Why does bryant attempt so many shots in 1st half of games?

[microfib4thewin]

In the 99 season, Duncan was playing with a 16/10/2 center who was still one of the best defenders in the league as his frontcourt partner. He also drew more fouls than Duncan did on like 6 fewer shots. Robinson posted a .689 FTA/FGA rate for 7.4 FTA/g against 10.8 FGA/g. Duncan managed 7.2 FTA/g against 16.9 FGA/g, or .424.

Last year, Kobe played with two centers that averaged 18/11, and they traded away useless players for good role players in Jordan Hill and Ramon Sessions. See? I can do that too.

Kobe's situation wasn't ideal last year, but it was nowhere near the end of the world. There were enough pieces to contend and the Lakers fell way short. They were 13th in SRS and Pythagorean wins and they were 12th in those two categories in 2007. Talent wise I doubt anyone would say the 2012 Lakers is equal to the 2007 Lakers. If the 2012 Lakers is so much more talented and Kobe is this great franchise player who is able to slow his decline then why did those two teams perform at similar strength? Either Kobe has declined much more than the stats indicate or Kobe is being exposed as a player who is a difficult fit after the zen master's departure.

Speaking of Mike Brown, are we forgetting that there is one player that had to work with him for 7 years? No one talks about Mike Brown as an obstacle when this player failed to win a title playing for him, but whenever we talk about why the Lakers couldn't do better all fingers point to Brown. Now that is starting to look moronic when the team still has the same problems under D'Antoni.

You say crappy ownership, but they still turned Olden Polynice into Pippen, drafted Grant, replaced Grant with 2-time DPOY Dennis Rodman, found Kukoc, got a workable center rotation (be it Cartwright or whomever else) and got Phil Jackson into place to tie everything together. It'd be foolish to lament Chicago ownership and management. Krause was crazy and wanted more credit than he got, but he still topped a franchise that put the appropriate talent in place to facilitate contention.

And look at how the Bulls ended up after the Jordan era. They became another irrelevant franchise with high turnover rate for their management, people have shunned the ownership as cheapskates that no star player is sane enough to join willingly, and all they have done is gamble on youth movements that never worked out until they lucked into the Rose pick. They have certainly made nice moves that allowed Jordan to establish his legacy, but those moves were good because Jordan was great enough to take advantage of it.

The Lakers front office already did their job, and if the team still comes up short the problem is on the players, not management. As the franchise player Kobe has to bear some of the responsibilities.

As far as what other great players had when they won a title, the amount of help they get is nothing compared to Kobe. Barring a true defensive anchor Kobe's environment was completely tailor made for him. He has always enjoyed playing for an ownership that is willing to spend in a wise manner, the management always a step ahead of other FOs, and a legendary coach who could manage Kobe's ego as well as make the role players effective despite Kobe's gunning style. All Kobe has to 'suffer' right now is a downgrade on coaching and perhaps a downgrade on ownership if Jim Buss is firing long time employees without notice. If that is truly enough to stop the great Kobe Bryant from contending then maybe he isn't so great in the first place.

[microfib4thewin]

No one seems to be able to answer that question these days ever since we are done talking about Odom's fall from grace.

This point in particular caught my fancy. Remember when you used a two-week sample size in games which Kobe did not play to show how in fact Kobe was limiting LO. You're doing the same thing here.

1. I already said that it was not conclusive.

2. Certain people like to claim how Odom's eye-dropping decline was due to not playing with Kobe. They didn't think about the fact that the Lakers FO pretty much stabbed Odom in the back by making up stories of him wanting to be traded so they have an excuse to do a salary dump. Odom went through trade rumors ever since he's in LA, and if Odom could get upset at almost being traded he would have demanded out a long time ago. He certainly wouldn't wait this long before he pulls a Kobe behind closed doors.

3. What about the guys that are still playing with Kobe like Gasol or Artest? It's been a 1.3 seasons since Phil left and they are still looking like crap playing next to a player who is supposed to make his teammates better. It conveniently went from 'Kobe makes his teammates better' to 'Kobe's teammates are letting him down'.

[xclearscreen]

you can't make em if you don't shoot em

[Doddage]

Because Bryant is a ballhog, simply put.

