(Official?) Lakers Drama Thread

Before you read any further, let me make a disclaimer that this thread is not to promote and encourage the constant drama that plagues our beloved Los Angeles Lakers, but to debunk and make sense of, and for us to simply vent our frustrations with how the drama may be incorrectly portrayed.

The NBA and all of sports for that matter would just not be the same without drama from good ol' La La Land Lakres. I would like to dedicate this thread to all of the dumb, pointless, childish drama that the media (TV, radio, internet, etc.) creates from the smallest things. I'm so sick of the media twisting and manipulating the simplest statements from Lakers players and turning them into situations of "turmoil".

This is somewhat of a "WMC" thread for not the games or performance of the team, but for the frustrations with how our Lakers and our players are built up then torn to shreds by the good ol' media. ESPN is the main culprit. Our beloved world wide leader in sports is the main culprit of the negativity that currently surrounds our team.

Our team is performing badly and far below our expectations and potential, but all of this negative press doesn't help at all. The dynamics of a basketball team and the effects of negativity amongst teammates are familiar to me. A truly strong team will have the ability to block out all negativity to their very best, but we are all simply human. Even the most cohesive and high chemistry teams can be affected by negativity.

My "beef" is with ESPN on this day. The comments that Kobe made about (NOT towards) Dwight are simply his personal opinion. Dwight even said it himself in his response. It is his own opinion that he believes Dwight should fight through the injury to help the team, especially since Pau went down. Dwight wants to play. I don't question his love and commitment for the game. We, as Lakers fans are simply spoiled by Kobe and his tremendous ability to play through injuries. His pain threshold is unbelievable. Dwight's threshold may not be as high, and we need to understand that. Kobe needs to understand that, and I believe he does. These guys have been friends for years. They need each other, and they know it. There is no animosity between the two. The only maliciousness in the comments that Kobe made was injected by the media.

I swear Kobe and Dwight are probably just laughing at this crap right now. The only reason Dwight looks so angry and agitated is because he's so sick and tired of all of these reporters asking about this nonsense. These reporters ask a lot of leading questions, and he knows it. They try to fish any type of negativity out of a statement, and run with it. A majority of these "comments" that reporters throw out there are completely out of context. It's just like a rumor you spread around. By the time that rumor reaches the 10th or 20th person, it's completely different.

I got home from work and flipped on ESPN. I seriously could not watch more than 5 more minutes because of how badly they're making Kobe look. Then of course, the anchors start talking about "Will Dwight leave at the end of the year?", "Can Kobe ever play with Dwight?" I could not tolerate it anymore.

Anyone else share my annoyance?

You can make a reality show about the Lakers.

This season is brutal.

Hopefully dwight can stay healthy and we can keep winning to keep this tension under the surface.

That's the thing, I don't think there is any tension at all. I think the locker room is just fine. I think Kobe and Dwight's relationship is just fine.

^ I agree. I think there is tension stemming from the ridiculous luck with injuries and corresponding sub .500 record at the ASB, but I think the inner turmoil rumors are overplayed. I don't see it in my head with Kobe and MWP in one corner whispering bad things about Dwight and Dwight and Duhon in the other corner whispering stuff about Kobe. Its just too good a story for the media to pile on with "the sky is falling in LA" headline.

How do you know he wasn't just upset at the press hounding him about it and fishing for answers? If you watch the whole thing, Dwight looked annoyed to start. He didn't get upset once he heard what he said. In fact, he hadn't ever heard about what he said until a reporter told him.

it's just like the shaq-kobe "feud." there wasn't much of a "feud", it was the media exaggerating things 100x bigger than they really are