Quote: (03-26-2013 06:49 PM)TheSlayer Wrote:
A lot of the Laker fans are overlooking the fact that their leader and their best player is a 34 year old Kobe. As great as Kobe is and he will go down as one of the all-time greats, I think he still hasn't realized the perfect formula for distributing and scoring. That's why LeBron has become so dominant because he has perfected his inside-out game and knows when to distribute and when to score. He is a completely different player since the choke job against Dallas in 2011. You can blame D'Antoni or other players on the Lakers but Kobe deserves a lion-share of the blame for the Lakers' woes. His usage rate in the 4th quarter in close games is almost 51% and he might as well play with 4 random guys off the street. I watched that game against Washington (the one on Saturday) and the last 3 minutes was all Kobe jacking up shots except for a MWP 3. When you have Nash and Howard on your team, you have to figure out how to involve everyone.
I agree that sometimes Kobe doesn't know the right formula for distributing and scoring, but a lot of times, like last night for example, the rest of the team is playing like shit and he has to compensate. There's no reason to be distributing when non of the other players on your team are capitalizing. The guy has 5 rings, he obviously knows how to get wins. Yeah he's 34, but he's also been top 3 scorers of the season for the last 2 seasons, and the 5+ seasons before that he was top 5. There's no way in hell Kobe is the reason why the Lakers aren't winning. There defense is the #1 reason they aren't doing well. There offense is solid.