Plenty of news in the NBA of late. The Hawks continue to feast on the competition. The Knicks have taken tanking to new heights in preparing for next season. Hell, Philly has even won some games and pretended to be respectable.
But now this?
Mark Medina of the L.A. Daily News subtly hinted of a possible Kobe season shut down after the All-Star break.
Wait a second…huh? We talking about the same cat who just two games ago made his first game winning shot since 2012?
Kobe sat on the sideline Sunday evening for his second consecutive game (3rd of his last 4) and bore witness to the Damian Lillard Show as the visiting Trailblazers pulled away late to win at Staples Center, 106-94. This makes 3 of the past 4 games that Bryant has suited up for the bench.
Byron Scott is admitting fault with handling Kobe’s minutes as well. Coach Scott early on was hoping to see a revived Kobe playing around his career average of 36 mpg. Kobe seemed to have thought he should be more around the 32 mark. As expected, ever the competitor, Kobe went to war with the same “kill ‘em all” mentality.
Prior to his 3 game siesta in December, Kobe was in the neighborhood of his career average in minutes (35 mpg) and putting up an astonishing 22 shots per game. Since? His minutes have declined (31.4 mpg) and he’s putting up less shots by a double-digit margin (12.2 FGA).
And you know what? The Lakers are winning, well, sorta. When Kobe plays as the main distributor and has games with 8+ assists the Lakers are 2-3. This paradigm shift can be seen in his last 10 games out (Lakers 4-6). Four wins in ten games is stellar by no means but it is far better than the not so long ago 1-9 start by the club.
In these prior ten, Kobe has flirted with the occasional triple-double (1 to be exact but in the neighborhood of 3 more) and has had the floor game averages to back it (14.4 ppg/8.4 rpg/7.8 apg/1.6 spg). And what else happens when you share with friends Kobe? That’s right. They have fun too.
This is why I find all this “shut down” talk perplexing. Here we are talking about one of the game’s greatest competitors of all-time and suddenly we hear this? Reeks of tanking and reloading for one final run in LakerLand for Kobe and his “possible” crew come next year.
Sit out your back-to-backs from time to time. Ration his minutes as needed Coach Scott. But stop the madness. I don’t care if this is coming down from the highest of the Lakers brass. Let the man play. Approach it wisely. There’s no need for him to assassinate himself on a nightly basis for minutes on end for a squad that has no business making the playoffs this season in the West. I get that. But to shut him down in “hopes” of making moves in the offseason and re-upping to make a run next year? I can’t.
Kobe, please don’t tarnish your top-notch rep as a competitor. Remind us that players really do play for the love of the game and that money, greed and ulterior motives aren’t the new norm. Just a concerned basketball purist here. That’s all. No biggie right?
Article by Cameron Curtis : follow him on twitter @cron1413
