So you think they lost 4 games by 75 points or whatever it was because Kobe "sabotaged" them or whatever. At what point did he start sabotaging them? In the NBA finals or before the finals? I guess vs the Spurs and Wolves no sabotaging was going on.
How did they manage to win all those other playofff games during his career despite these issues? People look to narratives like this because it is a lot more interesting than saying "team A couldn't guard team B"
You might wanna take the book with a grain of salt. Phil came out of retirement to coach Kobe in 2005 and would've done so again in 2013 if the Lakers let him.
You don't think he is prone to hyperbole?
I mean he writes a book saying "Malone got hurt, we were old and slow, we struggled in the previous rounds and probably shouldn't have even been in the finals" Nobody wants to read that shit. They wanna hear the soap opera, not that their pick and roll D was so bad Darick Martin dropped a 15-7 on them in the previous rd.
Kobe is a prick I'm sure, a lot of successful people are. You just hear more about these character flaws when things are going bad than when they are going good.
I mean I'm sure he sucks to be around for the other players when they're losing but I just don't think it has much to do with the Lakers current troubles. Everything he is doing now is the same as he has been doing for 15 years.
the Lakers problems have more to do with the fact he is 36 coming off a torn achilles, Steve Nash trade was a mega-bust because he is 40 with nerve damage, Gasol was older and D'Antoni doesn't like playing two bigs, etc....I don't know Dwight personally but he seems like he didn't wanna deal with all the pressure of being a Laker, way less expectations in Houston with a younger team with more potential.
KEVIN DING @KevinDing · 3m 3 minutes ago
Don't like to criticize others' work, but many asked me on Henry Abbott's ESPN Kobe article: Entitled to opinion, but so many "facts" wrong.
Phil Jackson @PhilJackson11 4m4 minutes ago
“@flea333: henry abbott your @espn kobe article is absolute garbage and a blatant irresponsible attack. "Go get'em, Flea
Don't like to criticize others' work, but many asked me on Henry Abbott's ESPN Kobe article: Entitled to opinion, but so many "facts" wrong.
Phil Jackson @PhilJackson11 4m4 minutes ago
“@flea333: henry abbott your @espn kobe article is absolute garbage and a blatant irresponsible attack. "Go get'em, Flea
Dear Mr. Abbott:
I read your piece questioning whether Kobe Bryant is tearing the Lakers apart, and I came away with two distinct conclusions: that your piece had a lot of well researched and interesting tidbits and observations about the Lakers, and that it was either purposely or through unintentional bias slanted heavily toward a pre-conceived conclusion.
Some of the main reasons I came to the latter conclusion are the facts that your piece contains many omissions (the effects of the CBA being a major one, as was the veto of the Chris Paul trade), oversimplifications of more nuanced issues (why Howard left), and downright manipulation of events and factual things (more on this momentarily), with all of these things having a commonality that they support your conclusion. So I can’t but help thinking that you decided to take the following strategy in writing this article:
Step 1: Construct a thesis - Kobe is tearing the Lakers apart.
Step 2: Gather evidence - Interview as many people as you can to give their opinion on Kobe.
Step 3: Triage the evidence Keep anything that supports your thesis, even to the point of manipulating it in order to do so, discard everything else.
Step 4: Write the piece
The Ramon Sessions portion appears to be a particularly egregious use of truth (Ramon signed elsewhere, and he gave comments about playing with Kobe), truth out of context (the comments about playing with Kobe were not made in the context of why he left), and omission of truth (that LA traded for Nash, and had Blake under contract, thus removing their need for a mid-level type contract Sessions was seeking upon opting out of his deal), framing a decision made by LA into one made by Sessions, and then adding the reason in that fits the thesis. The average fan isn’t going to remember those details, nor the context of the statements made by Sessions, but as a researcher they should be and almost certainly are known to you.
Similarly, Kobe’s failure to make the Melo pitch is a combination of fact and omission. “Forgetting” the part about the meeting be moved up very late to accommodate Melo’s desire to fit a NY meeting in later changes a scheduling snafu outside of Kobe’s control into misbehavior on his part. You were apparently aware how tenuous and obvious this was, because you tagged some “wires crossed” equivocation onto it, before proceeding to tie it to some comment about Kobe wanting Nash to call him, and of course Kobe wearing shorts to the Dwight pitch. All of a piece, even if the pieces need to be polished and remanufactured a bit. Especially when leaving out the part about Kobe and Melo being good friends and spending some time together with their families around that time, or that Melo very clearly made his decision around his family’s situation, the money, and perhaps not wanting to be seen abandoning his home town. Note how he didn’t end up in Chicago either.
