The Steaming Pile that is Kobe Bryant

Last night the vaunted Kobe Bryant looked like Derek Fisher has for the past few years on defense…clueless. The softest brush screen took Kobe off his man, which typically lead to an easy jump shot for OKC. I look for that to be the pattern of the series. The Thunder will continue to take the short open jumpers and rely on the fact that the Lakers cannot guard them. In light of Kobe’s recent failings I figured it was a great time to list my top ten reasons why I think Kobe is a steaming pile. 1. He’s only won 1 MVP. I believe the one he was given was only because he had such a great statistical career, but in a world where Lebron has one 3 it’s easy to see why he has been selected more than once. The stat that is most cherished for the award is not scoring, but the always important does he make everyone around him better stat. Kobe has always been a zero in that regard in it bears out that Moses Malone has more MVP’s than him. 2. Lack of big Playoff moments. Kobe (the Closer) has two memorable playoff moments, but they barely come to mind for most. He hit a shot against Phoenix in 2007 to extend their first round series, which they eventually lost. He hit a three to beat Detroit in 2003 to salvage a game they prevented them from being swept. The 2010 finals is the ultimate demonstration of Kobe not being big when his team needs him. In the three losses Kobe had his best statistical games of the series, but in the 3 of the four wins (let’s leave out the David Stern fix in Game 6 blow out game) Kobe had his worst games culminating in his worst game ever in game 7, which if not for some great Laker officiating, they would have lost. Let me repeat that he had his worst career game ever in his one and only game 7 of the finals. The funny part is I felt Derek Fisher, who I despise almost as much as Kobe, should have been the MVP of that series, but that’s not a good headline. If you want to note a recent MVP playoff performance watch game 7 of the 2005 finals. The Spurs were in a dog fight with the defending Champion pistons. Tim Duncan went off in the second half and did what a star is supposed to do and took over sealing the title for his team. 3. The mess in Colorado. I won’t say he committed a crime other than adultery because I wasn’t there and I don’t know the facts of the case, but Kobe did two things that were so wrong that it’s hard to ignore them. The first was that he threw Shaq under the bus to investigators by saying he does this all of the time. What does Shaq have anything to do with you cheating on your wife? The second was to buy his wife the ring he did and let it leak to the media that he did that. That’s so weak I don’t even know where to start. 4. Whether you like it or not he rode Shaq to the first three titles and then rode him out of town. Everyone wants to point to the fact that Shaq only won one title without Kobe, but I’m going to say what it is. Kobe was a role player the first three title runs. Shaq drew the defense in and either scored or distributed the ball to open shooters. Shaq was in his prime and near the top of the league in scoring. Kobe was good at that time, but it wasn’t until 2002 and beyond that he started playing up to his potential. It was Shaq and Phil that tipped the balance. The fact that Shaq went to a struggling Miami team and had them in the Eastern Conference finals in his first season and then won the finals the next year has always been more impressive to me then the Lakers struggling so bad they had to beg Phil to come back and then when that wasn’t working they robbed Pau Gasol from Memphis. 5. Kobe failed when the Spotlight shined on him in the Finals. We have already discussed that Kobe has lacked big playoff moments, but in the finals specifically he has never answered the bell when his team really needed him. The 2003 and the 2008 Finals specifically. In 2003 Kobe had a chance to take the reins as leader of the Lakers, but he was unable to be the difference maker. He cost Phil Jackson his first Finals loss and got him fired a month later. The 2008 Finals were a demonstration of Kobe’s inability to be a team player. He quit on his team in the finals. It was only after Phil Jackson pointed this out to him in the offseason did the Lakers rally to win two more titles. Yet as bad as those two were the 2010 Finals, which was already noted, but maybe not as gleaming because they won the series in spite of Kobe. 6. Phil Jackson wrote a book about it. Phil took the time to write a book about the fact that he felt Kobe was impossible to coach. Phil later recanted, but it took a few million and assurances from Mitch Kupcheck that Jerry West had their back to get them Pau Gasol. 7. He broke up what could have been the greatest Laker team of all time. He put his personal conquest to be the greatest Laker of all time in front of being part of what could have been the greatest team of all time. If Michael Jordan would have been in Kobe Bryants position with his talent and Shaq the Lakers may have run off 8 straight titles and might still be winning. Kobe being a weak teammate cost the Lakers more than they gained by winning the two recent titles. Imagine how much better Michael would have made Bynum and Gasol? The Lakers should have remained together and had no reason to start losing when they did. There is a direct correlation between Kobe trying to force himself to the top of the Lakers team and them beginning to struggle as a team leading to the termination of Phil Jackson and the trade of Shaq. 8. He’s the worst teammate in the history of sports. No player has ever blamed other people for his own personal lack of leadership than Kobe Bean Bryant. It’s one thing to be demanding of your teammates behind the scenes and get them traded when you don’t like them, it’s another thing to bash them publicly and go unpunished by your overrated front office. I think Kobe’s most recent comments about Ron Artest sum it all up beautifully. “Ron