At this point I'm just not sure that Kobe Bryant will ever win a championship again with the LA Lakers... How does a team that has Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum get beat by a team whose tallest player is 6'6?
Championship teams just don't get beat the way the LA Lakers get beat sometimes and most recently by the Houston Rockets who are missing their two biggest starters in Yao Ming and Tracy McCrady.
Championship teams don't fail to show up some nights the way your Los Angeles Lakers don't show up some times...
I know everybody says the Lakers win when they have to but believe me when another team can match their intensity and talent your Los Angeles Lakers are in a lot of trouble. That's what happened to the lakers last year in Boston... they got beat by a team that wanted it more then they did and they folded like a bunch of little bitches. And it's going to happen again this year.
And finally, in my opinion, it's becoming less and less about Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers and more and more about whether or not Lebron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers will begin their run of championships this year or next...
There was a time when I thought that kobe Bryant could have been better then Michael Jordan or at least just as good and that time has come and gone.
Kobe Bryant isn't Michael Jordan and he never will be.
What Kobe is is a great finisher and one of the best scorers the league has ever seen and right now the second best finsher the NBA has ever seen in all time. Second only to Jordan.
But it's become painfully apparent that Kobe Bryant doesn't have what it takes to unite the entire team around him and, I know it sounds cliche, but make everybody around him better.
I don't know if it's fair or not to put that all on Kobe but this is the same guy that ran Shaq out of town so yea I think it's ok to put it all on Kobe. Kobe wanted his own team, he got his own team and he just flat out hasn't delivered. It sickens me how sometimes the LA Lakers just don't come out to play... it reaks of "it's ok if we tank this game we'll just win the next one."
And the fans that shelled out hundreds if not thousands of dollars for the game what about them?
Kobe Bryant has just become another extremely talented NBA player whom everybody thought would one day dethrone Michael Jordan and once again everybody was wrong.
I'd say Lebron James is the next Michael Jordan but I think if you watch the guy play you'll come to your own conclusions. And the biggest sign for me is how his teamates talk about him. Just listen to what the Cleveland Cavaliers say about Lebron James and you'll know what's up. I'll tell you one thing you won't hear the LA Lakers saying stuff like that about Kobe.
For me the only question about this year as it concerns the LA Lakers is can they sneak in an NBA championship before Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers begin their run of championships... Because I don't think you're stopping Lebron James next year. Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers their time is now.
I think what you're going to see from the LA Lakers this year is a sign that things are going to have to change if they really want to compete for an NBA Championship... I think at best right now the LA Lakers are the third best team in the NBA behind Boston (when they have a healthy Kevin Garnett they have to be the best in the league the way they're playing right now) and more likely then not they're also behind Cleveland at this point unless Andrew Bynum makes a 180 and starts playing like a beast which I don't see happening.
And in a few days the LA Lakers are going to be running into a storm in the name of the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets are a completely different team now with Chauncy Billups playing the role of leader and Carmello Anthony just returning to form as one of the leagues best scorers. Denver is going to take LA to seven games and I'm hoping the Lakers can survive that at this point...
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