I’m probably one of the last bloggers to pick up on this, but call me old-fashioned… I don’t really care what professional baseball players think about the NBA, especially when they say up front that they don’t know anything about the game.
Anyway, let the obligatory post continue… Curt Schilling got some sweet seats to Game 2 of the Finals and posted his thoughts about the experience on his blog. This is what he had to say about Kobe’s interaction with his teammates:
From the first tip until about 4 minutes left in the game I saw and heard this guy bitch at his teammates. Every TO he came to the bench pissed, and a few of them he went to other guys and yelled about something they weren’t doing, or something they did wrong. No dialog about “hey let’s go, let’s get after it” or whatever. He spent the better part of 3.5 quarters pissed off and ranting at the non-execution or lack of, of his team. Then when they made what almost was a historic run in the 4th, during a TO, he got down on the floor and basically said ‘Let’s f’ing go, right now, right here” or something to that affect. I am not making this observation in a good or bad way, I have no idea how the guys in the NBA play or do things like this, but I thought it was a fascinating bit of insight for me to watch someone in another sport who is in the position of a team leader and how he interacted with his team and teammates. Watching the other 11 guys, every time out it was high fives and “Hey nice work, let’s get after it” or something to that affect. He walked off the floor, obligatory skin contact on the high five, and sat on the bench stone faced or pissed off, the whole game. Just weird to see another sport and how it all works. I would assume that’s his style and how he plays and what works for him because when I saw the leader board for scoring in the post season his name sat up top at 31+ a game, can’t argue with that. But as a fan I was watching the whole thing, Kobe, his teammates and then the after effects of conversations. He’d yell at someone, make a point, or send a message, turn and walk away, and more than once the person on the other end would roll eyes or give a ‘whatever dude’ look.
In Kobe’s defense, the Lakers’ play was brutal for much of Game 2 and there is a ton of pressure (some of it self-applied) on Kobe to win a title without Shaq, so he can secure his legacy as one of the game’s greatest players. There has been a lot of talk about how great of a teammate he has been this season, but as the playoffs wear on and the pressure continues to mount, Kobe seems to be reverting to his old self. Watch his body language after a teammate makes a bad play – it isn’t pretty. He’s not good enough to win the series on his own, so only time will tell what kind of impact his “tough love” approach has on the rest of the Laker roster.
