Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Kobe Bryant: The black mamba or the harmless black garden snake??

The Lakers have the most talent of any NBA team, a proven system, and a Hall of Fame Coach. So why are they tied 2-2 in a series where the Houston Rockets are playing without the top center in the league and a prolific scorer in Tmac?

It’s this simple: The Lakers don’t have the desire to show up every night and crush the other team, and that is going to cost them later in the playoffs. That lack of killer instinct, leadership, and determination falls on the shoulders of Kobe Bryant. He claims to be the “black mamba” (which by the way can inject up to 400 mg of neurotoxin in one bite, of which only 100 mg is needed to kill the average man), but Kobe Bryant looked more like the “black garden snake” on Sunday night (which by the way carries such a small amount of venom that a bite would leave us in no more pain and danger than a simple insect bite).

On that crucial game four, any one of the five brown guys (Mrinal, Tarun, Jigar, Apat, or Gijo) could’ve come off the bench and guarded Kobe Bryant. Here are his “potent” stats: 7/17 on 15 points shooting and -12 net points given up while he was on the court. Unacceptable for the so called the best player in the NBA.

I’m tired of this constant comparison to Michael Jordan. He is nowhere near Michael Jordan. Jordan would have scorched the Rockets for 50, crushed their spirits, and would be going back to Chicago with a commanding 3-1. Now Kobe Bryant is going back to LA with the series tied at 2-2 and a depleted Rockets team replete with confidence. Until Kobe can find a way to bring out his passion and killer instinct EVERY single night against any team, I think it’s fitting that we call him the “black garden snake”

And in the meantime, we can give the term “Black Mamba” to Lebron James until Kobe can prove himself.

4 comments:

  1. brown guy with a tanMay 12, 2009 at 11:40 PM

    ok.....nice points......i've got a question for all you brown guys though.....

    Is the NBA rigged?
    If so...for how long has the rigging been going on?

    alright browns....what you say?

    ReplyDelete
  2. http://5brownguys.blogspot.com/2009/05/nba-rigged.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with the above points, except your last one. Kobe has proven himself (3 titles)albeit with Shaq as main driving force. Lebron no titles and proven track-record of not performing in clutch like Kobe. Neither have Jordan's killer instict nor ever will.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I don't think it's fair to say that Michael would have scorched the Rockets for 50 and crushed their spirits. He may have scored a bunch of points, but his percentage to get there would have been worse than Kobe's. A quick look at Michael's 1997-1998 playoffs finals vs. the Jazz (coincidentally his 13th season, as this is Kobe's 13th season):

    Game 1 = 13/29 (45%), 33 pts
    Game 2 = 14/33 (42%), 37 pts
    Game 3 = 7/14 (50%), 24 pts
    Game 4 = 12/27 (44%), 34 pts
    Game 5 = 9/26 (35%), 28 pts
    Game 6 = 15/35 (43%), 45 pts

    So far in this series, Kobe has shot 45%, 59%, 39%, 41%, and 52%.

    My point is this: everyone has a bad game. Only once in that series did Jordan even take less than 25 shots (and that was because the Bulls won 96-54); that's why he scored all of those points (also the refs gave him every foul call ever). In his 13th season (granted he was older than Kobe by a good 5 yrs, I think), Jordan wasn't in his prime, and he was having a lot more of those not-so-good shooting nights. Over the course of a career, MJ is clearly better than Kobe. But to say that Kobe is no MJ based off of one bad game isn't necessarily fair.

    Also, where are all of the people comparing Kobe to MJ? All I hear are people saying that he'll never be MJ.

    ReplyDelete