[djay]

Or, and here's a twist, it means that the roster depth isn't there. You can't rely on a player to do everything. Witness Lebron James not really winning until he had effective spot-up shooters and defensive roleplayers around him in Cleveland. Witness the Lakers not defending or doing a great job of sticking open 3s around Kobe. 1+1 = 2, not 17, man.

We are not EVEN ASKING Kobe to lead his team to a top 10 in NBA standing, we are simply questioning why his game does not translate to playing .500 ball with DH12. You are really underestimate Lebron ability to play defense by roaming. Lebron ability to block on weak side and rebound make that CLE very good defensively. Anyway I don't want to get into the Lebron vs Kobe. CLE Lebron is in his prime. Currently Kobe is not in his prime. In fact, he is declining and still his game hasn't adjust to allow the game comes to him; rather than forcing things upon himself to do too much.

Too bad; history is relevant.

It's only relevant if Kobe's game is still effective. Fact is his game is no longer have the same effectiveness as his explosive step, stamina declining. This you can check by his Defensive Metric, especially this year.

Shaq did plenty of playmaking. During the title years, the Lakers ran two-guard front in the triangle and used a lot of really strong team passing and read-and-react plays to attack a defense and Kobe's style of play wasn't a ton different than it is now... save that it was metered by the fact that they had a 27+ ppg big dominating the post and they had strong roleplayers around him. Yes, he initiated the attack and made the right plays a lot of the time in the triangle, but they had a sensible offensive system backed by a strong defense and appropriate roster talent.

No point arguing over issue that we both don't agree with. By eyeball test and Kobe's OWN WORD, he was force to be a playmaker and initiating the offense due to Jackson requesting. He was also the guy that brought the ball up, drove and gave Shaq easy bucket.

That's awfully incorrect. You can very much blame them for that. Look at the Bulls in their title years. Jordan was taking 20% more shots per game than is Kobe right now and you're looking at the same kind of scenario, only his guys made shots and hustled their butts off on defense. By your logic, when MJ took "any shot he wants," they should have been moping and slacking and walking up the court and stuff. Jordan was committed on D but, especially as he got older, he gambled and over-extended himself, took plays off to conserve energy and so forth all of the time. Kobe isn't as good as was Jordan, but the situation is highly similar. The difference here is that you're not getting the same support from the peripheral players. Part of that is the health of Gasol and Howard. Some of it is that Mike D'Antoni is a lamentably incompetent defensive coach who doesn't have a strong Xs and Os assistant. The latter fact isn't news, he's proven it for over 8 years at the NBA across three different franchises now. He's terrible and lazy about coaching defense, it's not what he knows how to implement and it's a problem. Brown wasn't doing any better, of course, but for most of his time, he didn't have Odom (a key part of L.A.'s defense) or Dwight (who wasn't fully healthy anyway).

Wrong. You're trying to mix and match with Kobe/MJ when those situation is not the same. Truth is '98 MJ's defense is still respectable (defensive RAPM above 0). The '12 Kobe defensive RAPM is negative. They are not even in the same realm when my point is the role players respect their leader more if he committed to playing defense. Also MJ decision making and shot selection on the offensive end is much better than Kobe. Once again, you didn't really address my point. Kobe's non defense while padding his offensive stat made players around him too not focusing on defensive end.

You don't have to make excuse about MDA and his defensive woe. I already know that. Fact is defense is up to the player, not coaching. When your leader like Kobe is not putting his effort on defense, it sends a bad message to the rest of the group, especially when Kobe gets to shoot whatever he wants without having a coach to penalize him for taking a bad shot.

That's as foolish a comment as you'll ever find. 17 games of Pau Gasol plus one of the greatest scorers in NBA history, Dwight's still near to his customary level of usage and you're complaining? Yeah, in a game here and there they should have gone to him more. Against the Wizards, for example, Kobe should have shot less and fed Dwight more. That game was a bad game for Kobe. Dwight's usage is only 0.8% below what it was in the 09-10 season, however, right in the middle of his Orlando prime, so you're basically wrong. Not at all surprising, but there it is. You'll also notice that despite posting the second-highest draw rate of the last 7 or 8 years of his career, because Dwight is shooting 49.2% from the line (the second-worst mark of his career) instead of his career average of 58.4%, he's leaving about 1.1 ppg on the table as a result of his brick-laying at the charity stripe. +1.1 ppg would have him at 19.3 ppg on 11.1 FGA/g, and would take his TS% from 57.6% to 61%.