Failing to note how the team was affected by the provisions of the new CBA, and even more to the point, how the veto of the Paul trade set many things in motion that robbed LA of the assets that would make it more competitively attractive, was a pretty monumental editorial decision, and seems driven only by the fact that a discussion of these things would completely undermine the “Kobe as franchise destroyer” narrative. Basically losing the sixth man of the year in Odom for almost nothing due to his emotional reaction to the trade, having Pau Gasol regress and never really recover for the same reasons, and being forced to essentially up the ante and overpay for a risky Nash to pair with the mercurial Howard on an expiring deal left the Lakers in a win-now-or-you’re-in-deep-purgatory mode. It left LA with no margin for error, and when it failed due to so many factors (age, injury, incompatibility of skills, coaching decisions, death of the owner, fans and media piling on, to name just some that have little or no origin with Kobe), the team was left capped out, with virtually no trade assets, its top players old and injured, in Nash’s case perhaps permanently, and in Kobe’s still not completely known, and with precious little to start rebuilding.
So no, Melo didn’t come, and neither did LeBron. Of course, Melo’s choice seems to not have any association with playing with Kobe, and LeBron seems to have had his plans made in a way that no Kobe and room for both he and Melo wouldn’t have put a blip into. And that of course doesn’t make the point you were looking to make (and apparently were looking to make last year, but got your project shelved when LA extended Kobe), nor do the multiple, easily accessible examples of players making glowing statements about playing with Kobe. Or much mention of Pau having no issues being the number 2 to Kobe. And let’s not even get into the complete whitewash of Shaq not wanting anything to do with sharing the spotlight with the young Kobe, not the other way around. And perhaps you just don't get or appreciate the fact that the Lakers simply don't dispatch their iconic heroes, whether that helps or hurts them short term.
What happened happened, in all its nuanced and spectacularly horrifying glory. It is the price for getting old, injured, and mortgaging the future for a heroic shot at extending the run in a competitive league where even the mighty are not immune to the vicissitudes of bad decisions, gambles, and bad luck, or jealous owners tightening the rules specifically to thwart them.
You could have written an excellent hard-hitting piece about where the Lakers find themselves, and the likely long road out of it, and certainly Kobe has his place in that story. He’s no perfect angel. You had all the elements available.
You still would have gotten Laker and Kobe fans excited, and gotten your clicks, and Laker hating fans would revel in it. But you would have written something worthy of other journalists referencing in future articles, rather than simply a hit piece to satisfy some itch you can never seem to scratch enough, destined to be forgotten, perhaps along with the writer who himself seems to have little or no profile beyond, “oh yeah, that guy who hates Kobe. A lot.” Ironically, the one thing Kobe does seem to have singularly destroyed is your ability to write anything about the Lakers devoid of whatever poison you carry toward him.
I read your piece questioning whether Kobe Bryant is tearing the Lakers apart, and I came away with two distinct conclusions: that your piece had a lot of well researched and interesting tidbits and observations about the Lakers, and that it was either purposely or through unintentional bias slanted heavily toward a pre-conceived conclusion.
Some of the main reasons I came to the latter conclusion are the facts that your piece contains many omissions (the effects of the CBA being a major one, as was the veto of the Chris Paul trade), oversimplifications of more nuanced issues (why Howard left), and downright manipulation of events and factual things (more on this momentarily), with all of these things having a commonality that they support your conclusion. So I can’t but help thinking that you decided to take the following strategy in writing this article:
Step 1: Construct a thesis - Kobe is tearing the Lakers apart.
Step 2: Gather evidence - Interview as many people as you can to give their opinion on Kobe.
Step 3: Triage the evidence Keep anything that supports your thesis, even to the point of manipulating it in order to do so, discard everything else.
Step 4: Write the piece
The Ramon Sessions portion appears to be a particularly egregious use of truth (Ramon signed elsewhere, and he gave comments about playing with Kobe), truth out of context (the comments about playing with Kobe were not made in the context of why he left), and omission of truth (that LA traded for Nash, and had Blake under contract, thus removing their need for a mid-level type contract Sessions was seeking upon opting out of his deal), framing a decision made by LA into one made by Sessions, and then adding the reason in that fits the thesis. The average fan isn’t going to remember those details, nor the context of the statements made by Sessions, but as a researcher they should be and almost certainly are known to you.
Similarly, Kobe’s failure to make the Melo pitch is a combination of fact and omission. “Forgetting” the part about the meeting be moved up very late to accommodate Melo’s desire to fit a NY meeting in later changes a scheduling snafu outside of Kobe’s control into misbehavior on his part. You were apparently aware how tenuous and obvious this was, because you tagged some “wires crossed” equivocation onto it, before proceeding to tie it to some comment about Kobe wanting Nash to call him, and of course Kobe wearing shorts to the Dwight pitch. All of a piece, even if the pieces need to be polished and remanufactured a bit. Especially when leaving out the part about Kobe and Melo being good friends and spending some time together with their families around that time, or that Melo very clearly made his decision around his family’s situation, the money, and perhaps not wanting to be seen abandoning his home town. Note how he didn’t end up in Chicago either.