is someone I know I can count on.” The same Ron Artest that got himself suspended for a viscous elbow in a meaningless game going into the playoffs is someone you can count on? The last I checked reliable people don’t lead the league in games suspended. It just shows how out of touch Kobe is when he makes comments like this. The Lakers were supposable wore down last night, but it’s their fault they didn’t close out the previous series sooner. If Ron Artest was reliable he wouldn’t have committed an act unbecoming of a professional and would have been playing the entire series. I just think it’s humorous how Devin Ebanks behaved when he got tossed last night. It’s just common behavior on Kobe’s Lakers. Remember the melt down when they lost last year? Who could forget Andy Bynum tossing off his jersey? I remember the Bulls losing a close series to the Knicks and the Magic, but never getting blow out of the Gym by 40 like that did in 2008. 9. He takes be like Mike to the extreme. I respect the fact that he wants to emulate Michael Jordan. Everybody should try match Michael’s on the court play and drive. He’s the standard bearer for all sports and is without a doubt the best to every play his sport. That being said Kobe has tried countless times to emulate a particular Michael moment over and over. He has a stomach ache before the Game 6 of the Denver series and he tries to persuade everyone to believe it’s going to be like the flu game. If he was so sick why did he stay on the bench with the game so out of reach in the fourth quarter? It’s simple because he wasn’t that sick, and if he was he would have been in the locker room getting an IV. It’s classic Kobe trying to make more of a minor injury than there should be. Remember his back issues in the 2009 playoffs. Amazing how he was totally fine once the Lakers were well ahead of the Magic in the finals. The ultimate joke was when he changed his number mid career for no other reason than to draw comparison to Jordan and himself. It’s yet another classic example of not being the best Kobe he can be, but trying to be the next Jordan. I don’t ever remember MJ trying to be like Magic Johnson and that’s how he was able to revolutionize the game. 10. He will always be under a dark cloud. In the year 2000 I really didn’t like Basketball all that much, but I got caught up the Lakers Trailblazer series. The NBA had all, but crowned the Lakers the next big thing in the NBA and the champs that year. The East presented very little if no challenge, but the Trailblazers had a pretty deep team that season and looked to threaten the Lakers. No one could believe it when the series went to a game 7 in LA. The Blazers thoroughly outplayed the Lakers for 3 quarters and had an 18 point lead with seconds to go in the 3rd when Brian Shaw tossed up a prayer 3 that banked in and cut the lead to 15. Then the call came down from David Stern, the Trailblazers are not to win this game. Stern could not risk two small market teams making it to the finals and he needed to build a new dynasty around LA. The refs intervened in the game and the Lakers came storming back. It was the first time I ever witnessed a crime other than traffic violations. Then in 2002 the small market reared its ugly head again as Sacramento was trying to break threw, but again a crime was committed on a much grander scale in a more offensive way. By the time game 7 of the 2010 Finals rolled around we were used to the story. Stern valued a 5th Kobe title as a better story than an aging Celtics team finding the heart to grab another trophy. The Lakers might hold the record for the highest average amount of free throw attempts in the fourth quarter of playoff games and they did nothing, but shoot throws in the fourth as they drifted by the Celtics to steal a title away. The fourth quarter highlights of that game were not dramatic steals and jump shots, but whistles blow by the officials. Of Kobe’s 5 title teams only 2 can be considered untainted. Conversely you will never hear such things spoken about the Bulls or the showtime Lakers of the 80’s. In closing I would say that for a time I hated Brett Favre with every fiber of my being. I hated that he could aloud every sack and that every year he lead his team to the playoffs with ease. Then Brett got the boot from the Packers when they turned their back on him. He went to New York and almost got them to the playoffs, but it was his gritty year with the Vikings, when he came oh so close to the Superbowl, when I started to realize this guy is one of the GOAT’s of sports. Here was a man that I had every reason to dislike, but somehow he had won me over. I do not think it possible that Kobe could ever attain that status. I respect his talent, but I in no way believe that he will ever earn my respect as a top star and a GOAT. Honorable Mention: Pau Gasol was gifted to the Lakers just in time to help them start winning again. Why would the Grizzlies trade Pau Gasol to the Lakers? There were so many better suitors and the Lakers had so very little to give in return. In a world where top stars are being traded with huge asking prices one of the best post players in the game was traded for a bag of balls. The NBA is different from most leagues in that your Division matters very little, but your conference is all important. You want to avoid at all cost sending a player from your team to a team in the same conference. That’s why Carmello and Shaq were traded to the Eastern conference. The Lakers didn’t want to send Shaq to a team that could meet them in the playoffs. The trade made by the Grizzles made zero sense in the fact that they gained so little and if Pau was going to leave they should have tried harder to deal him in the prior offseason. This was a backdoor deal done by Jerry West to help out his old pals in LA. West did more to damage the Grizzlies franchise in his tenure, but it flies under the radar because of the recovery that the Grizzlies have had under new leadership.