Given that, and his not-full health, I question the value of your comments here. Dwight isn't playing anywhere near his usual level of defense and his blowing shots at the line the way he did last year in Orlando, which is limiting his overall effectiveness. Given that and his limited passing game, lack of range and so forth, the Lakers shouldn't been consistently using him much more than they are now, especially with Kobe still playing so efficiently. As his overall efficiency declines, they should have him spreading the ball more to Pau (when he's healthy) and Dwight (especially as he quits sucking in several other regards). But right now, he's seeing the ball quite a lot to begin with and his game doesn't support the style of play that MAD has implemented. He can't be Amare because he can't shoot from range effectively and L.A.'s off-ball movement when he isolates in the post isn't great. Kobe's is fine, but the spacing is off because Jamison sucks and the other roleplayers aren't really that good at moving around without the ball. Artest is a big issue here, he crowds things, especially when he's storm-bricking it, though he's played solidly to date. Last year, though, blech.

Dwight usage is down compare to his last 2 seasons in Orlando by at least 3.0. That, I wouldn't say "near his customary level of usage" given that in his early Orlando day, his game is still developing and he had more offensive options on his team. While on this Lakers, there is only 1 or 2 offensive options to take away his usage.

Break usage in win/loss column is a better indication of DH12 usage effectiveness compare to Kobe's usage effectiveness...

Here's a stat that I track on his usage rate vs DH12 and in correlation with winning.

When the Lakers are winning game, Kobe usage rate is 28.16.
When the Lakers are losing game, Kobe usage rate is staggering 35.26

Compare this to Dwight Howard.

When the Lakers are winning game, Dwight usage rate is 24.13.
When the Lakers are losing game, Dwight usage rate is 21.96.

What does this say about Kobe and DH12 in relation to the winning formula? It's quite simple, when the Lakers used DH12 more.. they have better chance of winning compare to Kobe. Simple.

Direct falsehood. Especially since we were talking about the New York game. I wasn't talking about a seasonal increase in FGA/g, I was talking about the New York game specifically and you're entirely wrong to assert that they were jacking up or from Kobe isolation. They were mostly on swing passes and kick-outs, good, open looks generated by the offense.

You are wrong.

So you're basically talking individual game? I don't like talking about selective game as those are not good indication over a sample size. Fact is those guy fga increased was due to pace rather than from Kobe's iso kick out and passing shot.

MDA doesn't have a "playmaking offense," he has a "give the ball to the PG and hope for the best while running routes in transition" offense. If you'd watched Phoenix or New York, you'd realize that. He relies heavily upon having a PG, a pass-first PG to operate his system. That's not Kobe's style of play, nor was it a sensible system to implement. Now, with the expectation of Nash's presence on the court, it makes a little more sense but then again... Nash ISN'T playing! Two of their starters are missing significant time and we're pissing and moaning that L.A. isn't playing at maximum efficiency, which is some of the most foolish nonsense I've read on these boards in ages.

MDA DOES have a playmaking offense but it is center on the PG ability to do that. Because Nash is out, once again, Kobe has to fill those holes temporary and do more playmaking to get his teammate easy buckets. I really want to track how many of those shot his teammates took are a result of direct Kobe pass vs from individual player creates by himself. If I have to guess, I guess it's the latter. ... Also Kobe isolation offense is affecting the team mindset on defense, and defense is a major issue on this team. Everybody knows that and there is nobody worse offender on defense than Kobe on this Lakers.

[MistyMountain20]

1. I already said that it was not conclusive.

No, this is what you said:

As a more objective approach to how Odom did during the the two week stretch. Here are his numbers from the game against the Sonics, the first game that Bynum missed, to the game against the Wizards, the last game the Lakers played before Gasol officially plays.

MPG 38.6 PPG 12.3 RPG 10.3 APG 4.8 FG 42% 3PT 1-12

While those are just raw stats and it's a small sample size, the drop off in production is obvious. My guess is that if the Gasol trade never happened Odom could be playing badly for the rest of the year.

I think Kobe-Pau and Pau-Odom work extremely well with each other. Kobe-Odom? Not so much.

posting.php?mode=quote&f=64&p=31332694

Yeah you're an objective presence.

