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this was a pretty heated topic when kobe got hurt. he addressed the minutes issue today:

http://sulia.com/channel/la-lakers/f/28 ... ce=twitter

Kobe: Neither Mike D'Antoni nor Phil Jackson could have stopped him from playing heavy minutes during April.

It's no secret a large contingent of Laker fans lay the blame for Kobe Bryant's season ending Achilles injury at the feet of Mike D'Antoni, who played the guard 40+ minutes during a string of April games. Or, more specifically, for acquiescing to Bryant's demands to play 40+ minutes while the Lakers were making a playoff push. Thus, the guard literally laughed when asked if D'Antoni could have kept him off the floor.

"Of course it was (my idea)," scoffed Bryant. "Mike's really gonna tell me when to go in and out of the game?"

Plus, as Bryant noted, a legitimate superstar dictating his own PT is hardly uncharted waters.

"You guys really can't ride Mike too hard about this, because Magic used check himself into games, too," noted Kobe. "MJ used to check himself into games, too. I'm just following their examples. I used to do the same thing with Phil."

Yeah that's why he played what 33mpg his last year under Phil.

It's a coaches job.

I'm not a fan of D'Antoni at all, but never really got the blasting of him playing Kobe non-stop. Kobe wasn't gonna sit without some kind of locker room blowing-up scene.

kblo247 wrote:Yeah that's why he played what 33mpg his last year under Phil.

It's a coaches job.

different situations, nothing like fighting for your playoff like to make you not want to sit.

anyway, it is a coaches job, except for a player with kobe's stature. i mean, u can call him a liar if u want.

kblo247 wrote:Yeah that's why he played what 33mpg his last year under Phil.

It's a coaches job.

Better overall team, and also not playing must wins every night near the end to make the playoffs. Not the same situation.

We were winning games by 1 possession. Sit Kobe for a couple minutes, we lose. The injury sucks and a lot of people thought the non-stop minutes could lead to one (not this drastic), including Kobe and D'Antoni, but Kobe wasn't gonna rest in tight games when he thought it would cost us the playoffs.

It's just a total **** situation I agree. We had a FO and coach dig us in a hole. The FO put the coaches in place and the coaches were so out their element the Ls piled until we went win at all cost mode, ignoring what Phil always said "this is a marathon, not a sprint"

http://www.nba.com/lakers/news/1213exitinterviews

"He's had to make alot of adjustments. I think at the start it was tough because he had his way that he wanted to play and kinda wanted to stick to that a little bit. Took a little while for him to bend and kind of relent a little bit and bring Pau in along with us, which he finally decided to do, and since we've done that we've had absolutely no issues."

"

Well I was the vocal one. I was the vocal one that said 'Hey, we're 8 games under .500 man, we gotta......enough is enough.' You know? And to his credit he sat down, he took it, and we made changes, and we went on from there."

We're all gonna interpret that differently, but like I said, to me thats a nice way of saying that Pringles' way wasn't working and Kobe had to step in and make a power play when he (Pringles) was sticking to his guns. The power play included taking over Nash's role as well as his own, running himself into the ground with high minutes, repositioning Pau and Dwight on the floor,, etc. It should have never come to that at all for Kobe to have to be overextended and be the coach and the perimeter O, but it did, and that's why Dantoni needs to be axed as well as perimeter talent brought in to this team

This isnt too hard to believe. Watch the interview, he also said he told MDA to change the way that he(MDA) wanted to play. Its pretty hard to stop a guy from playing when the guy thats playing is dictating to the coach how they're going to play.

Phil Jackson was criticized for not changing his ways to accommodate Payton and Malone in 2004.

Mike is much more flexible in this regard.

I can understand if a superstar of his stature is benched for a blow, in a big game and the player checks himself back in when he is ready to go. But you can't have the inmates run the asylum. Given the age and minutes played, the coach has to protect kobe from himself.

I can accept that kobe was not going to sit down the last few games when all of them were close. But there were plenty of games much before that did call for kobe playing heavy minutes. Blow out games in both directions, I recall having kobe and starters on the floor late. That's when you have to say enough is enough and sit his ass down, whether he likes it or not.

"He's kobe Bryant he can do whatever the **** he wants" - Phil Jackson.


