MaxFly

Apache (Jump on it) Sugar Hill Gang

Kenyon may be a better player now, but in the 2001-2002 season, he and Van Horn were dead even in terms of contribution and importance. The point I was making was that if people are going to say that Martin was the "dominant force" that got the Nets to the finals that year, it would only make sense to call Van Horn dominant in the eastern conference as well. Being able to incorporate Van Horn into this discussion is a good reason to get away from using the word "dominant." No one is saying that Martin wasn't a good big man, but one could add that Van Horn was a big enough presence to help his team get to the finals in 2002 as well. He even pulled down more boards than Martin that year. Lets just refer to Martin as a good big man... Incidentally, the Nets weren't an inside-outside team those years... They got a lot of their points with J. Kidd, Kittles, Van Horn and Martin running the fast break, penetrating, and shooting. Martin provided them with an inside presence and scoring ability. Van Horn provided them with boards and points.

Lol, ya'll are funny.

Nah keep dreaming, its time to milk Switch! Knock on wood Lerkot... I swear, if he performs Switch, I'm holding you responsible... lol.

So are you calling Keith Van Horn dominant too? They had comparable stat lines and he was just as important on the court as Martin was for the Net's regular season and playoff run in the 2001-2002 season. I don't think anyone wants to call Keith Van Horn dominant. I'm just trying to get people to stop using the word dominant for people who are not. Dominant should be reserved for great players, not good ones. We start throwing it around and it loses its meaning. Incidentally, a big man playing out east who only pulls down 5.3 rebounds and scores 15 points a game when playing against a mediocre opposition front court isn't impressiving. It may make him better than the other big men in his conference, but it doesn't make him dominant.

I think many you guys are making this a little more serious than it needs to be. It's amazing how everyone is complaining about single releases now and Lost and Found's position, but back in June and July when it really mattered, not too many people seemed to care... All of a sudden, people seem shocked and upset as if no one foresaw this taking place. Bottom line, 4 and a half to 6 months between singles isn't a good idea. Many said it didn't matter. Many waxed hyperbolic and said that singles shouldn't be rushed... as if putting out a new single after 3 and a half months is rushing. Some said that album sales didn't matter. Whatever the complaints of the justifications, Lost and Found and Party Starter are where they are respectively. Hopefully, Tell Me Why is released and we get a good music video for it...

Yeah, I just wanted to point out that he wasn't dominant.

It's not necessarily a bad poll. 4MD1 was just curious.

Will certainly had ample time to promote the album. He did an excellent job of it early on, however, there are just so many times he can perform Switch. The single releases were botched. It took nearly 6 months for the second single to come out, and that's simply unacceptable. There's no excuse at all, whether it is Will's fault or Interscope's. After May, Lost and Found was poorly promoted. It seems Will took off upwards of a year between movies. That's the best a person can ask for. He enjoys acting, and a year in the life of a major movie star is a long time. He's not just a rapper anymore, so taking that much time from movies at his position right now in hollywood is already a sacrifice. I think that more could have been done to promote the album, but I also think he had had enough time. The time just wasn't managed well it seems.

:therain: You guys sure we don't want to try milking Switch again.... Lol, look, all we can do is joke about it. Things are the way they are, and the video doesn't really help. We can hope for Tell Me Why, but I'm not getting my hopes up. The singles and this album have been mismanaged since the beginning of June... Unfortunately, I don't think anyone is surprised.

Kenyon Martin is a good player, but he wasn't a dominant force... I think we're throwing around the word dominant too much. Here are his lines... 2001-2002 G GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG 73 73 34.3 .463 .224 .678 1.5 3.8 5.3 2.6 1.23 1.66 2.36 3.60 14.9 2002-2003 G GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG 77 77 34.1 .470 .209 .653 2.1 6.2 8.3 2.4 1.27 .91 2.49 3.80 16.7 While those are good lines, they are far from dominant.

