there he goes again

The Lakers do pretty much suck this season. While they are 5-13, and they have had some close games with some of the better teams in the leagues, there is little to no hope of them making the playoffs. Kobe is giving it his all but you simply cannot have a team that won't suck with a starting 5 that has an old ass Carlos Boozer, an inconsistent Jeremy Lin and Jordan Hill, and a SF that basically doesn't do anything except make some plays from time to time. In order to compete with the best teams, we've seen you need multiple All-stars on a team, and the Lakers not only do not have that but lack depth and severely lack defensive ability. With Kobe aging and him having most likely only one year left, the Lakers are going to need to go out in free agency after this season and make some substantial acquisitions for them to have a chance to get Kobe a 6th ring. As for this season, do not keep your hopes up at all.

Also, this should go in General->Sports probably.

damn that's a sad story , giants of our times, the end of an era its a shame

it's incredibly upsetting how bad they have been doing for awhile now. when you think "lakers", you don't think 5-13.

lol kobe isnt getting a sixth ring

I am very okay with this.

With the amount of retarded decisions their organization has made in the past years, it's not hard to understand why. I literally stopped watching basketball the moment some retards thought it was a good idea to get the best defensive player in the league, get rid of all roleplayers, and then choose a coach that literally doesn't give a single fuck about defense at all

Kobe still best player in the league easily though

You called?

http://lakers.topbuzz.com/gallery/d/291007-1/Jim+Buss+wearing+a+black+Laker+hat+in+2011.JPG

Oh honey, no....that's just not true.

it's ok to honor kobe but giving him all that money is just retarded,that's what fucked them up this season

At least the Lakers are undefeated against the east

Kobe's contract did not have an effect on their ability to acquire any big name free agents this past offseason. The Lakers could have easily signed one or two big name free agents with medium to max contracts. They are the only team to have a $3 billion TV deal and they would have no problem paying the luxury tax for the additional contracts they would have acquired. Saying Kobe's contract fucked them is just simply not true at all.

true

it was all kobes toxic personality rofl

If you mean his unparalleled desire to win then ok. Dwight was too much of a pussy to handle it but if you can man up and put in the work he'll show you what it takes to win a championship.

They are basically a new team imo, they are still building chemistry with a new coach and new players. They aren't the best right now but you can see tons of improvements from the start of the season. Kobe is a smart player, he bring out the potential of all his teammates. He's pretty scary, makes good shots and when the other team notices that hes doing good they start to guard him a lot more. Then he knows he has a limit to his shots so he starts to make good assists while the opposing team is more focused on him. Although, You can just tell the team is not coordinated yet their plays tend to be really sloppy and defense needs a lot of work.

i understand you are a lakers fun but u have to admit that by giving all that money to kobe really did limit their options this offseason,plus he is 37 yo and still plays hero ball,this is why you are 5-13

kobe said to dwight that he will always come second as long as he is on the team and that he will "teach" him how to win championships,dwight didnt like that(+lifestyle and press??) and he left,btw everyone is calling howard a pussy but in he puts up always big numbers in playoffs...

I just literally explained to you that the Lakers giving Kobe that money didn't limit their free agency options at all. If it did, then they wouldn't have gone out and met with Carmelo and other high profile free agents if they didn't intend on trying to sign them. Kobe is the only reason they are 5-13, without him they'd be right at the canyon bottom of the league with the Sixers.

Dwight wanted to take a fun/easygoing approach to everything, something that obviously clashed with Kobe's view on winning. A few people in the league have been quoting saying Dwight will never win a championship because he always wants to have fun and doesn't have the pure desire to win that is necessary. And him being a pussy has nothing to do with his ability to put up numbers, everyone knows he can do that. He is and has been one of the softest players in the league.

this thread is exactly why kobe gets away with being such a bad teammate

since phil jax left kobe has ZERO accountability to anyone in the lakers organization, coaching him is impossible because he doesnt respect anyone

ever since kobe entered the league hes used the media to turn LA against his teammates, it was always others that got lit up in post game interviews (Shaq, Bynum, Gasol, Dwight), no one rips on their teammates more than kobe. when anybody else does it its giving up on their team, but when kobe does it its just his "intense competitive fire"

rofl

i know this attitude towards kobe just wouldnt exist if he didnt have the EASIEST first couple years in the league, he got to play in the triangle with a physical freak. shane battier said it best "shaq has strength like your dad had when you were a kid"

then he got two more championships with pau gasol and andrew bynum being coached under one of the greatest coaches of all time and playing in a league that was weaker than in the years around it and suddenly kobe is considered one of the top ten players of all time. ridiculous

what makes it all worse is that people like to defend kobe with michael jordan (people tend to try to defend EVERY douchebag in a competitive setting by comparing them to michael jordan)

michael jordan was not only one of the greatest teammates of all time, but he got away with being an aggressive dick because he knew how to use it. it was a motivating tool for him to build others up, not break them down and run them out of town. where kobe never hangs out with teammates, michael would always be there with them whether it was gambling (lol) or just shooting the shit.