Phil had no control on Kobe neither. Uhm hello just look at the phil jackson book. according to phil hes the most stubborn player he had coach. "He never listens". The difference is kobe respects Phil and he knows hes a good coach. Phil's method are proven compared to MDA, that made kobe look up to Phil. What I like about Phil tho is he never sacrifices one win for the long run.


But no doubt the heavy minutes worn down kobe and placed him on that situation, c'mon now. Even Mitch tried to slow down kobe. The fact that Mitch, a former nba player, tried to slow down kobe means too much minutes does equall to something bad.


Part of this is MDA's fault part of this is Kobe's fault. I don't get the " blame the management" thing tbh. Everybody was praising Mitch's "magic wand" last off season, I mean they just gave us Dwight Howard and Steve Nash! Who knew everyone on the team would suck this bad.

BS!

Kobe never started 4th quarters under Phil's coaching.
An that was consistent even with a big lead or big deficit.
The very rare times Phil would start Kobe in the 4th , it would definitely be games in the playoffs.

Kobe would never play more than 35-38 minutes a game under Phil .

SlavaMedvedenko wrote:Phil Jackson was criticized for not changing his ways to accommodate Payton and Malone in 2004.

Mike is much more flexible in this regard.

No. Mike was going to get his ass fired in that regard, Phil was winning with Kobe, Karl, Fox and Shaq missing games. Dantoni had the players and his way was losing like in NY. Like in ny he was going to get his ass fired, but he couldn't pull that what have you won shtick on Kobe like Melo who he refused to change for

He would be sitting pretty in ny still if he just let Melo post the damn ball up when he, Kobe, and KD are the top post guys in the league, but he reused and said what have you won to tell me how to play when he himself hadn't won anything either

Don't confuse self preservation and embarrassment into adaption

chefy wrote:"He's kobe Bryant he can do whatever the **** he wants" - Phil Jackson.


Phil had no control on Kobe neither. Uhm hello just look at the phil jackson book. according to phil hes the most stubborn player he had coach. "He never listens". The difference is kobe respects Phil and he knows hes a good coach. Phil's method are proven compared to MDA, that made kobe look up to Phil. What I like about Phil tho is he never sacrifices one win for the long run.


But no doubt the heavy minutes worn down kobe and placed him on that situation, c'mon now. Even Mitch tried to slow down kobe. The fact that Mitch, a former nba player, tried to slow down kobe means too much minutes does equall to something bad.


Part of this is MDA's fault part of this is Kobe's fault. I don't get the " blame the management" thing tbh. Everybody was praising Mitch's "magic wand" last off season, I mean they just gave us Dwight Howard and Steve Nash! Who knew everyone on the team would suck this bad.

That and any of them .... fisher, Shaw, Rambis, Wnters, Cleamons, and Hamblen can say Kobe pull back or take a rest. Might not want to hear it but he can respect them and listen. This staff really had no one of substance and Dantoni and brown both arent X's and O's adjustment, minute management guys

more wins wouldve stopped kobe from playing so many minutes

It's still D'Antoni's responsibility to protect Kobe from himself.

Kobe looked as fit and spry as he has in years right before he got hurt. On a team that has had as many injuries as this one, no one would have ever sat him, or stopped him from playing.

"Well yeah... but you might rupture your achilles heel..."

what about that one game under mike brown when he took kobe out late in the game? why didnt kobe check himself back in.

MDA failed caused he could not build any consistency in the bench players or trust which meant a very short rotation. We can blame injury but if you cant buy 2-3 minutes a game for your starters you pretty much failed.

The team should be able to survive without loosing big leads or growing larger leads by resting star players (doesnt even have to rest all at the same time) 2-3 minutes without running any player to the ground

This isn't even news to me. I knew it all along, but all guys kept whining about was "MDA this MDA that". And the year he played 33 minutes under Phil all those minutes were controlled in the first half.

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DEEP3CL wrote:This isn't even news to me. I knew it all along, but all guys kept whining about was "MDA this MDA that". And the year he played 33 minutes under Phil all those minutes were controlled in the first half.

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Actually,Phil used to take him out with 2 mins left in the 3rd and rest him until the halfway mark of the 4th(sometimes he let him play the whole 3rd quarter and rest him in the 4th)

But every single game,he saw at least 5 mins of rest in the 4th quarter....I remember a lot of us around here were mad and begging Phil to put Kobe back in earlier when we'd lose a big lead and the bench played like ****...with no use of course