Lol, the way you worded that is hilarious.

You don't need to have a dominant center specifically to compete. You need to have a good front court. The Spurs don't have a dominant center. Duncan plays the 4 for the majority of the time and Mohammed is far from dominant. Dallas, Sacramento, Seattle, Memphis and Phoenix all have good front courts, but none of their centers can be considered dominant. Even Houston doesn't have a dominant center. Yao is good, but he's far too passive to be dominant, both on offense and on defense. The Wolves have a decent front court with Garnett and Olowokandi, but they missed the playoffs entirely. To compete in the West, you need to have solid front court players who can play good defense and can score and rebound, but they don't necessarily have to be dominant. At the same time, it is vital that a team have perimeter players who can penetrate, who have good range on their shot, and who can set other players up to score while maintaining their contribution to the offense. Not too many true big men can create their own shot. They often need to be fed by perimeter players when they get into position. There are a few unique players like Duncan, Rasheed Wallace, Jermaine O'Neal, and Amare who can create their own shots on occasion, and these teams will usually be sucessful, but excellent perimeter players are just as vital as big men in getting teams to the playoffs and into the Finals, both in the East and in the West. Incidentally, someone name me the dominant big man that got the Nets to the finals 2 years in a row... While big men are important, perimeter players are just as important, and are often called on to do the most on a team. Also, I'm not using injuries as an excuse. I'm pointing out that they are a contributing factor as to why the Lakers didn't play and finish as well as they could have last year. They lost their top two scorers for significant periods after already undergoing a major transition in personel and losing their head coach and changing their style of play midway through the season. Hardly any team undergoes that sort of confluence of events and goes on to do well. It's not an excuse. It's part of the reason. Also, I don't think anyone's really commented on the article itself... By the way, Houston just picked up Rafer Alston from Toronto in exchange for Mike James.

Not really. The two latest champions weren't exclusively inside-outside teams. People tend to think that the Spurs are an inside-outside team because Tim Duncan is their primary option. This isn't the case. The Spurs win because they space the floor well on offense and have very quick guards that can penetrate in Parker and Ginobli. They break down your defense so when you collapse on the penetrator, someone is standing on the outside with an open shot or Duncan is cutting towards the basket for a high percentage shot. If you don't collapse properly, Parker or Ginobli will get to the basket for an acrobatic layup. While Duncan plays well with his back to the basket and the Spurs do run post up plays for him, he also shoots that jump shot of his well, including the off-the-glass shot he takes, so the Spurs don't rely on having Duncan play with his back to the basket. One of their most used plays is having Duncan run out to set a pick for a guard and then flash to the paint as the defenders switch for an easy bucket or a jump shot from close range. The reason the Spurs are good is that they have variety in their offense and they play very very good team defense. Detroit is certainly not an inside-outside team. While Rasheed can play well in the post, he's not the focus of their offense, neither is Ben Wallace. Detroit is run by their guards. Their guards, like the Spurs, are good at breaking down defenses with both penetration and with picks. Rasheed himself prefers to shoot and is often the recipient of wide open shots from Billups. Detroit also plays stiffling defense. These are the last three NBA champions... Also, Shaq didn't only get help from Wade. Damon Jones, Eddie Jones, Dooling and Haslem all played pivotal roles... And to be accurate, Wade got help from Shaq, and those other players not the other way around. Wade carried the Heat through the playoffs last year averaging 8 points more and only 2 rebounds less than Shaq throughout the entire playoffs. Wade was the focus. Also, you mentioned again that the Lakers dropped, but you have to acknowledge the fact that they totally changed their team. Only one starter returned from the previous year... that was Kobe. Entirely new offensive and defensive schemes and they were in the playoffs until their top 2 players got injured for extensive periods on top of injuries to other players. They lost their coach and changed schemes in the middle of the season. While the loss of Shaq can be attributed to the Lakers not being a championship calibur team last year, there were a number or reasons other than Shaq as to why they didn't make the playoffs. It's sort of disingenuous to attribute it soley to the loss of Shaq.

