Henry Abbot: Lakers FO can't wait for Kobe to retire

[Kilroy]

Espn says Nobody wants to play with Kobe including Paul George
Paul George laughs off the article and calls it crazy...

The next day>

More articles on how Kobe's crippling the Lakers and no one wants to play with him.

They never even acknowledge they were wrong about George... They just let it float out there and let the court of public opinion and the mindless, no-reading sheep do the rest...

Love or hate Kobe, this is sounding a lot like a smear campaign by a rival mayoral candidate...

Is Kobe starting a sports media outlet?

What's weird is there's even an article on YardBarker that says Paul George 'Blasts Media about Kobe Report' but it never says what George said or why, it just goes on to bash Kobe for crippling the Lakers.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/paul-george-blasts-media-over-kobe-report/ar-BBakEUD

Kobe pissed off someone at Disney or Hearst...

[Cycklops]

I read the article, pretty brutal stuff. The part about Kobe wanting to win on his terms jibes with what I theorized about him a while ago...that his lifelong goal is to surpass his childhood image of Michael Jordan, which means he has to do it the way he saw Jordan doing it. Despite all his own talents and even his passing skills, he had to play the way he thought Jordan was playing to pursue his goal. When asked to do something else (see that Game 7 against the Suns), he would glitch up mentally and even check out of the game, no matter what the situation.

An interesting case study.

And yet Phil Jackson returned to coach him again.

Phil said he didn't want to coach Kobe after Kobe lost his skills. Kobe still had his skills at that point. We're seeing now what Phil meant. The Zen Master is a pretty smart dude, you might want to pay attention to what he says.

[Slava]

I read the article, pretty brutal stuff. The part about Kobe wanting to win on his terms jibes with what I theorized about him a while ago...that his lifelong goal is to surpass his childhood image of Michael Jordan, which means he has to do it the way he saw Jordan doing it. Despite all his own talents and even his passing skills, he had to play the way he thought Jordan was playing to pursue his goal. When asked to do something else (see that Game 7 against the Suns), he would glitch up mentally and even check out of the game, no matter what the situation.

An interesting case study.

And yet Phil Jackson returned to coach him again.

Phil said he didn't want to coach Kobe after Kobe lost his skills. Kobe still had his skills at that point. We're seeing now what Phil meant. The Zen Master is a pretty smart dude, you might want to pay attention to what he says.

Phil has not coached anyone and it wasn't due to lack of opportunity either. He just chose his time to walk away from that job for good and his health had been brutal to handle the travel even in his last season with the Lakers, not to mention he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

[Hornet Mania]

Kobe Bryant is the only reason the Lakers will be relevant and profitable this season, bottom line. Any article that fails to mention this fact is either negligent or willfully ignorant of the facts.

Anyone who has read the article would realize it discusses this point in detail, spending at least three paragraphs on it.

I'm not taking their click bait. If they did address that point and STILL tried to argue that Kobe is somehow holding that franchise back the staff at ESPN really are "idiots".

[JohnsHopkins]

Kobe makes 25million a year and increases a teams value even if hes not the same player. Amare makes around 20M+ and does not make his team value increase.

Why do people ignore the business side of kobe's huge contract?


And like people said, look at the timing of this article combined with their 3 or 4 tweets about kobe getting "crossed over badly" Butthurt espn?

[PaulieWal]

I haven't read the article but I think Kobe is being unfairly targeted here. Let's be honest it's not that stars don't want to play with Kobe, it's more about Kobe's age. If Kobe was still in his prime and a Top 3 player in the league along with LeBron and KD a lot more stars would be willing to consider LA. It's more about his age than people don't wanna play with him. At least that's my take on it.

I didn't agree with the Kobe contract when they signed him and was actually happy that they did which meant that LeBron was out of the picture completely (yeah, it wasn't likely to happen) but still. However, given the Lakers' roster and his legacy as a Laker he's still earned it. Let the man go out in style, hope that he doesn't have any more injuries, and give him his due as a Top 10 player of all-time.

[khufure]

To be realistic, Kobe has a cripple on the team.

what.

the.

[loserX]

To be realistic, Kobe has a cripple on the team.

what.

the.

Since when is Bill Nye a Laker?

[Cycklops]

Phil has not coached anyone and it wasn't due to lack of opportunity either. He just chose his time to walk away from that job for good and his health had been brutal to handle the travel even in his last season with the Lakers, not to mention he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

I don't recall Phil saying that he left because Kobe had lost his skills. He said there would be major problems whenever Kobe did lose them.

I'm just guessing this is a relevant reply to what you said, your first sentence doesn't make any sense.

[Slava]

Phil has not coached anyone and it wasn't due to lack of opportunity either. He just chose his time to walk away from that job for good and his health had been brutal to handle the travel even in his last season with the Lakers, not to mention he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

I don't recall Phil saying that he left because Kobe had lost his skills. He said there would be major problems whenever Kobe did lose them.

I'm just guessing this is a relevant reply to what you said, your first sentence doesn't make any sense.

In plain English the sense of that sentence is that Phil wasn't coaching Kobe even if he was good.

[skywalker33]

Realistically, he's been crippling the Lakers ever since he forced Shaq out...what an egotistical moron.

[Mr Burns]

Realistically, he's been crippling the Lakers ever since he forced Shaq out...what an egotistical moron.

yeah he crippled them all the way to three finals appearances and two championships since shaq has been gone, what a terrible thing to do....

[skywalker33]

Realistically, he's been crippling the Lakers ever since he forced Shaq out...what an egotistical moron.

yeah he crippled them all the way to three finals appearances and two championships since shaq has been gone, what a terrible thing to do....

Easily could have been 5 or 6 though........

