j-far wrote:semi-sentient wrote:Sacrifice for success... what a crock.
Early in the season when Kobe injured his finger we had a pansy schedule and a healthy roster. Kobe's own stupid pride kept him from sitting out and allowing it to heal properly. Furthermore, he played like garbage in January/February as a result, and his poor play most certainly cost us a few wins.
Kobe played through his injury for selfish reasons (didn't want to break his consecutive games played streak), so he shouldn't be getting raised up to hero status for that. He went against the advice of team physicians and the coaching staff, so if anything he should be criticized.
We could have easily started sluggish with Gasol and Bynum's injuries in the first few weeks and that would have made the difference between 1st seed in the West and 8th seed (what is that 7 games?). We could have ended up playing either Dallas or Denver in the first rounds without HCA and we know how that can go.
Kobe was a serious MVP candidate for the first 3 months and we should not forget that.
I remember it well because I was pretty active in the MVP threads on the GB and had Kobe as the front-runner though early 2010. Gasol had already come back at that point and it was evident that the finger was bothering the hell out of him, and other injuries started popping up as well.
Remember, we were 28-6 early in January, and no one was even close to us at that point (Dallas was 5 games back). Kobe's injuries were already starting to mount at that point and I felt we were in a perfect position to let him heal though the All-Star break. He would have missed 20 games, which is really not that bad. During that stretch we played a lot of teams that we would have beaten even without Kobe.
I know I'm being a little hard on him, but I want him to be a Laker for as long as possible, and more importantly, I want him at full strength in the playoffs when it matters most. Imagine what a healthy, rested Kobe would have done this year in the playoffs?
I still feel that he did it for selfish reasons though. The coaching staff and trainers were hinting that he should give himself some time to heal and I recall him and others talking about the streak and how much pride he had in it. The fact that they left it up to Kobe though was a big mistake because he's not going to rest unless he gets shotgunned in the face.
I mean yeah, he's a tough SOB, but that wasn't a very smart thing to do.
"Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere." - Carl Sagan
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