This is a really interesting pick. She has never been a judge so there's no judicial paper trail to speak of. She was a White House counsel under Bush, so she more than likely leans to the right, but there is no solid indication as of yet of her judicial leanings... The confirmation process should be fun. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9566882/

Lol, we've forgotten about Lost and Found pretty quickly. Sigh...

I think that with better players surrounding him and a good coach, he can lead the Lakers to the Finals. I don't think anyone would want to argue that the Lakers are built for a championship run this year or next, but if aquisitions like Bynum and Brown work out and players like Walton, Cook, and Mihm are able to flourish, they can at least make the playoffs. Now lets say in 2 years, the Lakers pick up Kevin Garnett, Garnett may not be Shaq... but the possibilities are interesting, and barring injury or a decline in skills, it's highly likely that Kobe would be the leader of that team, especially since Kevin Garnett has a tendency to defer. With a duo like Bryant/Garnett, the Lakers would go far. As for Shaq, the Heat got the good end of the deal. They were good enough to lose players and still remain viable. Caron Butler I believe spent most of that year injured and Brian Grant was hardly effective with Odom being the only one of the three playing a significant role in Miami. The Heat got to the second round of the playoffs the year before they aquired Shaq. Now after the trade, Shaq had Wade and was surrounded with number of other players who could shoot and were decent players even without him. Now if the Lakers had managed to trade Shaq to the Celtics for Paul Pierce and a few other players, or to New Orleans, or to Charlotte, perhaps even to Orlando... things would be different. Comparing Shaq's Heat to Kobe's Lakers is hard to do, and as good as the east has gotten as of late, the West still has more of the talent. Also, Shaq is a big reason why the Lakers won three rings, however, he isn't the only reason. If you were to look back at the 2000-2001 post season, the Lakers swept through the whole Western Conference and then won the title, only losing one game to Philly. That was mainly Kobe. He especially torched the Spurs... badly, Bruce Bowen and all. While Shaq did play well in the majority of the games, it was clear that Kobe was the difference maker. Even going further, if one were to give out playoff MVP trophies for the entirety of the 00-01 and 01-02 post seasons the likely winner would be Kobe, not Shaq, with Shaq taking the 99-00 post season MVP award. Before anyone counters with, "Well, Shaq won all of the finals MVP awards," take note of the centers he played in those NBA finals...

Sigh... oh well... This is what I expected with a late release. Maybe next time.

Dude needs to release singles with a little more regularity.

Yeah. Why do you think his turnover ratio is what it is? Who was the Laker's playmaker? Kobe doesn't play off the ball. That's by the coach's design, not his. The problem is, he's not only their playmaker, he's also their leading scorer, so he's looking to get teammates easy points while trying to add his own offense as well. Also, about Kobe getting double teamed and throwing one up... Name one of these many times... Lol, I'd try to stay away from the Detroit-Lakers series by the way... By the way, what do you think about the excerpt from the book?

