Kobe Bryant is losing his mind

What does Kobe do after shooting 30% for his first 16 games (20% on three pointers) and having the worst adjusted field goal percentage of any player in over 60 years?  And in the very next game after he admits he just doesn't have it anymore and says he'll retire at the end of this season?  

He goes out and hoists up 26 shots (making only SEVEN of them) and what's even worse, attempts SEVENTEEN three pointers!!  He made FOUR of them.  And guess what - that embarrassing, completely ego-driven performance allowed the 26ers to break their 28 game losing streek and win their first game since March 25th, beating the pathetic Lakers 103-91 (dropping them to 2-15 on the season), with the black melba toast registering a plus/minus of -21:

https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/los-angeles-lakers-philadelphia-76ers-2015120120/

He's lost his mind.  Shame and guilt don't exist anymore in his play.

Who goes out and attempts SEVENTEEN three-pointers when you've only made 18 of 89 of them so far this season??????????

Kobe.

Kobe is now 19 for 80 from the field his last four games and and unreal 9 for 50 on threes his last seven games.  I can understand him slowing down at this stage of his career but for his shooting ability to completely disappear is shocking.  

Kobe is 38 years and three months old and has played 1,293 games.  Dirk Nowitzki is two months OLDER than Kobe with 1,282 games played, yet is shooting 51% from the field this year (averaging 17 PPG and 7.1 reb,) with a so-far CAREER-BEST 46.6% on threes (27 for 58).  And will probably also play next year.

As a final gift to Laker fans he has taken it upon his shoulders the task of making sure that the Lakers have one of the 3 worst records in the league. The stakes are very high because if they finish 4th or better their 1st round pick will go the 76ers. The Lakers need loses not wins and he's sure doing his best to this end.

     All above , of course, written with a little tongue in cheek - I think.

 swish

swish wrote:As a final gift to Laker fans he has taken it upon his shoulders the task of making sure that the Lakers have one of the 3 worst records in the league. The stakes are very high because if they finish 4th or better their 1st round pick will go the 76ers. The Lakers need losses not wins and he's sure doing his best to this end.

     All above , of course, written with a little tongue in cheek - I think.

 swish

That's Kobe (tongue in cheek) doing what's best for his beloved Lakers, like making them agree to pay him $48.5 million last year for a two-year contract so they couldn't afford another elite player who would actually make them better.

At least with retiring after this season (unless he sees he can maybe shoot 25% on threes from now on, changes his mind and decides he's coming back), his $25 million for next year will go away.

Steve,

Dirk relies on his height, length, and finely honed ability to shoot step backs or what are essentially set shots. He's always had an old man's game, and now that he's older, it still works.

Kobe always relied on his athleticism, either to drive by defenders or pull up and elevate. Now that his legs are gone, his game is gone, too.

The other thing is that Dirk shoots a nice, high arcing shot, while Kobe's shot is flat. Kobe's flat shot worked as long as he could elevate, but now that he's floor bound, that flat shot won't go in, while Dirk's high arcing shot can keep on chugging along.

Father Time is undefeated and will claim both Dirk and Kobe, but Kobe's game was far more vulnerable to decline at an earlier point.

I suspect that a lot of the 25 mil is gratitude money for past accomplishments. Some ownerships can be overly generous to a fault.

swish

swish wrote:As a final gift to Laker fans he has taken it upon his shoulders the task of making sure that the Lakers have one of the 3 worst records in the league. The stakes are very high because if they finish 4th or better their 1st round pick will go the 76ers. The Lakers need loses not wins and he's sure doing his best to this end.

     All above , of course, written with a little tongue in cheek - I think.

 swish

excellent point!

Going to give Kobe some props here.

He's had a fantastic HOF career and is easily among the top players of his generation.

Time and injury have caught up, but in almost any way you can think of he's still counted on as the leader of his team.