where michael is a basketball genius, kobe plays like an overconfident idiot. where michael is an athletic freak, kobe is just not all that.

dwight didnt leave because he was soft, he left because he was forced to play in an offensive system that kobe had the pleasure of seeing as a suggestion. and that when the media started to gang up on him towards the end (while he was playing thru an injury...) kobe continued to add fuel to the fire instead of defending him, because kobe will NEVER defend anyone else.

o and kobes also a shit defender because he surprise surprise is incapable of playing help defense, i guess if someone else gets beat he just sees that as their fault

i feel like you don't know shit about the nba or anything and the fact you can't write proper english also makes me assume it also. as phaze said dwight has always been the soft guy who doesnt care, hes just there for the money, and thats why they'll lose every year and never win a championship. thats why he lost in the finals with the magic also. kobe did not drain the money from the lakers, they have a huge tv company as phaze said and the west family is fucking loaded with money, i dont know what the fuck you're talkig about it is the front office that is screwing up and kobe can't control that, he gets payed to play and that's what he does.

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I said it once and I'll say it again,..

No one knows what the fuck they're talking about in this thread except phaze

gr8 post

contributed a lot, ur clearly a pro bballer can u maybe impart some wisdom on us?

http://teamfortress.tv/thread/21386/heyy-guys/?page=1#12

i already answered your question can you not read thottie?

you sound like you are echoing the journalistic bullshit that espn spit out about kobe a few months ago. People always tend to say, "oh kobe would not have won shit without shaq", and this is probably true, but do you think shaq would have won shit without kobe? They are arguably the greatest duo in NBA history and Kobe made up 50% of that, you can't forget that. You act like Kobe was just some random nobody who was along for the ride when the Lakers had their 3peat.

I mean you not saying he's a top 10 player of all time is your opinion, but you'd be pretty crazy to think he isn't. You act like Kobe was gifted literally everything to him on a silver platter and he had nothing to do with any of the 5 rings he's won. As for the Dwight v. Kobe thing, you think Michael would have put up with the same approach Dwight took to things? On one hand you have two of basketball's fiercest competitors and on the other you have this lackadaisical jokester, just based off the first few games of the season you could tell things weren't gonna work out. Didn't help that they had D'Antoni coaching them as well, someone who has a run and gun offensive mentality and places little to no emphasis on defense.

How do you know Kobe doesn't hang out with his teammates lol? Just because you didn't read about it in an autobiography doesn't mean it doesn't happen. yea kobe has had rifts with dwight, smush parker(lol), and shaq (for a brief time), other players have spoken volumes about what its like to play with someone like kobe (example). idk why you say Michael is an offensive genius but say Kobe is an overconfident idiot, both of them are basketball masterminds. kobe's work ethic was pretty much as good as it could get, even phil said kobe worked harder than michael.

at 36 yea he's a shit defender (you'd think so after 50,000+ min played and multiple knee surgeries etc.), but there's no denying in his prime he was one of the best perimeter defenders in the league. the guy didn't just make 12 all defensive teams for nothing.

i hate comparing kobe and michael, because we all obviously know who's better, but you just take away so much from kobe it's not fair.

Teams suck when they tank, dunno why they chose to tank during Kobe's twilight years though.

kobe was not 50%, he was the skilled shooter they needed to punish teams for tripling shaq

they rewrote the rules on zone defense because shaq was unstoppable

he was a monster, if youre going to act like a kobe bryant was 50% of that duo then i have hundreds of hours of games that prove you flat out wrong. phil jackson unabashedly admitted repeatedly that their strategy was to ride shaq because he pretty much couldn't be defended. The three championships the lakers won UNDOUBTEDLY were on shaqs back who had MONSTROUS performances in every series.