2. Certain people like to claim how Odom's eye-dropping decline was due to not playing with Kobe. They didn't think about the fact that the Lakers FO pretty much stabbed Odom in the back by making up stories of him wanting to be traded so they have an excuse to do a salary dump. Odom went through trade rumors ever since he's in LA, and if Odom could get upset at almost being traded he would have demanded out a long time ago. He certainly wouldn't wait this long before he pulls a Kobe behind closed doors.

Ah, so in this situation there are different variables that resulted in said circumstance. Interesting.

3. What about the guys that are still playing with Kobe like Gasol or Artest? It's been a 1.3 seasons since Phil left and they are still looking like crap playing next to a player who is supposed to make his teammates better. It conveniently went from 'Kobe makes his teammates better' to 'Kobe's teammates are letting him down'.

Crap? I mean I guess you can say Gasol looked like crap when the Lakers still had Phil, right? This is your where your whole absurd argument stands; Bryant is such a malignant force on and off the court, that by the grace of God of himself (God being Phil Jackson of course), he somehow was able to eek out every somewhat (but not really any) good virtues of Kobe Bryant.

For the record, Pau in 2011, with the zenmaster, put up 13 ppg 8 rebounds PER 17.3 in the Playoffs. With Mike Brown (the non-God entity) averaged 12.5 ppg 9 rebounds PER 17. I guess by this point in time the zenmaster had been running dry on his magic...

As for MWP, he's having a solid year. 13 ppg 56 TS% PER 13.5 (highest since his last year with the Rockets). Actually Artest is the most efficient he has ever been in his career. I guess this is yet another example of Kebo making his teammates better. Boy don't you look silly.

[microfib4thewin]

No, this is what you said:

As a more objective approach to how Odom did during the the two week stretch. Here are his numbers from the game against the Sonics, the first game that Bynum missed, to the game against the Wizards, the last game the Lakers played before Gasol officially plays.

MPG 38.6 PPG 12.3 RPG 10.3 APG 4.8 FG 42% 3PT 1-12

While those are just raw stats and it's a small sample size, the drop off in production is obvious. My guess is that if the Gasol trade never happened Odom could be playing badly for the rest of the year.

I think Kobe-Pau and Pau-Odom work extremely well with each other. Kobe-Odom? Not so much.

In which part of the post did I say it was conclusive that Odom will definitely play better without Kobe in the long term? Kobe hadn't missed enough games for any of us to really know how well the Lakers function without him.

Crap? I mean I guess you can say Gasol looked like crap when the Lakers still had Phil, right? This is your where your whole absurd argument stands; Bryant is such a malignant force on and off the court, that by the grace of God of himself (God being Phil Jackson of course), he somehow was able to eek out every somewhat (but not really any) good virtues of Kobe Bryant.

For the record, Pau in 2011, with the zenmaster, put up 13 ppg 8 rebounds PER 17.3 in the Playoffs. With Mike Brown (the non-God entity) averaged 12.5 ppg 9 rebounds PER 17. I guess by this point in time the zenmaster had been running dry on his magic...

As for MWP, he's having a solid year. 13 ppg 56 TS% PER 13.5 (highest since his last year with the Rockets). Actually Artest is the most efficient he has ever been in his career. I guess this is yet another example of Kebo making his teammates better. Boy don't you look silly.

If the zen master was still the zen master he wouldn't have lost game 1 aagainst a much more inferior opponent in the Hornets or get outcoached by Carlisie.

I do admit Gasol and Artest are not the greatest examples, but the team is playing badly right now even though Kobe and Dwight are their normal selves(for the most part anyway). We both agree the defense has been horrid, but I am not entirely convinced the offense isn't a major problem either. Think old age GSW, they have no problem scoring 100 a game because they let their opponent score 120, and the Lakers could be in a similar situation. If the Lakers only have a defense problem they should be able to outscore the lesser teams by their offensive talent alone, but that hasn't been the case. They lost against the Cavs and barely beat the Wizards. The SSOL Suns, a team that can rely on offense alone, would have no problem beating the bottom tier of the league.

Which brings us back to Kobe. The question here is, does he or does he not have an influence on the performance of his team, and if he doesn't, does that also apply to the teams he won a title with? I have still yet to see a straight answer from anyone about this. If you want to say Kobe is responsible for his team winning but not responsible when his team is underperforming I would like to hear why. Otherwise it is just taking the credit and redirecting the blame.

