Elephant In the Room - KB

[MensRea]

Why hasn't anyone started a thread on why Howard can't hit free throws or hold on to the ball? Why does he get a pass?

Because we lived through Shaq and it didn't really hurt us then, not worried about it now.

[Optms]

Did you insinuate Shaq and Howard are one in the same? Dude.

Anywho. My point is Kobe and Gasol have earned the right to not be called out publically by run of the mill replacements to Phil. Arguing that if Gasol gets called out, Kobe should too, is absurd. Gasol doesn't mean a fraction to the franchise as Kobe does.

Maybe its the fact that you guys know Howard hasn't yet signed those papers that a lot of you are timid not get on him for costing us games at the line, but as far as I'm concerned, he's not otherworldy good enough nor has he paid his dues to the team the way others have. I fully expect him in a Lakers jersey this time next year up but believe me when I say that I won't lose any sleep there be a situation where he doesn't.

[gp123]

Why hasn't anyone started a thread on why Howard can't hit free throws or hold on to the ball? Why does he get a pass?

this is essentially the scouting report on dwight's offense... I think he should get a pass because well, that's him... if you wanted a skilled big you should have traded for pau gasol.

[leeprettyp]

Why hasn't anyone started a thread on why Howard can't hit free throws or hold on to the ball? Why does he get a pass?

Because this makes to much sense and wouldnt help their Kobe bashing arguments smh. Dwight gets the ball but lets be realistic he isnt a #1 option (at least not yet) and folds under pressure you can see it. But Kobe literally has to be the most unappreciated superstar and winner ever in this L.A. market. UNREAL. Regardless if you people want to admit it or not, when this guy hangs the sneakers up our franchise is gonna really take a huge step back. I'm not saying the guys perfect but you would think after the multiple titles the guy has helped bring to the city, people would have a better understanding of what makes this guy tick (his drive to win). If his competitive nature erks you then just say that, but dont act as if we know more about playing the game of basketball then he does and I think thats where the biggest disconnect coming from with lukewarm Laker fans.

[Mamba Venom]

Mamba is the biggest Pau supporter on the team.

Pau is an ideal 4th option. Just wait for Nash and give Gasol 10 mil a year. Kobe still looks like the best player by far and that is next to Dwight who most say in the media is the 2nd best player in the NBA w/ LeBron being the 1st.

[Doormatt]

Mamba is the biggest Pau supporter on the team.

Pau is an ideal 4th option. Just wait for Nash and give Gasol 10 mil a year. Kobe still looks like the best player by far and that is next to Dwight who most say in the media is the 2nd best player in the NBA w/ LeBron being the 1st.

... dwight is the best player on this team. i mean, at this exact moment kobe is better because he is arguably playing the best basketball of his career, or at least close to it. and do you really think 34 year old kobe can sustain this level of play an entire season? probably not.

[VanExeleNT]

When Kobe scores over 30 points.

Keep denying it Kobe only fans, I been a Laker fan for 20+ years I been a Kobe fan since 96 all the way to last year.

Listen to the player interviews, watch their demeanor around him and see and read behind the lines, its difficult to play alongside this guy now.

As he gets older he skills will only decrease minimally because he is that good and that smart but his problem isn't his skill level his problem is that his skill level at 34 doesn't make up for his attitude and stubbornness. As he gets older he will still keep an eye on that all time scoring record he will still keep an eye on oldest player to score blank stats. he wants to win a championship but he wants to be the reason for it and he needs to realize that he's playing in a MUCH MUCH tougher league than Jordan and he can't win alone @ 34.

Compare his FGA to wins and losses. Numbers don't lie.

We may play the right way and come back from 10 down to cut it to 5 or 6 and kobe will try to bring us back from that and we slip back down again.

Nash will help as long as he can say to kobe's face that let me do my thing because if I have the ball for 15+ seconds we will get a good look. Kobe won't accept 15 shots a game he won't accept 22PPG but the truth is we have all this talent and to me him scoring 28PPG is a problem not an achievement. You can't expect people to score and be consistent if they never get a rhythm.