A lot of what gets labeled Me Ball, here and elsewhere, simply doesn't happen at the NCAA or NBA level.  It's much more often a planned strategy.  It's impossible to say without sitting on the Laker bench, but the high volume shooting by Kobe may be part of the plan by a team very similar to The Celtics; early in a rebuilding phase with few strong weapons.

Me, I'm going to rank Kobe in with West and several others I'll count as a highly respected rival.

Stephen A is saying Kobe should just retire right now and stop playing.

I've never seen a great player fall off his game to this degree ever, guess Hondo and Jordan at 37 would kick Kobes ass at 37.

Kobe was a great player.  Period.

The Lakers offered him stupid money for 2 years when it was already obvious his body was breaking down.  If I was him, I would have sprained a finger from signing that contract so fast.   The title of this thread is that "Kobe is losing his mind".  Maybe it should have been "Dim Buss LOST his mind".  I cannot speak to the franchise P&L aspect of it, the Lakers own a TV station, much like the Yankees own YES, and so the entertainment factor of giving Laker fans their last glimpses of their fading hero might make $ sense, but from a salary cap and rebuilding perspective then no, it didn't.  Still, there are other factors that Jeannie Buss considers that I don't.  I long thought that Mitch Kupchak was won of the top 3-4 GMs in the league, up there with Sam Presti of OKC, RC Buford of the Spurs and Danny.  Over the years, Sam Presti has fallen off the pedestal a bit because I realized that, despite having had the opportunity to make some unbelievable draft picks (Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Green) he has never been able to figure out how to put together the rest of the roster to produce a champion.  Close, but no cigar.  Buford, of course, has had the inestimable benefit of having the best coach in the league decide to make San Antonio his lomgterm home and the Spurs organization his lifework.  Danny took a doormat and turned them into a winner in 5 years.  Now, though, I feel iike I'm finally seeing through the veil and am realizing that maybe it wasn't Kupchak all along, it was Dr. Jerry Buss.  Mitch was his front man, the guy who held the title of GM but Dr. Buss, a self-made billionaire, was the real deal.  If I am right here that bolsters my argument that it isn't Kobe's "fault" for taking the money, maybe it isn't even Jeannie Buss' "fault" for offering it (since other numbers might come into play in her consideration) but it was Dr. Buss' idiot son, being supported by a GM who was given accolades he didn't deserve just because Dr. Buss was content with the results and didn't care if his kids or Mitch got the credit.

A Laker fan friend of mine told me it was a "farewell and thanks for everything" contract from the Lakers and that Kobe deserves credit for loyalty.  I say that signing a contract that had to be at least 3x, minimum, what any other team would have offered him has nothing to do with loyalty.  Smart, sure, but loyal?  No.  As far as the wisdom of giving him that contract in the first place, it all boils down to whether the Lakers get the #3 pick in the draft or higher.  If they are 4th, or worse, their pick goes to Philadelphia.  If Hinkie gets the Lakers' pick this year, after drafting so high for so many years, and the Sixers still suck next year with Okie and Noel and Saric coming in and this new pick, that will pretty much put the final coffin nail in tanking, I would think.

It really is truly sad to see Kobe go out like this.  This is NOT how I will remember him.



bob



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bob come on man, your better than that, all Buss did was hobnob with celebrities and hang out at the mansion, the guy that pulled all the strings, that acquired Shaq and Kobe was Jerry West.

This will be a painful season for Lakers and Kobe fans, but I am ok with it and now can get excited about the future.
What was painful was the helplessness when Nash and Dwight were on the team and the Lakers were tens of millions over the salary cap.
Yes, Kobe's game is painful to watch.
But I can see that this is a very different Kobe.
He is not angry on the court all the time.
He is making huge efforts to instruct the young guys without riding them like he used to.

