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Kobe can't really finish with contact any more. The ability to take a hit, convert and truly dash the other team's belief in its ability to stop you is a necessary condition of being an elite MVP caliber player. It is by no means a sufficient condition. I'd rather have Corey Maggette than Kobe go up with the ball from 8 ft. on in but it'll be a warm day in Sarah Palin's heart before I take Maggette over Kobe in anything else.
Mark my words, Kobe is my favorite currently playing sociopath and one of my favorite people of all time, but it's time we, like the Bulls evaluating post-baseball Jordan be honest with our hero's capabilities and limitations.
Mark my words, Kobe is my favorite currently playing sociopath and one of my favorite people of all time, but it's time we, like the Bulls evaluating post-baseball Jordan be honest with our hero's capabilities and limitations.
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The first quarter was a salvo. The Lakers endured even as the shells became lodged in their sneakers.
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The Z-Bo theorem (show a much maligned offensive/defensive black hole enough love and he rewards his employers with heretofore unseen and dram-free productivity) applies to the ragtag band of misfits and perennial keep-a-suitcase-ready trade bait. Drew Gooden posted the highest true shooting percentage of the night for the Deers and was seen on multiple occasions by this humble author diving for loose balls. This is very unbecoming behavior of a mercenary. One can imagine Maggette laughing at these displays of espirit de corps, mocking Gooden for risking injury and lowering his value on the open market.
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Devin Ebanks has no fucking clue what he's doing. Blocked, cherry picks, frustration dunks, fouled, somehow stays focused enough to make free throw. Pulled soon after.
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Ilyasova should be starting. Oh how quickly the Bucks doth forget whose rebounding and all around plus-minus goodness let them snatch win that playoff game in Atlanta last year. This man is the Buck's future and their present. Fear the right deer dammit.
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The most fascinating thing about the Lakers offense are the bailout plays. Kobe triple pumps and drains. Gasol fades and swishes. Fisher has been an excellent pressure release thus far, slinging threes from behind his head to erase the mistakes of the shot-clock parched skip pass.
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"I can't look at Artest without thinking of..." pre-2k10 this sentence would be finished with the malice at the palace, post 2k10 it's thankfully finished with "his post-game soliloquy after the finals last year."
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Wonder if Scott Skiles is going to spend all of next practice punishing his players for giving the Lakers' free and-1s on fastbreaks. The Bucks defenders stamped the fast-breaker's boarding pass/hand, waved them through to the hoop and bid them farewell on the merry way to the free throw line.
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Can't really see or hear squad six. Why isn't there a camera crew constantly focused on their antics?
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Finally, this team is, thus far, so '08-'09 in style, depth and fire-smooth offensive execution. It flirted with a brand new '011 mold in the early going, efficient-low volume Kobe, franchise player Pau and quietly effective bench. Now they're regressing back to '09: Kobe-reliant, a bit Pau-ignorant. Fortunately, we do get the fantastic bench of the '08 regular season with Sasha's effectiveness split between and multiplied by the killer Bs.
This Lakers team, in its long-molten core, carries an endless number of previous selves within its soul.
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