I was waiting for someone to bite. Read the article again and tell me if it's really all Kobe or most of Kobe's fault as people have been trying to say for months and years. Remember, a lot of these are Tex Winter's words and quotes. Team player... What kind of team player says that they were injured on company time and will get better on company time when they had the opportunity to take 2 months out of the summer to get fully healthy again? What kind of team player comes into the season out of shape and tries to use the season to get into shape, leaving the burden on his fellow teammates? You brought up Miami. They had a great season last year, after getting into the playoffs the year before, without Shaq. Does anyone wanna argue that Dwayne Wade, Eddie Jones, Damon Jones and Udonis Haslem had nothing to do with getting Miami to where it was last year. Last year's Miami team was led by Dwayne Wade, not Shaq. He did everything for that team while having excellent players surrounding him. The Lakers should have insisted that Dwayne Wade was included with the trade, or no deal. Odom, Wade, and Butler... or Grant... for Shaq... but we know that Miami would never make that trade because Wade is the cornerstone of that franchise, not Shaq. I'm sure Pat Riley made it abundantly clear to Shaq when he arrived there last year. All Shaq had to do was show up healthy and play. You brought up last year's Lakers team. The Lakers were in the playoffs for the better part of the season last year until their starters went down. They went into the season with only one starter from their previous season. Even George was injured. They lost their coach halfway through the season and completely switched up their offense to the triangle... and this was on the fly since none of their main offensive players other than Kobe knew the triangle. It was the perfect storm. Everything went wrong that could have gone wrong... On top of all of that, Kobe still averaged 6 assists and 5.9 rebounds while initiating the offense, getting his points, being injured, and not trying to faint while playing defense. The "Kobe is selfish" argument really doesn't hold any water when it's scrutinized. Jackson astutely read that he faced a more severe choice in Los Angeles. The situation dictated that he could not be close to both Laker stars. So he made a logical choice, according to Winter. “Very early in our time in Los Angeles, Phil made the decision to go with Shaq. And he made it clear to Kobe and the press and everyone else that it was Shaq’s team. He made it clear he was far more interested in accommodating Shaq than Kobe. And Kobe seemed to accept this.” Winter, however, began to have concerns immediately. He said he told Jackson that he seemed intent on making Bryant his “whipping boy,” the player on which the coach traditionally takes out all of his frustration. Winter told Jackson that making a budding young superstar a whipping boy wasn’t a good idea.

The article certainly paints a different picture from what Phil's book touched on and what's been assumed to be the cause of the Shaq/Kobe/Phil dispute, and it definitely paints Bryant in a more flattering light (though he still has his shortcomings). I haven't been too high on Shaq ever since the "I got injured on company time" quote. What really surprised me was that no one really said anything about it, especially Phil. It was always clear that he pandered to Shaq, who wouldn't... but wow... For all those "Kobe is selfish" people... At the same time, Jackson leveled a variety of public attacks at Bryant during those years. At one point, Jackson told reporters that Bryant had sabotaged his own high school games to make himself look like a star, a comment that brought howls of protest from Bryant’s high school coach. Despite the situation, Bryant kept his anger under control, Winter said, until the 2003-04 NBA season. It was a contract year for both Bryant and Jackson, and the coach responded with a media campaign to discredit the guard. It culminated with Jackson’ book, The Last Season, that depicted Bryant as a selfish and uncoachable player. Jackson had worked behind the secenses several times in not-so-subtle ways to get Bryant traded. But in January 2004, he decided on the direct approach, Jackson went to owner Jerry Buss and told him he could no longer coach the team if Bryant remained. Having witnessed the unfolding behind-the-scenes drama over five years, Lakers owner Jerry Buss told Jackson that was fine; his services would no longer be needed. Stunned, Jackson abruptly changed his approach with Bryant. Suddenly, the coach began trying to have a relationship with Bryant, Winter said. And Bryant responded in kind. “But it was too late,” Winter said.