Failing to note how the team was affected by the provisions of the new CBA, and even more to the point, how the veto of the Paul trade set many things in motion that robbed LA of the assets that would make it more competitively attractive, was a pretty monumental editorial decision, and seems driven only by the fact that a discussion of these things would completely undermine the “Kobe as franchise destroyer” narrative. Basically losing the sixth man of the year in Odom for almost nothing due to his emotional reaction to the trade, having Pau Gasol regress and never really recover for the same reasons, and being forced to essentially up the ante and overpay for a risky Nash to pair with the mercurial Howard on an expiring deal left the Lakers in a win-now-or-you’re-in-deep-purgatory mode. It left LA with no margin for error, and when it failed due to so many factors (age, injury, incompatibility of skills, coaching decisions, death of the owner, fans and media piling on, to name just some that have little or no origin with Kobe), the team was left capped out, with virtually no trade assets, its top players old and injured, in Nash’s case perhaps permanently, and in Kobe’s still not completely known, and with precious little to start rebuilding.
So no, Melo didn’t come, and neither did LeBron. Of course, Melo’s choice seems to not have any association with playing with Kobe, and LeBron seems to have had his plans made in a way that no Kobe and room for both he and Melo wouldn’t have put a blip into. And that of course doesn’t make the point you were looking to make (and apparently were looking to make last year, but got your project shelved when LA extended Kobe), nor do the multiple, easily accessible examples of players making glowing statements about playing with Kobe. Or much mention of Pau having no issues being the number 2 to Kobe. And let’s not even get into the complete whitewash of Shaq not wanting anything to do with sharing the spotlight with the young Kobe, not the other way around. And perhaps you just don't get or appreciate the fact that the Lakers simply don't dispatch their iconic heroes, whether that helps or hurts them short term.
What happened happened, in all its nuanced and spectacularly horrifying glory. It is the price for getting old, injured, and mortgaging the future for a heroic shot at extending the run in a competitive league where even the mighty are not immune to the vicissitudes of bad decisions, gambles, and bad luck, or jealous owners tightening the rules specifically to thwart them.
You could have written an excellent hard-hitting piece about where the Lakers find themselves, and the likely long road out of it, and certainly Kobe has his place in that story. He’s no perfect angel. You had all the elements available.
You still would have gotten Laker and Kobe fans excited, and gotten your clicks, and Laker hating fans would revel in it. But you would have written something worthy of other journalists referencing in future articles, rather than simply a hit piece to satisfy some itch you can never seem to scratch enough, destined to be forgotten, perhaps along with the writer who himself seems to have little or no profile beyond, “oh yeah, that guy who hates Kobe. A lot.” Ironically, the one thing Kobe does seem to have singularly destroyed is your ability to write anything about the Lakers devoid of whatever poison you carry toward him.
Phil Jackson just called the piece "absolute garbage". That kinda says a lot.
Go for Broke just destroyed the author
Zit, I want to clarify something. In the 2003 / 2004ish era, I despised Kobe as much as anyone. He fought with Phil, Shaq the Mailman and maybe even the Glove. He was charged with rape, and cried about being traded. I thought he was the worst team player a man could be.
I have said on several occasions in recent years he's won my respect. Turning me around is not easily accomplished, especially for a man playing on the hated Lakers. But he morphed into a team player, he worked hard and said all the right things and stayed out of trouble. So while I despised Kobe in 2004, I like him in 2014.
I think Phil Jackson made an accurate assessment of Kobe for the season in question. But I think Phil will say that Kobe has matured since then.
I have said on several occasions in recent years he's won my respect. Turning me around is not easily accomplished, especially for a man playing on the hated Lakers. But he morphed into a team player, he worked hard and said all the right things and stayed out of trouble. So while I despised Kobe in 2004, I like him in 2014.
I think Phil Jackson made an accurate assessment of Kobe for the season in question. But I think Phil will say that Kobe has matured since then.
Willie,
My feelings are somewhat the same as yours, although I wouldn't say I "like" him now, I'd say I respect what he has accomplished. It still annoys me when people (and there are a few in here) say that he's just as good or better than Jordan. There is just no justification for such stupidity. There is no objective measurement where one could come to the
conclusion that Kobe is better than Jordan, or even just as good. Kobe is a top 10 all time player, Jordan is arguably *the* best ever.
