He sees himself as a scorer. He thinks his position should focus on scoring. He values scoring about everthing else.

This is why we love him and its the same reason we scream at his through our TV screens sometimes. But it is what it is. He aint changing. Let's enjoy the last 1.5 season we get to see it.

Actually you're wrong phoenix, Kobe very much first idolized Magic. He's said it multiple times and a bunch fairly recently. He said he thought he'd like Magic but he stopped growing and when he realized he wasn't going to be 6'9" he changed his thought process up.

Obviously he's one of the greatest scorers ever, but he's showing everyone in the world right now that he can do anything he wants on the basketball court. If he wanted to be Magic Johnson, he could give it a damn good try.

Here's his quote:

Bryant, who is averaging 26.4 points a game this season, said that when he was young, he wanted to be a point guard in the mold of Magic Johnson.

"My idol was Magic growing up and I just so happened to not grow to 6-9" (Johnson's height), said Bryant, who is 6-6. "After that, when I realized I wasn't going to be 6-9, that was the end of that dream."

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/30/health/la-sp-lk-kobe-bryant-suggests-that-if-he-were-a-point-guard-hed-be-the-best-20130130

Yo Real, might have come off a little grumpier than I meant to; was sitting in Las Vegas airport hung over as balls. these are my #1 and 2 favorite players of all time. But for VERY different reasons...

Anyway, I still disagree. I remember when that quote came out and I have no doubt that you could find 400-500 more that are full of nothing but praise and idolization of Magic from Kobe. However the original qute from Chill was about him finding that balance, which isnt Kobe's game.

You think its the 3 inches of tallness that seperate Kobe from Magic? He has the skill set at 6'6" to play the same game Magic did. What separates Kobe from Magic is 17 years of a style of play that has no similarities.

I'm no such a cynic that I think Kobe is just playing lip service to Magic, I think he REALLY respects him. But to say that he didnt play that way because he didnt become as tall as the tallest PG of all time is complete BS. Kobe is his own guy and has his own set of values as pertains to BBall and they are not a match with Magic's.

Or maybe we're kind of agreeing and I'm just phrasing it as "he hasnt" while you're phrasing it as "he could have". If thats the case then we're on the same page.

As for if he can continue to play in the way he has been through the last 1.5 years of his career? We'll have to wait and see, but I think the smart money is on the Tiger keeping its stripes.

Oh man all those articles ... I'm gonna miss that guy once he hangs it up. I'm gonna stay up late here just to watch us again battle it out and see if he can lead us to a victory.

Kinda old but I love this song and video:

Phoenix I hear ya. I was just thinking about how in seasons we aren't doing well he doesn't find the balance because he's off scoring. Then he gets criticized and is asked to change, and he overtly focuses on passing.

But I will say this. He actually has found a balance before. When we won titles (notably 2009 & 10), he was definitely focused on getting everyone involved, and we had the personnel for it.The triangle itself focuses on balanced offense, and there were tons of games in those 2 playoff runs where he put up like 26/7/6.

But they key difference is he had his teammates efforts and will right there with him. People stepped up. Made shots. Played D.

No, he isn't Magic and doesn't want to be even if he could. He is a scorer first, but in our title runs he has efficiently balanced his amazing scoring powers to complement his teammates and put team basketball first. With him as top dog.


PS lucky you're in Vegas....return on a Friday? Any reason you didn't stay for the weekend for some more

^^ Yeah man, I was there on business all week long and after four straight nights of drinking like that, I needed out. I'm over 30 now and I feel like every trip to vegas takes a year off my life. Lost money on both laker games (didnt cover the spread against NO) and got to place a bet for the SB on Sunday.

And you're right, he did put up nice assists and rebounds those years you mentioned, but he also averaged 23 FGA per game in both those years, so even when the other stats come up his focus is REALLY still on being a scorer.

I speak for most fans on here when I say I'd give anything to see Kobe win another title.

Little perspective people...during Magic's career he was passing to Kareem, Worthy, McAdoo, Wilkes, Scott. Kobe was passing to Shaq, Horry, Fisher, Pau, Fox, Odom. First list is all hall of fame players except scott and the second list will contain one sure fire HOF in Shaq and a maybe in Pau. Magic was great and deserves all the credit but people act like "if only Kobe was like Magic". Kobe has never been surrounded by the same talent as Magic. This year seemed like it should have been that but what we discovered is Nash can no longer make a lot of plays; Pau is done; and Howard really wasn't that good to begin with and may only ever be the post surgery David Robinson.

Kobe is one of the all time great scorers who can on occasion pass. You brought Steve Nash here to dish the rock and you found out they only way guys can score is if Kobe makes plays for them. You now have a 38 year old point guard that can't defend or make plays.

And to think Kobe in his 17th year still gets so much disrespect...

^All true.

I for one like that kobe is a scorer and dont understand laker fans who dont like kobe at all.

kobe and nike are taking all my money this year

I don't know if it is just me, but I feel Kobe is passing TOO MUCH. I mean he passes up on not only open shots, but very good ones.

Kobe is a frustrating player at times. He's clearly smart, he clearly understands the game and all but his stubbornness wins out over his smarts sometimes and it's frustrating to watch. He just has this binary mentality sometimes where it's 'pass mode' or 'mamba mode' regardless of what the situation actually asks of him. It's hard to complain though because I think that focus is a large part of what has made him such a great player. Just one of those frustrating things at times though .

Here is the log from tonight.

Minnesota (Feb. 01, 2013)

What can I say... we blew the lead, but we won. Guess he'll keep passing like this in the future. Great effort on the boards tonight.

guy is such a scrub. cant even get a triple double.

Great game but damnit shoot the ball! This thing is not sustainable. We're still giving up lots of points and guys are not converting open opportunities, nothing as changed even though hes going from scorer to facilitator. We're blowing leads too. Get into rhythm and start scoring the ball

Get your shooting rhythm back !

I can't believe people are yelling for him to shoot the ball more now. We've won 4 of 5, we should have won 5 of 5, this is working right now, I say stick with it. I think if Kobe needs to score, he can score, he can get back in that rhythm pretty quick, but the team looks happy how they are playing now, and we're getting 4-6 guys scoring in double figures every single game.

Weezy wrote:I can't believe people are yelling for him to shoot the ball more now. We've won 4 of 5, we should have won 5 of 5, this is working right now, I say stick with it. I think if Kobe needs to score, he can score, he can get back in that rhythm pretty quick, but the team looks happy how they are playing now, and we're getting 4-6 guys scoring in double figures every single game.

This. He wont shoot 4-13 every night.

Keep it up, we're winning games!

Well he played well but at times he seems less intense. In the 4th he should have just been driving to the rim for some free throws. Instead he kind of floated around.

Nash did too.