On the eve of the sites two years anniversary I wanted to give a quick sports take. Specifically my favorite basketball team the Los Angeles Lakers (or fakers as I like to call them now) .
This is a once-proud franchise with so many legends it isn't funny. But that team has fallen into decline lately. And I feel it could be traced back to one particular current Lakers trip to Colorado.
I know Kobe Bryant settled that rape case and we will never know what really happened but taking a look at a few things like for instance he went to Colorado without letting the team know to have surgery. And during the police interview he sold Shaq out and saying how Shaq helped him out in situations like that before (that is public information) indicating that there has been at least another "incident".
That year the Lakers had a dream team consisting of Shaq, Kobe,Karl Malone,and Gary Payton . Kobe was in a contract year and had a magnificent season even though the obvious strain on him.
Relations between Kobe and Shaq were always strained but they knew they needed each other to win championships which they did back-to-back-to-back. But after the loss to Detroit ultimatums were given from Kobe: trade Shaq or I'm signing with the Los Angeles Clippers. (that's according to Elgin Baylor the Clippers General Manager).
The Lakers caved and re-signed Kobe and traded Shaq for Lamar Odom and Kwame Brown. I decent player and a stiff. But since then it seems the Lakers and snake-bitten. Once they were usually able to get solid players but not now. Now no one wants to play for them and I think no one wants to play with Kobe after he threw Shaq under the bus during the rape interviews by the police after all who would want to play with a snitch.
Now I think the following:
A) Kobe is one of the best players in the NBA. He's one dimensional but so was Jordan
B) Kobe is not a leader. Not that that's not really a bad thing some players are just not leaders. Kobe DOES NOT MAKE PLAYERS AROUND HIM BETTER.
C) This is the most important: The Lakers will not win with him on this team for the reason above. It's sad to say that conserding I think of how great he is but if you take a look he got the players around him HE wanted he got the coach HE wanted and the team is so awful right now it's pathetic.
Anyway that's my view.
5 comments:
I generally agree with your comments. Personally, I think the problems started when they signed Dennis Rodman. All guys like that do is destroy team chemistry. Yes, Kobe does that too and I think he has gotten worse since Shaq left. When Shaq was a Laker, Kobe knew the team had a great chance of winning the title so, knowing that, he became more of a team player. Now that he realizes he's on an otherwise, poor team, he's back to being the showboat he was in the Del Harris days.
I haven't paid much attention to the Lakers in years. Even the 3 championship seasons didn't get me excited because I just never get enthused about teams built almost entirely from free-agency. The exception to that was Kobe and I never liked him anyway so I haven't been much of a Laker fan or even a basketball fan in a while.
The funny thing is I watched the entire first half of Tuesday's game. It was the most Laker watching I've done all year. All I can say is; How did this group ever make the playoffs? The NBA must have really gone downhill for this group to be in the postseason. I'll think about being a Laker fan again after Kobe goes.
They won championships after the Rodman disaster so I disagree with that. I hate to say those things about Kobe because he's a hell of a player one of the best in the NBA but I feel those are facts and the fact that no one wants to play with Kobe proves my point.
When the Lakers signed Rodman, it showed they were willing to accept a player who had his own personal agenda, rather than being a team player. It showed they didn't care about the quality of the individual. This precedent continued with Kobe. I would much rather have a young team struggling, but learning to play well with each other than most of the members of the group we currently have.
I'm not a typical Laker fan. I don't expect them to win the title every single year and whine about it when they don't.
Right now they are lucky to make the playoffs.
Post a Comment