Lakers and Bulls discussing Kobe trade daily

[Taraz]

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Regarding Kobe's "selfish" performance last night, TrueHoop had some great comments about the situation:

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To try to get an idea of how Kobe’s seeing his teammates, let’s examine how (his fourth quarter) passes turned out.

•Five passes to Luke Walton. Four times it comes back to Bryant, one time Walton gets fouled.
•Two passes to Jordan Farmar, leading to two missed jumpers by other players.
•Twice to Ronny Turiaf. One time it comes back, the other time it’s a missed jumper.
•Once to Maurice Evans, who passes it right back.
•Once time to Andrew Bynum, who passes it back.
•Once to Derek Fisher for the game-tying basket.

After considering how productive Bryant was on his own, and how little came out of his passes, one could make the argument that in his head, most of his teammates were not worth passing to with the game on the line.

In almost every case — before that pass to Fisher — Bryant ends up seeing a missed jumper or getting the ball back anyway.

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Now I'm not saying Kobe wasn't forcing it a lot, but it didn't seem like he had many options.

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Did you watch the game? Notice when Kobe's actually passing the ball. Usually when he gets the ball on the wing, attempts to get into the line as 2-3 defenders collapse, he is forced to retreat and pass.

Guess what? His teammates REALLY aren't going to be able to do much of anything when they get the ball like that. Yet when they actually get the ball from Kobe in the flow of the offense, they actually manage to shoot well and be efficient and the Lakers win more. COINCIDENCE?

DUN DUN DUN!

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Yes I did watch the game as a matter of fact. Now please tell me what his teammates can do in a half-court set other than catch and shoot/finish? Nobody can penetrate and nobody really has moves in the low post. So if the offense isn't flowing smoothly, their best option really is for Kobe to attack. I wish he had the ability to see the double team earlier and pass out of it, but he's pretty awful at switching mindsets from scorer to facilitator.

Again, I'm not claiming that he doesn't force a ton of shots. But don't act like the Lakers would be better if he didn't. In a given game he often gives them the best chance to win by ballhogging it like that. I'm more worried about the fact that continually playing like that reinforces bad habits and stagnant offense from the rest of the team.

If the offense is running smoothly and people are hitting their shots, everything is fine. But when that's not the case, it can be a better option to just let him go to work. Did you even notice how they made that furious comeback? They were down 12, Kobe goes off, and they are within striking distance in less than a minute.