Kobe Bryant next season

[magic1fan]

minor tweaks is all this team needs. kobe wasn't the kobe we were used to but people forget he still gave us 25/5/5 on decent percentages. his defense was a little weak but so is most perimeter players that score alot of points in today's game. the much needed rest will do him alot of good. if he can get back to playing like he was at the beginning of the 2010 season while working in the post,we will be fine. health is our main concern,with getting a starting point guard.

[EiRON]

I say he has 2-3 years of elite playing.

[Leor_77]

I just want to see the guy be better at his shot selection and get shots closer to the basket. When arguing legacies, his career field goal percentage makes him very difficult to defend, historically and even currently.

[Jajwanda]

For the life of me I cannot understand t he need to demote Gasol in favor of Odom, who sucked equally bad in the playoffs. Gasol was just a much bigger target for criticism and Odom got off easy with his regular season award.

Apart from his freak 3 point shooting for this season, its arguable that Pau has a better mid range game than Odom.

Because he plays better with the starters than Gasol does (it's not by observation we're speaking) and because it allows Kobe to post up.

[EvilSperm]

id love kobe to work on his fg% for next season!! and take 3 less shots a game he'll still be manage to get 20+ppg!!! id love to see his assists go up now .. ohh i wish he can jus have this crazy season ahhhhhhhhhhhh i dnt wanna see this guy retire i really dnt

[TruSkool]

kobe's gona start and play for another 5 years, but probably not at a high level...good enough for top 10 player in the L.

[NOODLESTYLE]

http://www.bayer04.de/b04-ENG/en/_md_ak ... tuell-2912

He snuck in without notice: Kobe Bryant, five-time NBA champion with the Los Angeles Lakers and one of the top stars of the best basketball league in the world, visited the new cold chamber in Bayer 04’s modern rehab facility in the BayArena four times during the last few days.

How was the surprise visit arranged? Bryant’s team had been eliminated from the NBA play-offs by Dirk Nowitzki’s Dallas Mavericks. Bryant is now on a PR-tour for a personal sponsor and currently in Dusseldorf. The contact to Bayer 04’s medical department was set up through the club’s partner Zimmer Medizinsysteme. The company had built the new cold chamber during the last two weeks.

The 1.98 metre tall athlete was welcomed by Carsten Rademacher, Head of the Rehab Centre. Bryant spent three times three minutes in the chamber during the different stages. He started off with minus ten degrees Celsius, followed by minus 60 and finally minus 110 degrees.

[semi-sentient]

id love kobe to work on his fg% for next season!! and take 3 less shots a game he'll still be manage to get 20+ppg!!! id love to see his assists go up now .. ohh i wish he can jus have this crazy season ahhhhhhhhhhhh i dnt wanna see this guy retire i really dnt

If he takes less 3-pointers than his FG% will take care of itself. He's shooting 49% from 2-point range, which is fantastic considering half of his (non 3-point) shots are coming from outside of the paint. I wouldn't count on it happening though. He's been taking 4+ attempts since the 02-03 season, with the 03-04 season being the only outlier.

You also have to take into account that his fingers are forever ruined. While it hasn't affected his outside shooting too much, it's definitely affected his free throw shooting. If he can improve that and get back up to 85% then he'll see a nice improvement in scoring efficiency as well.

As for being a play-maker, I'd like to see him do more of that, but I don't think he necessarily needs to raise his assists average. He just needs to focus on setting up the post (Gasol/Odom are great at hitting cutters) or getting those hockey assists by swinging the ball around to open shooters. It's also somewhat beneficial to us that Kobe is still seen as a major offensive weapon, because quite frankly, that's the entire reason that our 2nd/3rd options have been able to thrive in years past. Last season Kobe didn't see nearly as many double-teams, and that affects how productive guys like Gasol, Bynum, and Odom are.

