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Ok, I think Kobe is the most skilled player since Michael Jordan. Period.

But I have to seriously question his decision making on offense.

First is his love with the 3-pointer. Kobe is a good shooter. But he's not great beyond the arc. Why does he insist on jacking up threes with 20 seconds to go, especially when he's not open.

2nd is that he holds the ball too long sometimes. Ok, he can be surveying the field to make a note of where people are standing, but often times it's all for naught. He just holds it for like 6 seconds and shoots over the guy, again contested.

3rd is that he sometimes get into "showoff" mode and dribbles unnecessarily. I'm not talking about drbblin all around the court like Chris Paul does. Kobe just simply looks at the defender and then goes under the leg 3 or 4 times dribbling in the same spot only to end up shooting the ball again contested. Now the problem with this is that when he's in this mood, his sole purpose is to shoot in the defender's face and loses sight of everything else. I've seen him do this several times only to be stripped of the ball by a help defender when he makes his moves.

4th is that he goes into "hogger" mode at the end of games and tries to do too much. I know that he's the man, and he doesn't do this often, but in crunchtime he doesn't always utilize all the team assets to a win. Everytime Kobe is in this mode, the Lakers offense just halts to a standstill with everyone watching waitng for something good to come out of it. Usually the problem again with his "hogger mode" is that he settles way too much for 20-footers and threes, all contested, instead of trying to go to the hole and disrupt the defense to create open shots for himself or others, or get a foul. I don't expect him to go in all the way all the time, but he's skilled enough to get an open shot around the free throw line with a few quick steps. Instead, he settles for long 2's and three's during crunchtime. Perfect example again is the Utah game. Lakers was down by 3, and they had plenty of time to get a quick 2, but Kobe simply did a fadeaway from beyond the arc CONTESTED.

Now I know Kobe is a volume shooter, and he's trying to get his team the win, but he needs to realize that one-man heroics is not always cut it, especially in the playoffs. Yes, he did make those 3-threes in front of Paul Pierce's face in the Boston game, but fundamentally, those aren't good shots. He almost shot us out of the game after that. Then there were all the fadeaways that he missed against Pierce. Pierce did a great job on him, but he missed them also because he wasn't in a good rythm and forced the shots. When the D plays you out of rhythm, you gotta pass the ball to a teammate for something else or to reset your own play.

I'm sorry, maybe all this is just a product of the frustration from the loss in Utah. But I think it applies to many games that come down to crunch time significance. Kobe would be much more effective (and efficient) if he selected his shots better and not just simply shoot over people's face. He's too good to not drive and try to create for himself or others.

More like Kobe and his decisions on defense. He goes for the ball so much and lets his man drive right to the basket for a layup.

Ditto, he does that a lot.. sometimes it's good sometimes it's bad, but u gotta admit, he''s the LakeShow. Personally of course i prefer it the safe way.. passing... good advised shots..and winning games, but i think the league prefers lots of difficult, high drama games and kobe delivers that. cha-ching.

I just hope his team mates don't get caught while he's doing his thing and rely on him totally and start playing bad because of it...

lakersfanatic wrote:Ditto, he does that a lot.. sometimes it's good sometimes it's bad, but u gotta admit, he''s the LakeShow. Personally of course i prefer it the safe way.. passing... good advised shots..and winning games, but i think the league prefers lots of difficult, high drama games and kobe delivers that. cha-ching.

I just hope his team mates don't get caught while he's doing his thing and rely on him totally and start playing bad because of it...

Yah I agree that the league would benefit from the excitement of one-man heroics. But really you cannot blame the teammates for being lethargic if they don't even get touches in crunchtime. That's the only way they'll learn to play and contribute to Kobe's game.

Quite honestly, a lot of times the Lakers offense just feels more smooth without Kobe in there. Kobe likes to slow it down too much between him holding the ball, deciding, dribbling in the same place. In the end though, at the end of games, I still want to see the ball in Kobe's hand, but also would like him to make better decisions with it. If they play him one on one, post the guy up and get to about the free throw line. If the D is not budging, penetrate and try to disrupt it and find open teammates or to draw a foul. Adjust to the D and make them pay.

This reminds me of a friend of mines in High School. He was our star QB. He was fast and agile but his main strength was passing. But it was also his weakness. He would awe the stands with his between two defenders passing to the wide receiver... etc..

His problem was his ego was so high, even if the field was clear for him to just run the ball to get that next First down. He would just stand there and try for the crazy pass... sacked!

Kobe is sort of different but i wish if there's no outlet, he should run to the basket and draw fouls instead of them in-your-face baskets. Draw fouls are always a good way to be on the safe side. It gives the defender an extra foul plus opportunity for easy shots...

I used to have a problem with this but i think Kobe has matured as a player and is not doing this as much as before. He's also encouraging his teammates a lot more which he didn't do in the past. Before Kobe would have that look like "your on your own buddy". During timeouts he would go to the bench next to the coaches and just stare straight ahead. Now he's on the bench sitting in between his teammates, conversing, laughing, being a leader, kickin it with the fellas on the bench. Kobe must have been reading my post the last 2 years.

all players make stupid plays sometimes. i can't really complain about kobe this year. i never thought he could get better,but he has. he seems to have gotten his hops back,and his jumpshot is smooth...

kobe ball is obviously detrimental to our team when done for long periods as it reduces our team's quality so that its practically equal to our 2005-06 team

generally its kobe feeling that he needs to take over to push the team over offensive humps, he wants to take pressure off by giving the team breathing room or a smaller losing margin

it usually works, and only sometimes doesn't which is probably why we're having this discussion

Kobe made the team lose as much as 10 games. He also made us lose only 10 games.

I think you have to take the good with the bad. I ride Kobe about that a lot. Offensiely & Defensiely. I love the fact that when the game is on the line we have a player like Kobe to turn to & put the game away for us but if it's on a night where his shot is not falling it also hurts us. He should (at times) trust his teammates more & if there's going to be any compairison to MJ, he (MJ) used to get to the rack in the crunch more than Kobe looks to.

In the loss at Utah I didn't trip too much, 8 games in 13 days is a lot for anyone & those shots may have fallen, but it's not the makes & misses as much as a lot of those shots came without staying within the offense. It was only the 2nd time since Drew went down that we were in serious trouble late in the 4th. I think he had gotten use to going into Drew for easy buckets late & that's a good thing!

who hacked B-scott's account.

He's 30, he's in his 13th season, he's been taking bad shots since he was 18...he still has trouble passing out of a double team at times. All we can do is live with it.

MrKnow-It-All wrote:He's 30, he's in his 13th season, he's been taking bad shots since he was 18...he still has trouble passing out of a double team at times. All we can do is live with it.

Great first post.

You guys are nuts..that's what makes kobe the best player in the world...he believes that he can make any shot he takes and more often that not when it matters he's going to make that crazy ill advised 3.(e.g. against the celtics 2 weeks ago)
and he gambles on defense sometimes and lets people by but in crunch time when he has to shut someone down he's money and i'd take him over anyone else in the league offensively AND defensively in the last 5 minutes of a close game.