Kobe thinks people who call him selfish are dumb

The Rock · by **The Rock** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:28 am

Love this

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/10/02/you-think-kobe-is-selfish-cant-mesh-with-nash-he-thinks-youre-dumb/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

“Here’s the thing: Some people are just very, very dumb. I keep hearing it from some people that I just want to score and that other stuff. Nobody has won more championships than me in my entire generation. I’ve got five of them. You can’t be selfish and win one championship, let alone five. That argument should be in the coffin by now. I don’t like having the ball.

therealdeal · by **therealdeal** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:35 am

Kobe's such a revisionist. :man10:

He knows he loved having the ball all the time when he was younger. He got older and started wanting it less and less. It boiled over when he wanted to trade Bynum for Kidd, I think that's when he realized he should have the ball a little less and why Pau was important for him.

Now of course he wants it less, it means less work for him. I love the quote though and he's right about not being selfish to a fault. He's definitely selfish, but he puts winning above that which is what matters.

John3:16 · by **John3:16** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:40 am

I don't know about him not liking the ball in his hands. A few years ago he said, "I trust my teammates. I just trust myself more." (I love that quote by the way).

The rest of it I agree with though. He's led the Lakers in assists for about 80% of his career, but he's selfish?

puffyusaf#2 · by **puffyusaf#2** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 10:56 am

Cue Intuative in 3....2....1...

c.Lin · by **c.Lin** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 11:04 am

Kobe definitely likes having the ball. He's a scorer at the core. But does he need the ball to be effective? I would say no. That's been one of the biggest misconceptions about him his entire career.

The selfish tag has also always been one of the things that irked me the most about Kobe detractors. When he took the offensive load into his own hands, he was being selfish. When he deferred, he was pouting. People always found a way to criticize him. He has always put winning above anything else. And he's right; no one in his generation has won more than he has.

lakerfan2 · by **lakerfan2** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:38 pm

Kobe doesn't like the ball in his hands, he likes the ball in his hoop.

abeer3 · by **abeer3** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:25 pm

i think people are misconstruing the "having the ball" comment. he doesn't like running the offense, handling the ball, being responsible for distribution, etc. that's a point guard's job.

if pressed, i'm sure he'd say that he loves finishing plays more than starting them.

i think this year, you'll see nash and pau "having the ball" more, and kobe and howard spending less time possessing and more time scoring.

TheOp · by **TheOp** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:32 pm

John3:16 wrote:The rest of it I agree with though. He's led the Lakers in assists for about 80% of his career, but he's selfish?

Id say that number is probably about 100 %. Unless Payton averaged more assists then him that one year?

Texas Lakers Fan · by **Texas Lakers Fan** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:42 pm

Haha Kobe is awesome. Just tells it like it is. He couldn't be more right. He's not selfish. He wants to win and win badly. You don't win five championships by being selfish.

Forklift · by **Forklift** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 1:50 pm

i wouldn't call him selfish having 5 assists a game for your career isn't selfish, but sometimes his shot selection is kinda on the crazy :man10:

.

Ariza3 · by **Ariza3** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:08 pm

its not about assists bc if it was people wouldnt be saying hes selfish...5 APG is pretty good or a SG. It is crazy shot selection sometimes that makes people think hes a selfish player or a ball hog. when he goes 1-on-1/kobe iso or everyone is standing around doing nothing but watching him is when he looks selfish. he has no problem sharing the ball or giving ball handling responsibilities to someone else but hes gotta trust him.

he tried with sesh for one game and it went pretty well but sesh didnt have the confidence that kobe was looking for. now that he has nash i dont think it'll be a problem. he wants to play offball and when he does this season it'll be amazing

JGC · by **JGC** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 2:35 pm

therealdeal wrote:Kobe's such a revisionist.

He knows he loved having the ball all the time when he was younger. He got older and started wanting it less and less. It boiled over when he wanted to trade Bynum for Kidd, I think that's when he realized he should have the ball a little less and why Pau was important for him.