As for the Lakers, now that Kobe has announced his retirement, everything just feels different and brighter.
I officially want the Lakers to lose as much as possible this season. Yup, I said it. I want them to get a top 3 pick, preferably one of the top 2. I don't want to see the Lakers stuck being a mediocre team.
Brooklyn and Philly have to play each other 4 times this year. That is guaranteed wins for teams that I want to finish with a better record than the Lakers.
I love Ben Simmons game and I am impressed with how long and athletic Skal Labissiere from Kentucky is. If the Lakers have either Simmons or Labissiere to go along with Clarkson, Randle and Russell, that is a very good young nucleus to build your team with.
The Lakers will also have more than $50m in cap space next summer. I expect they will trade Nick Young or Lou Williams to a contender this season which means their cap space next summer could be greater than any other team.
The Kobe farewell tour will be fun. Philly fans were great to him last night.

My opinion of this guy as a person I'll keep to myself. Never liked how he played either... but when a guy walks away from 25 million... yeah I'd say he has lost his mind...

cowens/oldschool wrote:bob come on man, your better than that, all Buss did was hobnob with celebrities and hang out at the mansion, the guy that pulled all the strings, that acquired Shaq and Kobe was Jerry West.

Who got Pau Gasol?  West had moved on to Memphis at that point.  And what did West do in Memphis that would suggest that he was the rainmaker?  Who kept Kobe in LA?  Speaking of Shaq, who traded Shaq to Miami for Odom?  West was already gone then too. Gasol and Odom were backbone players of that Laker dynasty, along with Kobe and Laker draft pick Andrew Bynum.

A lot of the Lakers' sales pitch was "come to LA and hang out in the sunshine with the stars".  For many years, that worked really, really well.  So, even if what you're saying  is true, then Dr. Buss was the leader of the successful recruiting approach used by the Lakers for decades.  It doesn't work well anymore, LaMarcus Aldridge's decision to go to the Spurs instead of LA is evidence of that, but back in the day...If the key to luring top talent to your team was to strip naked and do the chicken dance in public, I'd like to think that there would be youtubes of Danny flapping his bare arms and wiggling his shiny white butt in Faneuil Hall on the first day of open season for signing free agents.  Whatever it takes...


bob


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tjmatz

Good to see your below statement. For about 3 years now I've been thinking that I was the only person on this board that felt that sometimes loosing was more important than winning.

"I officially want the Lakers to lose as much as possible this season. Yup, I said it. I want them to get a top 3 pick, preferably one of the top 2. I don't want to see the Lakers stuck being a mediocre team."

swish

bob the fact that he still had a pretty decent player in Kobe,made the rebuild after Shaq alot easier and West acquiring both set up that team for decades....I actually think getting rid of Shaq was a big mistake, he still had alot left and that team could have gotten alot more with Shaq and Kobe together with a few more parts....IMHO. Bynum turned out to be injury prone his whole career, imagine Shaq, Kobe, Gasol and Odom.....scary, Shaq could have taken a lesser role and just pound people in the paint and that team had more multiple written all over.

There are different types of owner-GM relationships:

A. An owner who mostly leaves the bball decisions to the GM (Boston, OKC, San Antonio).

B. An owner who meddles in running the team and screws things up (Sacramento).

C. More rarely, an owner who works with the GM as a management team to implement a shared vision.

The Lakers with Jerry Buss were one of the few examples of option C. Jerry Buss wanted to remake the Lakers as a fast-paced, entertaining team, and the Showtime era was his vision. He was also smart enough to keep Jerry West as GM and rely on his expertise to implement that vision, including supporting some risky decisions that paid off handsomely, such as trading Vlade Divac for the rights to draft Kobe and going all in to get Shaq as a free agent (Shaq almost stayed with Orlando).

The Lakers with Jim Buss tend more towards option B. I don't think that's Mitch Kupchack's fault. He's been overridden at key points by Jim Buss, particularly with the coach hirings and firings. Jim Buss wanted Phil Jackson out so he could put his own stamp on the team. Kupchack wanted Rick Adelman, who would've been a great hire, but Jim Buss wanted Mike Brown. Mike Brown got management's okay to run a Princeton-style offense, but when they lost every preseason game and four of the first five regular season games, Jim Buss couldn't handle it and fired Brown. They could've brought Phil back, but Jim Buss couldn't handle that, so they hired D'Antoni. One misstep after another, and I put that on Jim Buss, not Kupchack.