[jcsunsfan]

Slava beat me to it. I'd really like for Abbott to clarify on at least Paul George. Forgot that he's openly rebuked the story, he was a restrictive free agent, even if the Lakers and George were mutually interested, the Pacers would have matched any offer.

I'm hoping the Lakers release a statement debunking the article once and for all. This has gone on far too long and its reached the point where it is tarnishing the legacy of a legendary athlete at the end of a stellar career. Its character assassination at its finest.

I wish they would too, but the Lakers have always let these kinds of stories fester. It may have been Phil's book where I read that Kobe was urging someone from management to come to his defense when the media was murdering him after the Shaq trade and Phil's retirement. Of course we learned later that Kobe had nothing to do with the trade, and Phil had already decided early in the season he was going to retire.

The same thing will happen with this story. The truth always reveals itself with time. It's just funny that this story is so easy to tear apart so soon after its release. It really has no foundation whatsoever.

The Lakers make money off of Kobe's villian personna.

[Cycklops]

Phil has not coached anyone and it wasn't due to lack of opportunity either. He just chose his time to walk away from that job for good and his health had been brutal to handle the travel even in his last season with the Lakers, not to mention he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

I don't recall Phil saying that he left because Kobe had lost his skills. He said there would be major problems whenever Kobe did lose them.

I'm just guessing this is a relevant reply to what you said, your first sentence doesn't make any sense.

In plain English the sense of that sentence is that Phil wasn't coaching Kobe even if he was good.

It actually looks like you were originally saying that Phil didn't take any coaching job post 2011 so it must mean that he didn't want to coach anyone and it wasn't Kobe specifically. Which doesn't apply to the statement in question. Phil essentially was saying that there would be major problems with Kobe once he lost his basketball ability. It doesn't matter who he was coaching or who was coaching him, nor was Phil claiming that he left because Kobe was losing his ability at that time. From what I recall, this statement was actually written 10 years ago, in "The Last Season," not "Eleven Rings."

[pacers33granger]

It's the Lakers that are crippling the Lakers. They knew that Kobe wasn't going to be worth near his contract, but they offered it. They toyed around with Pau for years and disrespected him while he still considers Kobe a close friend/brother. They traded away lightly protected picks for a 37 year old Nash and gave him a 3 year deal. They took the approach that they're LA and have space so a superstar will sign with them and planned for it once Dwight left rather than trying to build a team and still are doing it.

And if you're going to criticize Kobe for hindering their pursuit of free agents, you should take a look at management. How they're managed doesn't seem to even be fully figured out among the Buss kids and Mitch. And I'm sure agents are scared Jimmy Buss will become Dolan 2.0.

Ultimately, the Lakers failed to realize that in this day and age, it doesn't matter as much financially what team you're on. Still does, but Lebron can make a ton in Cleveland and Durant can make a ton in OKC. Players don't need the LA spotlight as much anymore. I still think they'll end up with someone good next offseason, but we won't be seeing superstars force their way there anymore.

[LLcoleJ]

Realistically, he's been crippling the Lakers ever since he forced Shaq out...what an egotistical moron.

yeah he crippled them all the way to three finals appearances and two championships since shaq has been gone, what a terrible thing to do....

Easily could have been 5 or 6 though........

lol

[Rosque]

Jim Buss is a problem, but so is Kobe. Jim is crippling the team with his poor decisions and letting his ego get in the way of how the team should be running and he isn't open-minded about anyone else's ideas, but his own. Kobe is crippling the Lakers because he doesn't plan on taking a backseat to anyone even at his age and other players have big egos too, they don't have or want to put up with all that drama when they have the option to play somewhere else and play with players who will take backseats to them.

Who should Kobe be taking a step backwards for?

An aging Gasol or an immature Howard?

Who now? Nick Young? Carlos Boozer?

Like it or not, Howard has more values than Kobe does at this point. He probably wouldn't be able to put asses in seats like Kobe does, but he was a guy that the Lakers could've built around. He had no reason to waste his prime years playing with a grumpy, stubborn, aging superstar who refuses to accept he's no longer a top 5 player. Howard is weak, but I'm sure he'd have no problems playing next to an unselfish mega superstar like, LeBron.

Except he was top 3 player in his last healthy season...with Dwight on his team. Who carried that injury-plagued team to the measly playoff seed while playing 46+ minutes and transforming into basically trip-dub threat? Kobe. Had Dwight been a shade of his 08/09 self Kobe wouldn't have had to play 46+ minutes per night(at the end of the season) and wouldn't have injured himself. I'm not blaming Dwight for leaving, I'd do the same -- old and basically crippled backcourt, old frontcourt teammate and a lousy coach. That's why Dwight left. Because this team was turd -- with Kobe and his injury, Nash and his injuries, Gasol and him becoming inefficient, lousy rest of the team and most important of all -- worst coach in the league at the time with Woodson. Had Kobe not been injured Dwight might've stayed and that's a playoff team because a healthy Kobe=playoffs. Yes, even old Kobe. This year's Kobe? IDK man, but he's looking good. Slow and old, but good.

[Frosty]

Kobe Bryant is the only reason the Lakers will be relevant and profitable this season, bottom line. Any article that fails to mention this fact is either negligent or willfully ignorant of the facts.

Anyone who has read the article would realize it discusses this point in detail, spending at least three paragraphs on it.

I'm not taking their click bait. If they did address that point and STILL tried to argue that Kobe is somehow holding that franchise back the staff at ESPN really are "idiots".

So you are "willfully ignorant of the facts" of the article.

[skywalker33]

yeah he crippled them all the way to three finals appearances and two championships since shaq has been gone, what a terrible thing to do....

Easily could have been 5 or 6 though........

lol

So tell me a better inside/outside game than Kobe and Shaq in the early 2000's ???