Now of course he wants it less, it means less work for him. I love the quote though and he's right about not being selfish to a fault. He's definitely selfish, but he puts winning above that which is what matters.

I'm kinda surprised you don't consider the comment to be elitist! Hahaha. (Oh boy, here comes the explanation! about how saying everyone dumb that doesn't agree with you is NOT elitist in THIS case... hehe)

Seriously though, I don't think Kobe's propensity for wanting the ball so much isn't driven from selfishness.

There are players who take a lot of shots, because they love to shoot and they honestly believe they can make them all. And they do it just because they love to score. That isn't Kobe IMO.

The fact is, he does shoot a lot. He does touch the ball a lot. And yeah he does both of those thing more than you probably want any player to. But the motivating factor is that crazy desire to win, and sometimes, that means you do things that aren't actually in the best interest of winning, but yet you think they are.

I liken it to how when teams fall behind, they sort of naturally start taking a higher percentage of 3 pt shots. They're trying to get back in the game, and even though the best thing is probably to take a breath, relax, and do what you did at the start of the game sometimes, that will to get back in it makes you do things that aren't always the best thing.

But it also means, you're likely going to win a lot, and that Kobe has.

OX1947 · by **OX1947** on Tue Oct 02, 2012 4:53 pm

Who cares. Results are 5 world titles.

KB24 · by **KB24** on Wed Oct 03, 2012 3:40 am

Kobe is lying if he says he doesn't want the ball or he doesn't care about shooting. Of course he does.

The question is does he intentionally choose to go for it even if it hurts the team? no.

But he did lose us a lot of games last year because of his 30 shot parades which he made at an abysmal 43% clip. Clearly he was trying too hard to prove he isn't done yet.

therealdeal · by **therealdeal** on Wed Oct 03, 2012 9:16 am

KB24 wrote:Kobe is lying if he says he doesn't want the ball or he doesn't care about shooting. Of course he does.

The question is does he intentionally choose to go for it even if it hurts the team? no.

But he did lose us a lot of games last year because of his 30 shot parades which he made at an abysmal 43% clip. Clearly he was trying too hard to prove he isn't done yet.

I think that was part of it, but part of it was also that he had zero trust for his teammates and I don't blame him. The only guy he trusted last season seemed to be Metta and at times Drew.

I think Kobe felt like he HAD to do everything a lot of the time. And while he wasn't right, he wasn't exactly wrong either. Our role players were pretty awful, but he should have leaned more on Pau and Bynum and Sessions.

JGC · by **JGC** on Wed Oct 03, 2012 7:35 pm

^ I think this goes to show that people, regardless of whether they are Lakers/Kobe fans or not, are seeing the same thing and interpreting it differently.

The detractors see it as pure selfishness, as if the motivation behind overshooting is purely to satisfy Bryant's own need or desire to shoot.

The majority of us here, see it as Kobe applying the solution he believes is necessary to win. Now, IMO, overshooting is almost always the wrong solution (and that is a debate for another day), but when a person is trying to do something for the benefit of the team (in this case, a team win) then it can't be selfish even if what they are doing, doesn't always actually end up benefitting the team because the motivation itself was not inherently self-serving.

(In full disclosure, I have ragged on Kobe many times for shooting the ball too much and too inefficiently, but I have never used the term selfish because I know the motivation isn't self-serving in nature).

kblo247 · by **kblo247** on Wed Oct 03, 2012 7:50 pm

Kobe is used to teammates not finishing shots:

When Kobe passed the ball on isolation plays, his teammates shot 39.2 percent. He passed the ball on 48.9 percent of his pick-and-roll plays last season. On those passes, his teammates shot 42.6 percent.

KOBE MAKES OPEN SHOTS :

When Kobe was left open, he shot 51.3 percent, which ranked 11th of the 113 players with at least 75 unguarded catch-and-shoot jumpers last season. It was the highest such percentage of the nine Lakers players with at least 20 attempts last season.