There's also luck, or a lack thereof. Kupchack worked out a trade for Chris Paul, but David Stern took the unprecedented step of vetoing the trade. Kupchack signed Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, but Nash, who had been very good the season before, got a freak injury to his leg a few games in and was essentially done, and Bad Dwight went into full bloom. It's a long time ago now, but when Kupchack did those deals, a lot of people around the league thought it was a huge coup and that the Lakers had rebuilt themselves as serious title contenders in a ridiculously short time.

They've got a long road ahead of them to become relevant again. Jim Buss said last year that he'd step down as President of Basketball Operations and Meddler in Chief if the Lakers weren't contenders in four years. The hope for Laker fans is that Buss either learns from his wealth of mistakes to become competent or that they continue to stink and Buss keeps his word.

Outside wrote:There are different types of owner-GM relationships:

A. An owner who mostly leaves the bball decisions to the GM (Boston, OKC, San Antonio).

B. An owner who meddles in running the team and screws things up (Sacramento).

C. More rarely, an owner who works with the GM as a management team to implement a shared vision.

The Lakers with Jerry Buss were one of the few examples of option C. Jerry Buss wanted to remake the Lakers as a fast-paced, entertaining team, and the Showtime era was his vision. He was also smart enough to keep Jerry West as GM and rely on his expertise to implement that vision, including supporting some risky decisions that paid off handsomely, such as trading Vlade Divac for the rights to draft Kobe and going all in to get Shaq as a free agent (Shaq almost stayed with Orlando).

The Lakers with Jim Buss tend more towards option B. I don't think that's Mitch Kupchack's fault. He's been overridden at key points by Jim Buss, particularly with the coach hirings and firings. Jim Buss wanted Phil Jackson out so he could put his own stamp on the team. Kupchack wanted Rick Adelman, who would've been a great hire, but Jim Buss wanted Mike Brown. Mike Brown got management's okay to run a Princeton-style offense, but when they lost every preseason game and four of the first five regular season games, Jim Buss couldn't handle it and fired Brown. They could've brought Phil back, but Jim Buss couldn't handle that, so they hired D'Antoni. One misstep after another, and I put that on Jim Buss, not Kupchack.

There's also luck, or a lack thereof. Kupchack worked out a trade for Chris Paul, but David Stern took the unprecedented step of vetoing the trade. Kupchack signed Dwight Howard and Steve Nash, but Nash, who had been very good the season before, got a freak injury to his leg a few games in and was essentially done, and Bad Dwight went into full bloom. It's a long time ago now, but when Kupchack did those deals, a lot of people around the league thought it was a huge coup and that the Lakers had rebuilt themselves as serious title contenders in a ridiculously short time.

They've got a long road ahead of them to become relevant again. Jim Buss said last year that he'd step down as President of Basketball Operations and Meddler in Chief if the Lakers weren't contenders in four years. The hope for Laker fans is that Buss either learns from his wealth of mistakes to become competent or that they continue to stink and Buss keeps his word.

Outside,

That's a very insightful take on the management of our rival out west.

Regards

outside great post

Bryant scores 31 to lead Lakers past Wizards 108-104

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/bryant-scores-31-lead-lakers-past-wizards-108-030444903--nba.html

Looks like Kobe's not quite toast yet.

LAL's ownership I think has been the problem. And GMing to a slightly lesser extent. They haven't drafted well. But to their defense, the CP3 trade was a huge shaft job by the NBA.

KJ

k_j_88 wrote:LAL's ownership I think has been the problem. And GMing to a slightly lesser extent. They haven't drafted well. But to their defense, the CP3 trade was a huge shaft job by the NBA.

KJ

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Hi KJ,

Haven't seen much of you past half year or so. How has everything been?


bob


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