[MistyMountain20]

In which part of the post did I say it was conclusive that Odom will definitely play better without Kobe in the long term? Kobe hadn't missed enough games for any of us to really know how well the Lakers function without him.

You're right, you didn't write the word conclusive. You DID say that two-week stretch was a more objective way of understanding Odom's improvement with the Lakers than seeing how Odom played with Kobe for the past 5 (or 2.5, whichever you want to slice it) years. You said then how maybe this was just Odom's self-improvement; probably now you'd say it was the deity known as PJ that gave him the power to do better. But that's all a lot of hot air; what is conclusive is that Kobe had nothing or very little to do with it, right?

Your above position, much like you position here, is absurd.

If the zen master was still the zen master he wouldn't have lost game 1 aagainst a much more inferior opponent in the Hornets or get outcoached by Carlisie.

I guess being pushed by the Thunder to 6 games the year before didn't highlight the zenmaster's decline.

Or losing game 1 to Rockets in '09 and game 2 to Denver in '09. Please tell me if in any of those year's we saw the power tit of zenmaster start to dry up.

The SSOL Suns, a team that can rely on offense alone, would have no problem beating the bottom tier of the league.

And the Suns were starting two bench players, and playing a 3rd and 4th string Point Guards (in a Point Guard dominated offense) for 48 minutes. Thank you for remembering to point that out, that would have been really shortsighted of you to not to include that type of information.

The question here is, does he or does he not have an influence on the performance of his team, and if he doesn't, does that also apply to the teams he won a title with?

Of course, why should we have to take the time and effort to at the very least broach the subject if the Kobe then is the same Kobe now. I mean if we were going to start a topic like that, we would have to know where we stood there. Then we would have to quantify he teammates then and now, assess the league then and now and blah blah blah. Why would we want to do that, cause the only objective, black and white, no variable situation that we know based on scientific and divine evidence is that Kobe sukzzz.

I have still yet to see a straight answer from anyone about this.

I'm shocked. Keep fighting the good fight brother.

[semi-sentient]

they patched up their lack of depth with Jamison and Meeks.

Do you understand the depth of failure in this statement?

Jamison does suck though. He's a had few good games this season but by and large the man has been awful. Defensively he's always been bad, but on offense he's fallen off a cliff, and this after coming off a couple of poor seasons. It's not like his outside shots have been tightly contested either as just about all of his looks are clean with no defender within 5 feet.

If it were up to me he'd get benched unless Hill were injured.

Meeks has been decent. Since Brown was fired his PT has been more consistent (more minutes) and he's really been shooting the ball extremely well from the outside. He's been average, at best, defensively. Still an upgrade over any shooter the Lakers had last year, but sadly Jamison sucking to go along with no legit backup PG has negated his contribution.

[JordansBulls]

Dwight needs to start taking a good 6-7 shots in the first quarter to get off so that it helps spread the floor more so.

[microfib4thewin]

I guess being pushed by the Thunder to 6 games the year before didn't highlight the zenmaster's decline.

Or losing game 1 to Rockets in '09 and game 2 to Denver in '09. Please tell me if in any of those year's we saw the power tit of zenmaster start to dry up.

His 2010 campaign was nowhere near as disastrous as 2011. I can accept the Thunder pushing the Lakers to six games when they are the anti-thesis of the Lakers. They have athleticism, they're young, and they like to play full court. That's something a slow half court team would have trouble dealing with. The Rockets series was unacceptable not because they lost game 1, but because they let the Rockets push them to 7 simply by playing small ball.

But all of that is not even remotely comparable to letting a much worse team in the Hornets push them to 6, losing a 16 point lead in game 1 proceeded with a sweep by the Mavs.

And the Suns were starting two bench players, and playing a 3rd and 4th string Point Guards (in a Point Guard dominated offense) for 48 minutes. Thank you for remembering to point that out, that would have been really shortsighted of you to not to include that type of information.

In 06 they started Boris Diaw as center who is not starter material by any means. They also started Kurt Thomas for 50 games because he was their best defender. When Kurt Thomas at the age of 33 is your best interior defender you know the team has major issues. Let's not forget they also played Marion as PF a majority of times, and Marion defending a PF is as bad as Jamison defending anything that moves.