This is interesting... The season is starting up and I know we have some Kobe haters on the forum, so yes... I am posting this to mess with you guys... have fun commenting... PHIL & KOBE TOGETHER AGAIN BY ROLAND LAZENBY EXCERPTED FROM THE FORTHCOMING BOOK, THE SHOW, THE INSIDE STORY OF THE SPECTACULAR LOS ANGELES LAKERS IN THE WORDS OF THOSE WHO LIVED IT, SCHEDULED FOR DECEMBER RELEASE BY MCGRAW-HILL. The telltale signs emerged way back in 1999 when the Los Angeles Lakers hired Phil Jackson for the first time. On the day the Zen Master was to be announced as the team’s new coach, 20-year-old Kobe Bryant slipped in the back door of Jackson’s hotel and made his way up to his room to greet him. In Bryant’s hand was a copy of Jackson’s book Sacred Hoops, which Bryant had read. The Laker guard had long hoped that Jackson would be his coach and months earlier had taken the unusual step of initiating long-distance phone conversations with Jackson’s long-time assistant, Tex Winter. Bryant wasn’t alone in his desire to greet his new coach. Over the coming days, Laker center Shaquille O’Neal would travel to Montana to visit with Jackson at his home on Flathead Lake. Long known as a big kid, O’Neal took an immediate liking to his new coach, to the point of jumping in the lake and playing with the various water toys that belonged to the coach’s own children. Obviously, both players were eager to please their new coach, and to curry favor with him. Headed into his fourth NBAseason, Bryant had long been viewed as the annoying hid on the Laker block, always eager for more work, always ambitious, always running afoul of what his elder teammates thought he ought to be doing. “ The other players on the team wanted to make sure the earned everything he got, that the coach didn’t just give him something just because the fans wanted to see this young phenom play,” recalled Del Harris, Bryant’s first coach with the Lakers. That was especially true of Shaquille O’Neal, the game’s dominant young center who felt immense pressure to win championships. Each season his dislike of Bryant had grown. “What surprised me about Shaquille during our early days in Los Angeles was how frustrated he got,” said former Lakers GM Jerry West. “He was not fun to be around. The shortcomings of our team and his teammates made him angry because he knew he was going to be judged on how much we won.” How angry? Just months before Jackson arrived, O’Neal had slapped Bryant during a pickup game at the Laker practice facility. “It would not be forgotten,” former Laker guard Derek Fisher said of the incident. When Jackson and his coaching staff began work in Los Angeles, they were caught off guard by O’Neal’s level of animosity toward Bryant. “There was a lot of hatred in his heart,” Tex Winter said of O’Neal. “he would speak his mind in our team meetings. He was saying really hateful things. Kobe just took it and kept going.” Jackson had long been known for building an outstanding personal relationship with Michael Jordan in Chicago. That had been his strategy from the start: A great relationship with Jordan meant that everyone else on the team would fall in line. Jackson astutely read that he faced a more severe choice in Los Angeles. The situation dictated that he could not be close to both Laker stars. So he made a logical choice, according to Winter. “Very early in our time in Los Angeles, Phil made the decision to go with Shaq. And he made it clear to Kobe and the press and everyone else that it was Shaq’s team. He made it clear he was far more interested in accommodating Shaq than Kobe. And Kobe seemed to accept this.” Winter, however, began to have concerns immediately. He said he told Jackson that he seemed intent on making Bryant his “whipping boy,” the player on which the coach traditionally takes out all of his frustration. Winter told Jackson that making a budding young superstar a whipping boy wasn’t a good idea. “Phil was trying to figure me out a little bit,” Bryant recalled. “one of things I told him is, ‘There’s nothing to figure out. I’m just trying to play the game and learn the game the best I can.’ Once we got that established we started moving a little bit. But I didn’t get into his mind games. I had so many other things to think about with this game. I didn’t really have the time even to do that.” Perhaps Bryant should have paid more attention. His relationship with Jackson only worsened over their five years together in Los Angels. Winter said it was made worse by Jackson’s refusal to have any sort of in-depth meeting or relationship with the young guard. At the same time, Jackson leveled a variety of public attacks at Bryant during those years. At one point, Jackson told reporters that Bryant had sabotaged his own high school games to make himself look like a star, a comment that brought howls of protest from Bryant’s high school coach. Despite the situation, Bryant kept his anger under control, Winter