Congratulations to Kobe on a magnificent scoring night. Scoring the second most points in an NBA game puts him in lofty company for sure. But the problem is he clearly HAD to manufacture all those points for his team to beat a .340 team at home. Against a team that is coached by an idiot.
To do it, consider the problem his team faced:
Kobe put up 46 field goals; the rest of his team put up 42
Kobe made 28, while his teammates only managed to make 14
Kobe shot 61 percent; his teammates shot 33 percent
Clearly, he gets no help on nights like last night, so what alternative does he have but to literally and figuratively take over for them. The Lakers trailed by twenty in the first half, at home against one of the worst teams in the League.
But how did the Lakers, as a team, even accomplish this win?
Consider, on those 42 made field goals, the Lakers only had 18 assists, and only two were by Kobe. The Lakers might have won the game, but this is indicative of how poorly the Lakers are progressing as a TEAM.
Which leads to the question of whether it is more important in the long run for Kobe to be putting up these incredible scoring nights, or should he be more concerned that he may be contributing to a bad long-term situation by allowing his teammates to sit back and slide into a state of complacency. This is like an office situation, where one employee is the clear go-getter, who asks for extra work, puts in more hours, and keeps up the standards of the company. His fellow workers see this as a chance to either compete with the hard worker, or to let him do all the work as they, I don't know, access Internet basketball boards all day. If they are never expected to produce anything and no one forces them to, it could lead to a penchant for lethargy.