Of course, why should we have to take the time and effort to at the very least broach the subject if the Kobe then is the same Kobe now. I mean if we were going to start a topic like that, we would have to know where we stood there. Then we would have to quantify he teammates then and now, assess the league then and now and blah blah blah. Why would we want to do that, cause the only objective, black and white, no variable situation that we know based on scientific and divine evidence is that Kobe sukzzz.

Then discuss the main point. Why is Kobe then and Kobe now different that is preventing Kobe from making this team better?

You want us to just assume that Kobe was this great player who can make his team win and he has somehow lost the ability to do that. Considering that Kobe has maintained the same style of play and leadership that's not something that should easily be assumed. Players don't simply go from someone who doesn't help his team win to one that helps a lot or vice versa. You may think it's insane that I went from one end of the spectrum to another, but if the belief that Kobe makes his teammates better when they win and Kobe is not responsible for their performance if they lose rings true that is exactly what we are seeing here, because there is no way on earth that a Kobe + Dwight team would have trouble beating rebuilding teams without either one or both of them being responsible for the way the team has played. The only way you can go about this is to pin everything on Dwight and wash Kobe's hands clean, and I am not so sure you want to take that route.

You want to know my stance? My stance is that Kobe is a great individual performer whose positive impact on his team is exaggerated because his team won unlike similar players of his era. He was never an example of a Jordan style player who is able to vastly contribute to his team victories. He simply played for the best franchise in the league with possibly the only coach who can make Kobe adjust his games, if only for a little, and maximize the utilities of the role players in a Kobe-centric offense.

Does that mean I think Kobe sucks? No, but it does mean I don't put much credence into Kobe being responsible for simply making his team win when they are doing well just as I don't blame Kobe for his teammates underperforming now.

[tsherkin]

Last year, Kobe played with two centers that averaged 18/11, and they traded away useless players for good role players in Jordan Hill and Ramon Sessions. See? I can do that too.

Right, but Kobe missed 8 games (12% of the season). Bynum missed 6 games. Duncan played all 50 and Robinson played 49. Not quite the same situation, nor was the point guard situation ideal.

Kobe's situation wasn't ideal last year, but it was nowhere near the end of the world. There were enough pieces to contend and the Lakers fell way short.

Mmm. I agree that the situation wasn't horrible, which is why they had a 50-win pace that year. I don't agree that they were in position to contend, particularly when you're talking about a comparison to the Pops-coached Spurs.

Either Kobe has declined much more than the stats indicate or Kobe is being exposed as a player who is a difficult fit after the zen master's departure.

There is actually a third possibility; the weak backcourt depth and 26th-ranked 3pt shooting impacted their ability to space the floor. Kobe didn't have his best individual season either, of course, he has his share of the blame for that season; I was merely responding to the notion that San Antonio and Miami won titles in lockout seasons, so it's a failure that Kobe didn't, despite not having the same context as those two squads.

Speaking of Mike Brown, are we forgetting that there is one player that had to work with him for 7 years? No one talks about Mike Brown as an obstacle when this player failed to win a title playing for him,

I did. Lots of people did. Most of Lebron's fans spoke about Brown's weak offensive schemes and the lack of a major secondary offensive threat (Larry Hughes? Boozer? Ricky Davis? Mo Williams?).

[quote
And look at how the Bulls ended up after the Jordan era. They became another irrelevant franchise with high turnover rate for their management, people have shunned the ownership as cheapskates that no star player is sane enough to join willingly, and all they have done is gamble on youth movements that never worked out until they lucked into the Rose pick. They have certainly made nice moves that allowed Jordan to establish his legacy, but those moves were good because Jordan was great enough to take advantage of it.[/quote]

You mean in the immediate aftermath of the GOAT player retiring and all of their talent (player and otherwise) abandoning ship, they struggled?

My word.

They struggled for 6 seasons and then they were back in the playoffs, making it into the playoffs in 7 of 8 years since and advancing past the first round twice (including a trip to the ECFs with Rose).

Talent lulls happen; Chicago management didn't do anything truly remarkable and they made some mistakes, but every organization does that.

As the franchise player Kobe has to bear some of the responsibilities.

Sure, but it behooves one to mention that titles are won with a not inconsiderable amount of luck (mainly in the form of health and chemistry). With Brown sabotaging Pau's play and over-emphasizing Bynum on offense in order to do so, he was damaging their offense while not capably aiding their defense. That wasn't the only issue with the team (and Kobe's own struggles factored in, no doubt) but having issues of that sort undermine an attempt to contend for a title.

