May 10th: "Bryant the target of some hard shots" "Lakers workout draft Prospect"

 
This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.    LakersGround.net Forum Index -> Lakers In the News This topic is locked: you cannot edit posts or make replies.
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 6:08 am    Post subject: May 10th: "Bryant the target of some hard shots" "Lakers workout draft Prospect"

Bryant the target of some hard shots



Kobe Bryant sat out the final minutes of Saturday’s blowout loss after scoring just one point in the second half, an effort that was criticized by Charles Barkley.

JEFF TOPPING, REUTERS

Sure, it's old news now, because it's the Clippers - not the Lakers - who are still playing, but the controversy won't die.

Why did Kobe Bryant quit in the second half of Game 7 against the Phoenix Suns on Saturday?

Well, we don't know if he quit trying, but we do know he quit shooting as the Lakers were being blown out by 31 points, providing an embarrassing punctuation mark to a season that many observers believe exceeded reasonable expectations.

We also now know Bryant didn't like the way some people read into his taking just three shots, and scoring one point, in the second half of that game, because Charles Barkley informed us Monday night that Kobe had let him know he was upset with Sir Charles' on-air analysis during TNT's "Inside the NBA" postgame show Saturday.


Last edited by Phil on Wed May 10, 2006 6:18 am; edited 2 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 6:09 am    Post subject:

Teammate just theory for Kobe
TOM SORENSEN

Does anybody still think Kobe Bryant is NBA MVP? Oh yeah? Well did you see Phoenix pound Kobe and the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round of the playoffs?

Yes, Kobe began the series well. It was as if he said, I wonder who the other guys in the Lakers uniforms are, and somebody said, hey, Kobe, they're your teammates, and Kobe said, what's a teammate.

Early in the series Kobe treated his teammates as teammates, passing them the ball and everything. And then he remembered who he was. He scored 50 points in Game 6, and the Lakers lost, of course they lost. He quit trying in Game 7 after the Lakers fell woefully behind, and they lost again.

No question, Steve Nash was the best player on the court.

• Undefeated Charlotte heavyweight Calvin Brock will fight equally undefeated Timur Ibragimov next month in Las Vegas. Despite his record, Ibragimov has nothing to brag about. The fighters against whom he fashioned his record are so soft they make Calvin's opponents look formidable.

I swear my accountant is one of the guys Ibragimov beat. He's a great accountant, though.

• Now the good news: Dell Curry, Steve Smith and Jay Bilas have created a new organization to work for, and with, kids. Athletes United for Youth is ambitious, purposeful and will be great for Charlotte.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 6:13 am    Post subject:

Powe to work out with Lakers, Warriors next


Cal sophomore Leon Powe, who made himself available for the NBA draft last month but did not hire an agent, has an individual workout scheduled Friday with the Los Angeles Lakers. Powe also will work out for the Warriors on May 23.

Powe's unofficial guardian, Bernard Ward, said he has heard from several other teams and expects Powe to schedule more workouts. Since Powe has not hired an agent, he can decide to return to Cal if he withdraws his name from the draft by the June 18 deadline. The draft is on June 28.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 6:19 am    Post subject:

Grant Hill named Magic Johnson Award winner
Orlando Business Journal - 12:51 PM EDT Tuesday


The Orlando Magic's Grant Hill has been named the 2006 recipient of the Magic Johnson Award, presented annually by the Professional Basketball Writers Association.

The award honors an NBA player who combines excellence on the court with outstanding cooperation with the media and, by extension, the fans.


The award, established in 2001, is named after former Los Angeles Lakers great Earvin "Magic" Johnson, a Hall of Fame player and one of the NBA's most popular and effective ambassadors. Johnson, with former Boston star Larry Bird, generally is credited with reviving interest in the league in the 1980s and '90s and sparking its widespread popularity.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 9:29 am    Post subject:

The Kobe chronicles
Dominant then invisible, Bryant is a conflicted star
Posted: Wednesday May 10, 2006 8:57AM; Updated: Wednesday May 10, 2006 12:55PM


Kobe Bryant's reluctance to shoot in the second half of Game 7 against the Suns made him look more like Sasha Vujacic than a superstar.
Kobe Bryant's reluctance to shoot in the second half of Game 7 against the Suns made him look more like Sasha Vujacic than a superstar.
John W. McDonough/SI

There are still plenty of games left in the NBA playoffs, but now that the Los Angeles Lakers have been eliminated, the most fascinating games of all have disappeared with them -- the ones that go on in the mind of Kobe Bryant.

The rest of the postseason promises to be an exercise in inevitability. The Detroit Pistons are almost certainly headed for the Finals, where they will in all probability beat the San Antonio Spurs to win their second championship in three years. LeBron James will continue to progress toward superstardom in predictable stages, losing to the Pistons after a heroic performance in the first round against Washington.

There are very few real surprises in a typical NBA postseason, which is why we'll miss delightfully bizarre Bryant, who is arguably the most talented and inarguably the most psychologically complex player in the league. Watching Bryant work his magic on the court is amazing, but you get the feeling that watching the workings of his psyche would be the real fun.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 5:28 pm    Post subject:

Over-eight-ed

Sean Lewis — Columnist
Published Wednesday May 10, 2006

The Lakers’ season ended tragically last Saturday evening. The blowout road loss wasn’t the tragic part, even a casual basketball observer could see it coming in the first five minutes - the tragedy was the death of a basketball god.