[SoundGarden]

id love kobe to work on his fg% for next season!! and take 3 less shots a game he'll still be manage to get 20+ppg!!! id love to see his assists go up now .. ohh i wish he can jus have this crazy season ahhhhhhhhhhhh i dnt wanna see this guy retire i really dnt

If he takes less 3-pointers than his FG% will take care of itself. He's shooting 49% from 2-point range, which is fantastic considering half of his (non 3-point) shots are coming from outside of the paint. I wouldn't count on it happening though. He's been taking 4+ attempts since the 02-03 season, with the 03-04 season being the only outlier.

excellent answer i wish all the haters could ve seen this and unlike many other players kobe can hit his shots with great efficiency when it matters.

about topic guys lets dont go over the top about him returning to his 05-06 season or some older season form/play.
most realistic expectation for us is that hoping he would return to his 08-09 season november-january stretch kind of play.
his game was so amazing and complete during that stretch,his playmaking was a notch over rest of his career during that time-tho his stats from 02-03 and 04-05 says otherwise i ve never seen him being a better facilitator.
on top of that his shot selection was great therefore he was shooting %48-50 percent while averaging 27 per game.
but one hard cold fact his defense is never going to come back where it was once,lets just accept that so we dont get frustrated next season.

[magic1fan]

id love kobe to work on his fg% for next season!! and take 3 less shots a game he'll still be manage to get 20+ppg!!! id love to see his assists go up now .. ohh i wish he can jus have this crazy season ahhhhhhhhhhhh i dnt wanna see this guy retire i really dnt

If he takes less 3-pointers than his FG% will take care of itself. He's shooting 49% from 2-point range, which is fantastic considering half of his (non 3-point) shots are coming from outside of the paint. I wouldn't count on it happening though. He's been taking 4+ attempts since the 02-03 season, with the 03-04 season being the only outlier.

You also have to take into account that his fingers are forever ruined. While it hasn't affected his outside shooting too much, it's definitely affected his free throw shooting. If he can improve that and get back up to 85% then he'll see a nice improvement in scoring efficiency as well.

As for being a play-maker, I'd like to see him do more of that, but I don't think he necessarily needs to raise his assists average. He just needs to focus on setting up the post (Gasol/Odom are great at hitting cutters) or getting those hockey assists by swinging the ball around to open shooters. It's also somewhat beneficial to us that Kobe is still seen as a major offensive weapon, because quite frankly, that's the entire reason that our 2nd/3rd options have been able to thrive in years past. Last season Kobe didn't see nearly as many double-teams, and that affects how productive guys like Gasol, Bynum, and Odom are.

i've said for years that if kobe cut down on his three point shots his fg% could easily be in the 47-48% range imo.

[Slava]

For the life of me I cannot understand t he need to demote Gasol in favor of Odom, who sucked equally bad in the playoffs. Gasol was just a much bigger target for criticism and Odom got off easy with his regular season award.

Apart from his freak 3 point shooting for this season, its arguable that Pau has a better mid range game than Odom.

Because he plays better with the starters than Gasol does (it's not by observation we're speaking) and because it allows Kobe to post up.

Odom actually plays best with Pau and Pau can play in the mid/high post as well as spot up for a 20 footer. He's not the reason Kobe has no space to work in the post.

[TruSkool]

lets face it, for the lakers to win next season, one of 2 things needs to happen.

1. kobe needs to go circa 2006
2. kobe needs to back off and bynum needs to go circa 2014

[Anklebreaker702]

He's going to have to play a lot better than he did this past season, that's for damn sure. That means taking less shots and becoming more of a play-maker, in addition to playing much better on the defensive end.

I'll cut him some slack because he never got a chance to really get his knee in order, and that had all kinds of other side effects such as not being able to practice with the team, fatigue, etc. His explosiveness seemed non-existent, his lateral movement on defense was atrocious, and he regularly ran out of gas late in games which made it difficult to close teams out or mount comebacks.

Assuming he gets it all worked out this off-season, in addition to taking a much needed extended break, I do expect him to play at a very high level this year and be a better player down the stretch. I don't know what the lockout situation is looking like, but if the season is shortened then it's going to help him big time as he'll be very fresh come playoff time. That's what I'm actually hoping for as I think this could be our final shot at a title in the Kobe era -- and after that who knows when we'll get another franchise player.

+1