As far as what other great players had when they won a title, the amount of help they get is nothing compared to Kobe.

Not universally true, no. Magic and Bird immediately disagree. Jordan had plenty of talent around him. Wilt had one of the best rosters of all-time (both times), as did West for that title. Kareem had either Oscar and Bobby D or Magic/Worthy with him. This isn't really a viable argument, you NEED talent to win titles.

If that is truly enough to stop the great Kobe Bryant from contending then maybe he isn't so great in the first place.

As opposed to having one of the best SFs in league history, an All-Star PF, good roleplayers, one of the best coaches ever and management that was able to reload sufficiently to contend over an 8-year stretch? Or the SAME organization supporting Kareem and Magic? Or the Celtics running Red Auerbach behind the scenes and supporting Bird with various talent (Parish, McHale, DJ, Ainge, etc, etc, etc)? This is a limp argument.

[tsherkin]

We are not EVEN ASKING Kobe to lead his team to a top 10 in NBA standing, we are simply questioning why his game does not translate to playing .500 ball with DH12.

Once again, since you're not paying attention, Howard isn't fully healthy, their starting PG isn't playing and their starting PF has missed almost 10 games. They have a horrendous backcourt besides Bryant at the moment and what should be bench depth is STARTING for them (Duhon, Jamison, Meeks). They have a weak coach. What else needs to be said? There are systemic issues with the Lakers right now that are causing problems. Kobe trying to act as more of a primary playmaker isn't going to solve that issue because their problems are defensive and the notion that Kobe's shots are causing huge issues in transition has already been largely debunked.

You are really underestimate Lebron ability to play defense by roaming. Lebron ability to block on weak side and rebound make that CLE very good defensively.

Not sure why this came up. I acknowledge that Lebron is both an excellent defender and better than Kobe Bryant. This is an irrelevant tangent.

It's only relevant if Kobe's game is still effective. Fact is his game is no longer have the same effectiveness as his explosive step, stamina declining.

And yet he's having the most efficient scoring season of his career, which makes everything you just said irrelevant.

No point arguing over issue that we both don't agree with. By eyeball test and Kobe's OWN WORD, he was force to be a playmaker and initiating the offense due to Jackson requesting. He was also the guy that brought the ball up, drove and gave Shaq easy bucket.

I didn't disagree with anything you said there, but that doesn't mean he was the ONLY playmaker. Are you familiar with the way the triangle works? Advancing the ball over the timeline isn't that big a deal and the Lakers had other guards who can do that to help him, or to relieve the pressure of a half-court or back court trap. Kobe was a high-usage scoring threat, so naturally a lot of offensive responsibility fell on his shoulders, that's just part and parcel of the way he plays. And yeah, he was more of a dribble penetrator who dished off a lot of the time. Remember, though, that Shaq didn't just live off of shuffle passes, he isolated a lot, and that meant that the Lakers cleared one side, spaced in the triangle with two shooters and got the ball into Shaq. Then they cut around him, played post/re-post and saw what happened when he made a move. That was a goodly chunk of their halfcourt offense, not just Kobe driving and kicking.

Anyway, this isn't a major point since we both agree that Kobe was a significant playmaker in that offense... it's just that there were OTHERS helping him. In his title runs post-Shaq, he had Odom helping him out.

Who's helping him right now? Meeks doesn't count, nor does Artest.

Once again, you didn't really address my point. Kobe's non defense while padding his offensive stat made players around him too not focusing on defensive end.

I didn't say Kobe was as good as Jordan, I said they acted in a similar manner at a similar age at a similar stage in their careers. Stop knocking down straw men, it's tiresome.

Meantime, Kobe isn't stat-padding on offense. More particularly, he's a shooting guard; he's not going to anchor the team's offense and he's not such a liability that he's derailing their attempts to play good defense. Their lack of organization and communication on the defense end are both much more important issues than Kobe's individual defense.

Fact is defense is up to the player, not coaching. When your leader like Kobe is not putting his effort on defense,

That is directly false; defense is the area of the game where a coach can exert the GREATEST level of influence. Witness the Bucks, or the Celtics or the Bulls.

When the Lakers are winning game, Kobe usage rate is 28.16.
When the Lakers are losing game, Kobe usage rate is staggering 35.26

Compare this to Dwight Howard.

