The Kobe Bryant Effect

It is when you give a guy credit for the difficulty of the shot he missed instead of discrediting him for passing up other opportunities.

Why Is It So Hard To Understand?!

“I’m gonna do what I do.”

“I think the second unit and that crew has to make a concerted effort to get the ball into Pau, get the ball into Andrew. It had nothing to do with me. I’ve had games where I shot the ball 10 times, and Pau and Andrew didn’t contribute that much. I’ve had times where I shot the ball 30 times and they had big games. … It had nothing to do with my shots.”

- LA Laker Legend In His Own Mind Kobe Bryant

Context: After playing 35 mins., he ends up with 36 pts and ZERO assists. Dallas squeaks past LA in Game 1 of their Western Conference Semifinal match up.

In their previous series against New Orleans, he had games of below 20pts. (one was even just 11) yet LA emerged victorious.

This guy can not understand that LA’s strength is their ceiling with Bynum, Gasol and Odom. What this guy doesn’t understand is his insistence on his personal showcase takes away from his teammates and makes the team more vulnerable.

What this guy and his gullible followers don’t understand is that if your guy can afford to score 11 pts and the team still wins - it is the team that is great, not the individual.

But what we all need to understand and realize is that LA remains to be a formidable championship contender - also because it can win even with JUST 11 pts from the highly touted Kobe.

Enough of all this Hail Kobe sh*t. Truly legendary players take it upon themselves WIN or LOSE.

It’s just a rip off to be showered with personal accolades when the team is winning but pinning the blame on your teammates when the team is losing.

Putting things in the proper perspective: it is the LA Lakers that have 5 titles this decade. Kobe has 1 regular season MVP and 2 Finals MVP’s.

He’s good, but not THAT great.

And 24 Comes Up With A Smart Aleck Reply

As far as MJ is concerned, Kobe belongs to the Top 10 Guards of all time.

This is Kobe’s reply to the otherwise “unflattering” opinion voiced by the GOAT:

“I’m definitely one of the top 10 guards. It could mean two, it could mean one…”

“Two” would be his number of Finals MVP. “One” in turn is the number of his regular season MVP.

Get real dude. You’re good; but you ain’t that great.

Just work on beating LeBron one-on-one in your sleep. =)

23’s Take on 24…

The greatest basketball player Michael Jordan was asked during a recent interview for promotions for NBA2K11:

Of course, there’s always the comparison of you and Kobe Bryant. Where does Kobe stand in the status of NBA players through history?

To which MJ replied:

It’s so hard to say. I think he is always going to be within the conversations of some of the greatest players who’ve played by the time he is finished. Where does he rank among those, if you are talking about positions? If you are talking about guards, I would say he has got to be in the Top 10.

In the Top 10 among those who played the guard position. Fair enough.

The interview article in full can be read here.