My previous post (link below) people called me a kobe hater and a gasol apologetic. Gasol has been on the bench now for 4 games. I'm not a kobe hater, I'm a LAKER FAN. I plan to be a laker fan after Kobe leaves and after dwight leaves so I just want to win. I'm thankful for everything Kobe has done and I get people find it hard to blame him because he can still put up crazy numbers but that's the problem. sometimes less is more. Rhythm, desire, consistency from other players all comes when they feel like they get their fair share. everyone's afraid to say it but I will keep saying this because I know it's the problem. That's just me and I'm sure some agree but im sure others will again call me a hater. Out again, i don't post much but i'm frustrated like everyone else.

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1215856

[Doormatt]

numbers do not lie, this is true, they are just numbers waiting to be interpreted. but that doesnt mean you are properly interpreting them.

unless you can actually provide evidence that kobe taking more shots hurts the lakers chances of winning, then you dont actually have anything to discuss. it not as simple as kobe "compare his FGA to wins and losses". thats not how stats and numbers work. you have to account for minutes played, pace, rotations, maybe shot distribution, etc. before you can even remotely come to a conclusion like, the more kobe shoots, the less likely the lakers are to win.

just so were clear, i dont care if youre a hater or a laker fan or whatever you are. it doesnt really matter. but what youve provided here, as far as i cant tell, is nothing of substance.

and if were going off of pure opinion, like you just did, i think this is the first year in probably 2+ years that kobe has not shot the ball too much and is actually playing very well within the flow of the offense. of course hes going to have games and moments where he shoots too much, that defines kobes entire career, but this is the one year where i have a much harder time criticizing him for that than in years past.

[Slava]

If you want to throw a rock and hope it sticks you throw it at the biggest target possible. That's pretty much the correlation between Kobe's shooting volume and our issues this season.

[CharlieMurphy]

interesting stat: the Lakers are 2-7 when Dwight Howard turns the ball over 4 or more times.

If Dwight would just stop being so ball dominant we could win more games. Why does Dwight think that hero ball will work?

But seriously, here's an actual fun fact: Dwight is right at his career average of FGA, you know the career he built that made you all salivate about him being here. (Also, Ryan Anderson took more shots than Dwight last year , right?)

I wonder how Kobe is going to make Dwight take more shots than he ever did/wanted to while being the "number one option" in Orlando.

We all just really need to face facts: Dwight is not Shaq. He's not going to be a player that will average 20 shots a game even if we gave him the ball every time down the court. Furthermore, if we did give him the ball every time down the court, he still wouldn't average 20 FGA because he would get fouled. (Which brings me to another way he's different from Shaq: he's actually a worse FT shooter than Shaq. Crazy right?)

Think about this: Dwight averages 11.4 FGA this year and 10.5 FTA, so that's basically 16 shots/game. Shaq (during our championship years with him) averaged 19.5 FGA and 11.4FTA, that's basically 25 shots/game. (Of course that all doesn't take into account hack-a-shaq or hack-a-dwight, but it's still a good indication of how often they at least threw the ball at the basket in the attempt of a shot) But literally Shaq shot the ball almost 10 more times a game than Dwight does now. Or ever will for that matter, because Dwight's career high in FGA is 13.4.

Haven't you guys wondered why Dwight's always asking for lobs instead of entry passes? He can't score consistently with his back to the basket, plus if you lob it to him he's less likely to get fouled and be forced go to the place where he knows he's bound to fail.

The real elephant in the room is that Kobe can't play defense because he has to score the points that you all foolishly expected to come from Dwight as a product of some magical Shaq seance that would transform him into a player who makes 60% of his fts and also averages 20 FGA.

It's not going to happen. So either Dwight has to make more of his FTs so that Kobe doesn't have to score points to make up for the disparity, or the points are going to have to come from elsewhere. If the points aren't coming you can damn sure expect Kobe to do whatever he has to do to score, which is something we should all be thankful for.

[curryshimmy]

Not a Laker fan here warning!

I really respect the OP here. I came over to the Laker forum to see if any of you Laker fans could see the root of this teams problem the last couple seasons. With all due respect it's Kobe. He and you can blame Pau all u want but it's him. He doesn't like to pass.

signing D'antoni was also a head scratcher to me, as was hiring Mike Brown in the first place.

But don't worry guys u will always go buy someone else. It will turn around for u!

