tsherkin wrote: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.
tsherkin wrote: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.