When the Lakers are winning game, Dwight usage rate is 24.13.
When the Lakers are losing game, Dwight usage rate is 21.96.

What does this say about Kobe and DH12 in relation to the winning formula? It's quite simple, when the Lakers used DH12 more.. they have better chance of winning compare to Kobe. Simple.

You can't draw that inference, no. There's not enough of a correlation, nor is the sample size sufficient. Also, you're not including the performance of other teammates into that analysis, which means it doesn't really tell you anything.

So you're basically talking individual game? I don't like talking about selective game as those are not good indication over a sample size.

We were. You jumped into a conversation about that specific game. But even still, the commentary bears out over the length of the season as well. There are a couple of games where what you were saying happened (the Washington game comes to mind), of course, but not the bulk of the games.

Fact is those guy fga increased was due to pace rather than from Kobe's iso kick out and passing shot.

No, that's definitely not at all true. Most of those shots came from half-court sets.

MDA DOES have a playmaking offense but it is center on the PG ability to do that. Because Nash is out, once again, Kobe has to fill those holes temporary and do more playmaking to get his teammate easy buckets. I really want to track how many of those shot his teammates took are a result of direct Kobe pass vs from individual player creates by himself. If I have to guess, I guess it's the latter. ...

Mmm. MDA doesn't have an offense, he has a system that relies on a high-quality PG. Kobe isn't a PG, you're asking him to go against the very nature of his experiences and skill set as a player and morph into something he's never been in order to accommodate an injury and that's not really going to happen with any player. It's an unreasonable expectation, like expecting Shaq to space the floor with 3pt shooting. It's not who he is and you build your team around what your star can do, you don't adapt them to what you don't have. More particularly, you STILL need proper playmaking balance, you can't rely wholly on one player to do everything and the Lakers don't have a competent second playmaker, so what else is there to say? Nothing, it's a flaw in the L.A. roster that won't be addressed until and unless Nash returns.

Also Kobe isolation offense is affecting the team mindset on defense,

This is incorrect. He isn't doing anything differently than he did when the team was playing more effective defense, so clearly this is untrue.

Everybody knows that and there is nobody worse offender on defense than Kobe on this Lakers.

Also false. Jamison comes to mind immediately as being a far worse defender than Kobe, and at a more important position. Dwight isn't worse than Kobe, but he's playing some seriously low-quality defense compared to his usual level... and he's always had to deal with perimeter players working around him, so he has no excuse.

[MistyMountain20]

In 06 they started Boris Diaw as center who is not starter material by any means.

Mr. No starter by any means posted a PER of 17.3 (eek!!! the same PER Pau has in the 2011 Playoffs under Phil. eek2x!!!)

They also started Kurt Thomas for 50 games because he was their best defender.

Thomas posted a PER of 13.1 and averaged 11.6 ppg & 10.5 rebounds per 36. He could be 50 years old, he was (and still is) able to produce.

Let's not forget they also played Marion as PF a majority of times, and Marion defending a PF is as bad as Jamison defending anything that moves.

Yes, prime Shawn Marion is on some level just as bad defensively as 2012 Antwan Jamison (who played a signification amount of minutes at the Small Forward position) at anything defensively. You're throwing pure trash at this point.

Then discuss the main point. Why is Kobe then and Kobe now different that is preventing Kobe from making this team better?

Great, start a thread.

You want us to just assume that Kobe was this great player who can make his team win and he has somehow lost the ability to do that.

No, I actually haven't made any statement like that. You however are putting words into my mouth. I suppose it is easy to think your position has merit when you're arguing against a straw-man.

the belief that Kobe makes his teammates better when they win and Kobe is not responsible for their performance if they lose

Yeah, you tear that straw-man apart!!!

The only way you can go about this is to pin everything on Dwight and wash Kobe's hands clean, and I am not so sure you want to take that route.

And it's either because of Kobe or not. Yay false dichotomy, so many possibilities!!!

You want to know my stance?

You've made your stance known in every slightly Kobe related thread. You think Kobe is cancerous to the team and the league and he would only help his teammates out of desperation.

Does that mean I think Kobe sucks? No, but it does mean I don't put much credence into Kobe being responsible for simply making his team win when they are doing well just as I don't blame Kobe for his teammates underperforming now.

Nope, you're an objective and rational minded poster. Fair and balanced.