[curryshimmy]

also with all due respect and out of curiousity: why are so many of you obsessed with using the term "Alpha Dog" when describing Kobe? Is this some kind of LA radio thing?

without making a mockery of my team and telling me that the Warriors(14 and 7) have no "ALPHA", please answer respectfully like I know u Laker fans can

also i would cheer up guys. pretty easy schedule up ahead: cavs, bobcats and wizards all coming up soon. I do want to see u guys sneak into playoffs as long as it doesn't take a spot away from my team.

[Doormatt]

"alpha dog" is not a term that is unique to LA sports, i dont know why you would think it is. unless this is your first year following sports, in general, its a popular term used by people in the industry/media, but it really means nothing. its mostly used to described the best player on a team, often someone with a dominant attitude.

and to honestly suggest that the problem with this team is its best player, is pretty stupid. the problems with this team are not pau gasol and kobe bryant, but they are often the scape goats when things go bad.

[ennui]

also with all due respect and out of curiousity: why are so many of you obsessed with using the term "Alpha Dog" when describing Kobe? Is this some kind of LA radio thing?

without making a mockery of my team and telling me that the Warriors(14 and 7) have no "ALPHA", please answer respectfully like I know u Laker fans can

also i would cheer up guys. pretty easy schedule up ahead: cavs, bobcats and wizards all coming up soon. I do want to see u guys sneak into playoffs as long as it doesn't take a spot away from my team.

[ponder276]

I think the OP has a point. Don't get me wrong, Kobe is a PHENOMENAL player, one of the greatest guards of all time. He is, however, also a player who really looks for his own shot first, who isn't tolerant of mistakes/misses by team mates, who is very prone to doing whatever he wants and ignoring the game plan. On most teams, guys like Gasol, Dwight and even Jamison could play through their mistakes, and be focal points in the offence. They could give up the ball knowing that they'd get it back, they could be heavily involved in the game and could patiently find their offence. This isn't the case on a Kobe team. Kobe's team mates need to do what they can with limited touches/shots, if they have a bad start to the game they know they won't be allowed to work through it, and if they give up the ball on a play they know they probably aren't getting it back.

Basically, stars are turned into role players when they play with Kobe. With some team compositions, this is fine. With the current composition, it doesn't seem to be working so well. Kobe has been the top performer on the team by far, but the team has still sucked despite being stacked. If you took out Kobe, and replaced him with an inferior SG like Manu or Redick, would the team be better or worse? I think they'd actually be better, not because these guys are close to as good as Kobe, but because other players (like Gasol, Dwight and Jamison) would really be allowed to shine.

I do think Steve Nash coming back could be HUGE for this team, assuming he's healthy and playing at something near his 2011/12 level. With Nash as the distributor, guys will get their touches when they should, and Kobe will be more of a scorer than a point guard. Everything should run more smoothly. But until Nash does come back, I think the rest of the team will struggle to be effective with everything running through Kobe.

[Doormatt]

im pretty sure if you replaced kobe bryant with jj reddick this team would be without a doubt the worst in the league. manu is a different story since hes on an entirely different plain than reddick but we'd still be awful since manu can only manage 25mpg this year as opposed to kobe whos almost loggin 39 minutes a night.


again, for like the billionth time, kobe shooting the ball IS NOT the problem. the problem is that we turn the ball over and cant even get our bigs touches because if kobe isnt creating offense for himself or for others, the chances of a bad play happening in someone elses hands is ridiculously high. its magnified because the only person who can produce good offense right now is kobe and occasionally dwight. but in reality this is not kobes fault, he is not lebron james, he is not chris paul, he is not a player who continuously makes plays for others to generate great offense. thats NEVER who hes been. so to blame kobe for doing what hes been doing his whole career, and been quite successful at, is pretty dumb. the problem is that this team is just awful right now. people think that just because we have dwight and kobe that we are automatically good, its just not that simple, basketball is not that simple.

[PandGneverfold]

When are lakers fans going to stop falling for the troll bait. Stevie wonder could see kobe is not the reason we are losing. Butt hurt shaq fans or undercover fans from other teams love to come here just to stir stuff up. The problem aint kobe.

[Doormatt]

not everyone is trolling when they say that. clearly you havent been on this board long enough to realize that people truly do believe kobe's shooting or whatever is the prime reason we lose or underachieve. there are people who genuinely believe that, or at least something along those lines.

[PandGneverfold]

Has kobe's shooting been a problem in the past? Yes ,but I refuse to believe that there are people out there lame enough to put this on him.

[Doormatt]

lol of course they exist.