Heading into this season, everyone expects the Los Angeles Lakers to struggle mightily in a loaded Western Conference. The Lakers have serious health issues already and it’s only the pre-season. One lone bright spot for Lakers fans is they will get to see Kobe Bryant hopefully play this season at full health. This is a welcome sign in Lacer land after a train wreck season in 2013-14. The Lakers will probably struggle this season, but at least a healthy Kobe Brant will be a sure bright spot for a rebuilding team.
There has been lots of chatter recently about Kobe’s NBA rank on ESPN, where he fell to number 40 this year behind the likes of Andre Iguodala, Mike Conley, and fellow shooting guards DeMar Derozan, Klay Thompson, and Dwyane Wade. Whether or not Kobe deserves to be ranked higher depends on his health after a ruptured Achilles and broken lateral tibial plateau. Kobe himself seems to think ESPN has gotten it wrong, calling the station “a bunch of idiots”, but I wouldn’t expect anything less from Bryant, who has always spoken his mind.
The fact that Kobe is back this season has brought up more than just his place in the NBA rankings, with Henry Abbott of ESPN’s truehoop network publishing a story on October 20th about the presence of Bryant and how he is preventing the Lakers from moving forward as a franchise and competing at a high level. The piece can be accessed here. We all know the Lakers have fallen apart since their championship season in 2010, with a steady decline in wins in each subsequent season and losing players like Lamar Odom, Derek Fisher, Andrew Bynum, and Pau Gasol from a championship core. The Lakers as an organization have many problems, and to put the blame squarely on Bryant in this case is unfair and fails to look at the entire picture of the last four years. From injuries, to Dwight’s departure, to the vetoed Chris Paul trade, it seems foolish to and lazy to blame Kobe Bryant.
The shortened version of Abbott’s piece is really that Kobe’s defiant attitude and presence in the locker room and on the court deters players from wanting to play for the Lakers. He apparently pushes away free agents who may be considering playing in LA. He always cites Kobe’s large contract extension he received last year which is set to pay Bryant over $48 million over the next two seasons as crippling to their chances of luring big name free agents without the needed cap space. Some of these things may be true, but the way the piece is written feels like a personal attack on Bryant and comes across very one-sided and is heavily biased.
The main argument presented involves Kobe’s role in attempting to convince free agents to come to LA. The Lakers whiffed this summer on big time players like LeBron James, Paul George, and Carmelo Anthony, as well as saw Pau Gasol head to Chicago. The Lakers also couldn’t convince Dwight Howard to stay after his only season in purple and gold. Abbott states that Kobe’s demeanor and dress in a meeting with Howard, Steve Nash and Lakers executives turned Howard off of the Lakers. Ramon Sessions also apparently turned down more money from LA to go to Charlotte because he did not want to share the court or deal with Bryant. If the story about Howard is true, that Bryant giving him a speech about being a winner and not being dressed appropriately turned Howard off, I think it says more about Howard than Bryant. It wasn’t Kobe Bryant’s job to cater to Dwight Howard, and if many reports from that summer were true, Howard had already made up his mind well before any discussion with Bryant. And after all, there’s no on in the NBA who knows more about winning than Bryant. Wouldn’t someone like Howard, who is pretty much dismissed as being ready to win at this point, want to take advice from Bryant? You could argue that a job of today’s stars is to recruit fellow star players, as we have seen done recently, but Bryant the Lakers issues, including coaching and schemes were responsible for driving Howard to Houston.
Bryant’s contract was a matter of great discussion the moment it was revealed that he signed a two-year extension worth $48.5 million through the 2015-16 season. Many thought that he was not worth that money at this late stage of his career and with his production surely to decline after major injuries. The large cap hit would surely prevent LA from luring free agents because they would be unable to sign players to fill out a competitive roster. Others argued that because he is such a huge draw, the Lakers will make money anyway, despite a luxury tax bill. Abbott discusses the tradition of the Lakers’ late owner Jerry Buss in treating his players well, and taking care of them late in their careers. This has been followed by new vice-president Jim Buss, who has been under serious criticism since taking over control of the franchise. It was Buss who insisted on the large contract for Bryant, as the behest of general manager Mitch Kupchak, who had not said anything publicly against the contract, but has hinted that it has handcuffed him somewhat, at least according to Abbott. Whether or not Bryant’s large contract is worth the money, or handcuffing the Lakers at this point is not really important. It has been signed and he will get his money. Bryant was severely underpaid for almost his entire career for the draw that he was and was rewarded at the back end by his owner. Why not toss the blame Buss’s way? He does have the final say on such matters. Anything suggesting Bryant’s greed is responsible for a Lakers downfall fails to address the role of the owner and front office.
This is not the first time that Abbott has written a piece that takes a shot at Bryant. He is known for his articles on advanced metrics and crunch time numbers suggesting that Kobe Bryant is not quite the player that everyone makes him out to be. A major issue with his piece is the use of unnamed anonymous sources by Abbott. Not one named credible source is used throughout the piece, with mentions of sources within the Lakers organization to NBA agents who apparently have star clients in the league. The shoddiness of his attempt to come up with credible source for any of his arguments makes the entirety of the article tantamount to his opinion and his opinion alone. This may be the fault of Abbott himself, or the cowardice of the sources that are mentioned, but either way it results in a piece which is hard to take seriously. The previous articles by Abbott with negative undertones regarding Bryant coupled with this piece makes it look like he is taking a personal shot at Bryant. The use of unnamed sources is an inherent flaw of this piece. Maybe the source within the Lakers organization is someone who dislikes Bryant, for whatever reason, and therefore holds some grudge, or perhaps the source is just some ball boy that Abbott plucked up off the street. Any agent of an NBA player is going to of course have their biases as well against possibly both Bryant and the Lakers. It feels like the author is reinforcing his own bias by finding sources that simply strengthen what he thinks, while avoiding any opinions of those who might not feel the same way. At best it feels as though Abbott is reaching for arguments that probably aren’t there, while offering no real substantial validity to any of the claims he makes.
This is not meant to say that Kobe Bryant has been a saint in recent Laker history, as he has often alienated teammates, and his attitude has irked many people over the years. His contract may be for too much money, and it is likely that the Lakers won’t contend again before he retires. There may be some truth to the story, that some people are turned off by Bryant’s attitude, but he is a small part of the problem the Lakers are faced with right now. The point is that almost any way you slice it, Kobe Bryant is one of the ten greatest basketball players ever, and that he has earned his right to act the way he does. He does not need to cater to the likes of Dwight Howard and he does not have to apologize for taking the money he is deserved. Henry Abbott’s piece comes down to uncalled for pot-shots and criticism, while ignoring most of the entire picture regarding Laker land. It feels like a personal attack with only that agenda and an ignorance of what the situation truly is in LA, regardless of the truth behind the allegations.
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