You were convinced weren’t you? That Kobe had all of a sudden become this fantastic leader since Derek Fisher was traded, not blasting his coach for benching him. You thought things were now different.
Errrrr, wrong, where’s the jeopardy buzzer. Kobe is the same guys he’s always been and now that Fisher is gone Bryant has no other choice but to be more subdued, however that doesn’t mean he’s a ton different than what he always was. Yea, so what he said the right thing after being benched by Mike Brown. A one time occurance a trend does not start. Now if he started rooting for Coach Brown to draw up plays in the last two minutes then let’s roll with that theory. But Kobe is too late in his career to start acquiescing to people he doesn’t trust. You see how he treats Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, and he’s been around them for years. So you want me to believe that he’s going to trust Coach Brown after just a few months. I laugh in the face of those thoughts.
What the Lakers need most from Kobe is that he relies more on the trust of his teammates, because that is what will take them far. Eventually Kobe will have another game similar to the one he had last night against New Orleans and Pau and Bynum will need to carry the load. And though Kobe isn’t the greatest motivator, he needs to at least not brow beat them. I’m not gonna bore you with stats, but when you look at the lakers, they look like a team with no chemistry, no flow, almost like they’re just winging it, and that won’t work for long.
Kobe as the leader and most powerful has to be the one to lead the charge for how this team plays, if he goes about it selfishly, then the rest of the team will follow. I saw a quote that read “if you want to find the truth lose the urge to be right.”
If Kobe wants to win a sixth ring he needs to lose the urge to be individually the best.