Kobe Bryant had me listening to R.E.M., singing “Losing My Religion” after his disappearing act. At halftime, I was telling my roommates that 8-slash-24’s career would eclipse 23’s when all was said and done. I have never choked harder on any words than those.

Apparently, Phil “Let them play through it” Jackson and Kobe agreed that if the Lakers were to win the game, then the entire team would have to be involved. Apparently, Phil “Zen-master” Jackson had spent a little too much time meditating and not enough time watching Bryant this season.

When the Lakers were getting beat by the cellar-dwelling Toronto Raptors, it wasn’t a team effort that lifted the white-adorned Lakers over their foes, but the heroics of a baller I proclaimed as a basketball god. When the 2003 Lakers were being destroyed by Steve Nash’s Mavericks late in the season, it wasn’t a team effort that brought them back; Kobe went insane and locked down the Canuck while filling up the nylon with 21 points in the fourth quarter.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 5:30 pm    Post subject:

:roll:
Keeping Kobe a poor decision for Lakers
BY ARMANDO SALGUERO
Miami Herald

MIAMI - The Lakers, in all their purple tradition and gold success, showed dubious wisdom two years ago when they weighed Kobe Bryant versus Shaquille O'Neal and chose to keep Mr. Second Fiddle instead of The Star Attraction.

The proof is that O'Neal and the Miami Heat are already in the Eastern Conference semifinals and casting a beguiling glance at an NBA title. This, after Miami made it to the conference finals last season with a roster so flawed, club president Pat Riley blew it up and practically started from scratch.

And while O'Neal's Heat was winning, then rebuilding then preparing to win some more, the Lakers were failing to break .500 and missing the playoffs.

The Los Angeles fans who love to compare Bryant to Michael Jordan could fittingly do so because their man was as out of the playoffs as the retired Jordan was.

This season the Lakers improved, and Bryant, no doubt, played a key role in that by leading the NBA in scoring. But all those points, all those shots over three defenders and that impressive 81-point night got the Lakers all of 45 wins.

In the Western Conference, that's good enough to barely squeak into the postseason as the seventh seed. But it is not good enough to stay in the postseason very long.

The Lakers went with Bryant in 2004 because he was 25 and exciting and acrobatic. And they jettisoned O'Neal because he was not quite as dynamic and, at 32, not promising as long a future as Bryant.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 5:32 pm    Post subject:

Lakers did right by moving Shaq out of town
BY DAVID J. NEAL
Miami Herald

MIAMI - Thank goodness the Los Angeles Lakers did the right thing for their long-term future - and the Heat's immediate future - by retaining Kobe Bryant and sending Shaquille O'Neal back East.

Yep, I'm saying it - the team of Mikan, Wilt, Kareem and Shaq did the right thing by jettisoning the latest in that line while keeping his more troublesome teammate. It had to be done.

I'm not basing it on this season, in which Clarence Darrow couldn't have laid out a better case for Bryant as the best player in the game (only until LeBron's defense improves) and this season's MVP. You have to look beyond one season and even one monster game.

Look at the situation that presented itself to the Lakers as the 2003-04 season ended.

The 2003-04 Lakers supergroup overcame a locker room so toxic no insect should've been able to survive, and was dismissed from the NBA Finals by Detroit. Considering the ages and personalities involved, obviously, the next few years would see more rebuilding done in Los Angeles than after the last 7.0 earthquake.

Only the foolishly optimistic could foresee any further O'Neal-Bryant coexistence. One had to go. One would have to be kept as the linchpin.

Bryant is younger by six years and five months. Bryant was the free agent the Lakers might lose for nothing. Also, the Lakers could at least control where they punted O'Neal.

As O'Neal said at the 2005 NBA All-Star Game, even Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak wasn't foolish enough to trade O'Neal within the Western Conference, where O'Neal could haunt the Lakers. Speaking of haunting, Bryant was taking a serious look at playing for Staples Center's forever-other NBA team, the Clippers.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Phil
Retired


Joined: 03 Aug 2001
Posts: 10007

PostPosted: Wed May 10, 2006 5:36 pm    Post subject:

Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal Celebrate Birth of Baby Girls

By The Associated Press

Los Angeles, CA (AP)— Just like old times, Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal are celebrating. The former Lakers teammates became fathers again Monday when their wives gave birth to girls six minutes apart.

Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant was born at 2:03 a.m. PDT in Orange County, Calif. Kobe and Vanessa Bryant are already parents to 3-year-old Natalia.

"The arrival of our new daughter Gianna early this morning is such an incredible blessing for me and my family," Bryant said in a statement. "We are all full of beautiful emotions after such an incredible day."
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Reply with quote
Display posts from previous:   
This forum is locked: you cannot post, reply to, or edit topics.    LakersGround.net Forum Index -> Lakers In the News All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Page 1 of 1
Jump to:  

 
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum






Graphics by uberzev
© 1995-2018 LakersGround.net. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. Terms of Use.
LakersGround is an unofficial news source serving the fan community since 1995.
We are in no way associated with the Los Angeles Lakers or the National Basketball Association.


Powered by phpBB