Kobe Bryant Tells a Story That Sums Up Kwame Brown at LinesMaker

Kobe Bryant Tells a Story That Sums Up Kwame Brown

Kobe Bryant finally won his NBA MVP tro­phy dur­ing the 2007-08 sea­son. But frankly he deserved it more the cou­ple years before that.

If you watched the post Shaq-trade Lak­ers, Kobe car­ried that team. Bynum was raw and learn­ing, Lamar Odom was incon­sis­tent (some things never change) and Kobe dragged a team that STARTED Kwame Brown and Smush Parker to 45 wins and the play­offs. That team never should have made it that far, Kobe willed it there.

Which brings us to this great story by Kobe about the team just before the Pau Gasol trade, as reported by Michael Lee at the Wash­ing­ton Post.

“But like, the game before we traded for Pau, were play­ing Detroit and I had like 40 points towards the end of the game. This is back when Detroit had Rasheed [Wal­lace], Chauncey [Billups] and those guys, so we had no busi­ness being in the game. So down the stretch of the game, they put in a box and one. So I’m sur­rounded by these play­ers, Detroit play­ers, and Kwame is under the bas­ket, all by him­self. Lit­er­ally, like all by him­self. So I pass him the ball, he bob­bled it and it goes out of bounds.

“So we go back to the time­out and I’m [upset], right? He goes, ‘I was wide open.’ ‘Yeah, I know.’ This is how I’m talk­ing to him, like, dur­ing the game. I said, ‘You’re going to be open again, Kwame, because Rasheed is just totally ignor­ing you.’ He said, ‘Well, if I’m open don’t throw it to me.’ I was like, ‘Huh?’ He said, ‘Don’t throw it to me.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, well, ‘I’m ner­vous. If I catch it and he foul me, I won’t make the free throws.’ I said, ‘Hell no!’

“I go to Phil [Jack­son], I say, ‘Hey Phil, take him out of the game.’ He’s like, ‘Nah, let him fig­ure it out.’ So, we lose the game, I go the locker room, I’m steam­ing. Steam­ing. I’m furi­ous. Then, finally I get a call, they said, ‘You know what, we got some­thing that’s hap­pen­ing with Pau.’ I was like, ‘Alright. Cool.’…That’s what I had to deal with the whole year.”

That is just vin­tage Kwame, com­plete with the hands of stone that fum­bled away so many great Kobe dishes. And vin­tage Jack­son (“Nah, let him fig­ure it out”). If the Lak­ers had not traded for Gasol, Kobe would have forced his way off the team that next sum­mer. That or Kobe would have just gone postal in the locker room one night.

By the way, Kobe said right before all this he knew this was pub­lic, he wasn’t try­ing to say this behind any­one’ back. He knew what he was saying.

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• Gar­nett, Kobe, Pierce Shut Down 50/50 Talks Before Dead­line on Their Own
• Bryce Brown Absent Against Baylor
• Lak­ers Win Their Six­teenth NBA Title
• NHL Hockey Betting

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