Nash being a 50/40/90 means Kobe will actually have a guy hitting and finishing on his draw and kicks. Likewise Kobe hit his open shots damn well all last year with no true perimeter playmaking close to Nash and two bigs who aren't good enough to be first options like Dwight

therealdeal · by **therealdeal** on Thu Oct 04, 2012 8:42 am

^ Those numbers are interesting... Where'd you get them?

JGC · by **JGC** on Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:47 pm

kblo247 wrote:Kobe is used to teammates not finishing shots:

When Kobe passed the ball on isolation plays, his teammates shot 39.2 percent. He passed the ball on 48.9 percent of his pick-and-roll plays last season. On those passes, his teammates shot 42.6 percent.

KOBE MAKES OPEN SHOTS :

When Kobe was left open, he shot 51.3 percent, which ranked 11th of the 113 players with at least 75 unguarded catch-and-shoot jumpers last season. It was the highest such percentage of the nine Lakers players with at least 20 attempts last season.

Nash being a 50/40/90 means Kobe will actually have a guy hitting and finishing on his draw and kicks. Likewise Kobe hit his open shots damn well all last year with no true perimeter playmaking close to Nash and two bigs who aren't good enough to be first options like Dwight

The reason the teammates shot poorly was because i) we didn't have adequate shooters and ii) we didn't have adequate playmakers. Kobe clearly isn't a PG. The teammates shot a higher percentage when Ramon Sessions came aboard.

And I'll bet, they'll shoot even better once we have Steve Nash is setting them up.

OX1947 · by **OX1947** on Thu Oct 04, 2012 9:58 pm

Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb...

Texas Lakers Fan · by **Texas Lakers Fan** on Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:00 pm

therealdeal wrote:^ Those numbers are interesting... Where'd you get them?

http://www.google.com/

kblo247 · by **kblo247** on Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:29 am

@realdeal, they came from synergy.

Kobe shot damn well contrary to popular belief last year when open, up there 1 spot outside the top10 and he had a torn ligament last year.

It was Kobe's teammates who couldn't hit shots off his drives. The pick and roll numbers show Pau and Andrew finished at leat, not as much as one would like personally mostly because neither were particularly athletic Shaq bulldoze you for the finish types, but they at least finished off more of his pick and roll plays unlike the perimeter players hitting off his draw and kicks. Blake, Artest, Matt, Fish, Ramon just didn't hit decently enough to spread the court to compound our lacking athleticism as Kobe was still the most athletic rotation player last year

I personally think Nash and Dwight can up those numbers all the ways round. Nash can actually hit on Kobe's kick outs since he is 50/40/90 and Dwight last year finished more shots in the paint and post unassisted than Bynum percentage wise for his scoring. Likewise Kobe can actually see open looks which he knocked down with the leagues best last year and when he sent open, he can either make plays for those two or Pau, or just catch in the triple threat and ISO aka Kobe Ball but with spacing instead of a zone titled on him

jimbo327 · by **jimbo327** on Fri Oct 05, 2012 12:52 am

Kobe doesn't like having the ball. He loves it.

basketboy · by **basketboy** on Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:52 am

quick question.. is robert horry considered a player in "kobe's generation"?

therealdeal · by **therealdeal** on Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:12 am

@kblo247

Yeah I agree with you on Kobe's ability to hit open shots. I remember there being one particular shot he hit against Cleveland last year during his 4/40 point game streak where he shrugged because he was wide open. If Kobe becomes more of a catch and shoot player I think he'll end up shooting about 47% maybe 48% from the field overall. The thing he'll have to limit is his isolations and I think he will.

Obviously having Dwight here means finishes in the paint are going to be... different. I loved Bynum's soft touch around the basket, but a lot of times he could have simply thrown down a dunk and he tried to lay it in. That's no knock on him, just his style of play. Dwight finishes with power. I'm not sure how Nash does off of catch and shoot type shots, but if/when he adjusts he'll be a fantastic spacer. This is an exciting time for Laker fans.

Kobe thinks people who call him selfish are dumb

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