in 2004, the year they lost to the pistons in the finals, shaq was 32 years old and kobe was 26. kobe at this point had already insulted shaq and called him old, slow and fat (great teammate). the pistons had an elite defensive center in ben wallace. and best of all, the pistons were going to play kobe and shaq 1 on 1 and force them to carry their team, not rotating help as often as other teams would. by all accounts kobe should have been a monster in the series.

the result? shaq played a good series, he had a couple of monster games, and one or two duds. kobe was atrocious, one of the worst playoff series for him ever, and the most telling of all is that in the game where detroit was able to keep shaq off the court because of foul trouble kobe couldnt create ANYTHING. total dud and disappeared when his team needed him the most, he needed shaq to draw defenses to play the way he wanted. THIS IS KOBES PRIME AND WHEN SHAQ IS 32

lets list better players: wilt chamberlain, bill russell, kareem abdul jabbar, magic johnson, larry bird, hakeem olajuwon, karl malone, tim duncan, shaq, michael jordan, isiah thomas (and tbh id throw more in there like dr j, moses malone, charles barkley, clyde drexler if we're including personality)

i can also list the shooting guards who would have won 3 (or more) championships with shaq if they had him in 98-04: wade, jordan, drexler, penny if he didnt get injured, mcgrady same deal, reggie, gervin and probably curry, harden, and AI. Again, shaq was a monster and by 98 he was smarter about using his unreal ability. in 95 shaq outplayed hakeem olajuwon in the finals, again: shaq outplayed hakeem olajuwon in the finals. when he was 23. hakeem. in the finals.

and do i think michael would have put up with dwight? no, but he would have handled it VERY differently. michael would have pushed him hard as fck in practice, he wouldve challenged him to play harder and practice more, he wouldve held him accountable for his shortcomings all that jazz. but that isnt toxic, thats motivated, thats competitive. kobe doesnt do that. kobe isnt going to push you to practice harder, hes just going to snipe at you to the press afterwards. kobe isnt going to come up to you face to face and tell you to shape up, hes going to call you soft to the press. kobe isnt going to spend hours practicing with you everyday so when its the last possession he trusts you wont fuck it up. kobe has always been the guy to say "hey im doing my part, im not the weak link here" without having that star like ability to make other guys seem extraordinary. michael elevates his teammates, kobe denigrates them.

shaq for a brief time? rofl

kobe from his rookie year until he left was at odds with shaq, with brief periods of respite. and if you ask phil jackson (the one man who was able to make them bear each other if only for a brief period) its because kobe was always the outsider. phil writes about how when he took over when the team reviewed film there would be the team (with shaq) sitting there and then in the back would be kobe with his hoodie up not speaking a word. kobe just doesnt communicate with his team well on or off the court, this isnt a mystery or an opinion, kobe is one of the few star nba players who is a true introvert.

and you ask why i consider kobe an overconfident idiot in games? well maybe its the fact that hes awful in the clutch and cant play in actual offensive schemes, but i think more telling is the article you yourself linked. kobe talks about how when he plays he only sees the hoop, and he needs to be yelled at to notice anything else, what is that if not really really shitty game sense? and kobe does work harder than michael, i will never debate that, but i would argue that work is less fruitful. michael used to play 1v1 with scottie after practice for hours, it benefited both and built a connection that blossomed on the basketball court. kobes never had a scottie. i didnt say kobe didnt work as hard or had worse mechanics, i said that kobe didnt have michaels physical gifts (which he clearly doesnt), michael was an athletic freak on par (almost) with lebron and he had freakishly large hands, kobe doesnt have the physical gifts michael did.

kobe is a great defender. 1 on 1. the issue is that in the nba theres so much more than just making sure your guy doesnt score, and just as kobe talked about how he only sees the hoop and literally needs to be yelled at to see anything else, when kobes defending he only sees his man. its not his fault if someone else gets beat after all. kobes help defense has always sucked, and hes been a perennial defensive allstar because its a popularity contest.

kobe is the most overrated athlete of all time. i wish, i really do, that i could provide a comparison of him to another overrated player like pele or terry bradshaw, but kobe is literally on another level. he doesnt have fans, he has a cult, and that cult (much like kobe himself) suffers from serious tunnel vision where they continually say "oh kobe never gets beat for the score, hes so good on D" or "sure he didnt make it, but kobes the only player in the league that can even attempt shots like that" and its like GOD DAMN DON'T YOU SEE? the best player isnt the most skilled, its the one who gives his team the best chance to win and kobe didnt do that