said, until the 2003-04 NBA season. It was a contract year for both Bryant and Jackson, and the coach responded with a media campaign to discredit the guard. It culminated with Jackson’ book, The Last Season, that depicted Bryant as a selfish and uncoachable player. Jackson had worked behind the secenses several times in not-so-subtle ways to get Bryant traded. But in January 2004, he decided on the direct approach, Jackson went to owner Jerry Buss and told him he could no longer coach the team if Bryant remained. Having witnessed the unfolding behind-the-scenes drama over five years, Lakers owner Jerry Buss told Jackson that was fine; his services would no longer be needed. Stunned, Jackson abruptly changed his approach with Bryant. Suddenly, the coach began trying to have a relationship with Bryant, Winter said. And Bryant responded in kind. “But it was too late,” Winter said. Buss had made up his mind. Jackson had to go. And the owner had no desire to meet O’Neal’s demands for a lengthy extension on his $30 million plus a year contract. So the Lakers traded him to Miami (where O’Neal would later meekly agree to play for $20 million a season). As he was cleaning out his office, a jilted Jackson did his best to portray Bryant as the villain in the breakup of the team, and soon that perception became the reality, simply because so many people believed it. Jackson made sure of it, phoning reporters as he drove from Los Angeles to his summer home in Montana. He dialed up columnists and radio talk shows to offer his version of events. Sports columnists everywhere who had no idea why the Lakers had fallen apart simply began reporting as fact that Bryant had schemed to make it happen. Despite the blame game Jackson was playing so deftly, he would later admit the truth. Despite all his success in Los Angeles, he had failed in his handling of Bryant. And that was one of several factors in the breakup of a very successful team. “in the final analysis, it’s the coach’s responsibility to manage the team in the proper manner and not have those things happen,” Winter said. It was simply a huge mistake to not keep Bryant in the loop, Winter said. “I think Phil realizes that now.” The debate over the issue would play as a steady refrain through most of the 2004-05 NBA season. It grew louder as O’Neal’s Miami Heat charged out to be the best record in the Eastern Conference. Jackson’s campaigning had helped sales of his new book tremendously. And it seemed to be the final straw for Kobe Bryant. He had absolutely no trust in Phil Jackson. On the other hand, it was a frustrating Laker team he played on in the wake of Jackson’s and O’Neal’s departure. They began losing in the spring and failed to make the playoffs. As much as Winter thought of Bryant, the coach didn’t hesitate to scald him with criticism. “there’s no balance to his game right now,” Winter said of Bryant in April, 2005. “He still has to learn to hit the open man, that if he does, the ball will come back to him. In some ways, he listens to me. In other ways, he’s never really listened to anybody, has he?” Bryant’s attempt at leading the Lakers failed miserably. “Kobe had a tough time,” Winter said. “I think his teammates really got down on him. He tried too hard to be a leader.” THE RETURN As soon as the rumors started, Tex Winter couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony Phil Jackson return as Lakers coach for 2005-06? As mentor and confidant to both Jackson and Bryant, Winter was clearly the man in the middle. He acknowledged that the idea of Bryant and Jackson needing each other was amusing. Bryant obviously needed help in turning the Lakers around. And Jackson, for all the coaching offers he had, needed a team receptive to his unique triangle offense. Bryant was the ultimate triangle player in the game, and Jackson the only real triangle coach. Winter, the inventor of the system that had won nine NBA championships, had introduced them both to his creation. And now they both needed it and they needed each other. In a further note of irony, as Jackson ponered renewing his relationship with the Lakers, he sought a meeting with Bryant. The guard declined, saying he didn’t want to be blamed if Jackson decided not to take the job. Winter pointed out that during their five seasons together Jackson had declined to engage in any sort of in-depth meeting with Bryant yet regularly criticized him to the media. Now it was Bryant’s turn to decline to meet. Observers guessed that the guard wanted Larry Brown or Brian Shaw to coach. Bryant stayed mum, though. Ultimately, Jackson announced his decision to accept a three-year deal at a record $10 million per season on June 14, calling the decision at his Staples Center press conference a story of “reconciliation, redemption and resiliency.” Jackson did not make it clear just who it was in need of redemption. “it Wasn’t about the money, but the intrigue of this situation,” Jackson said. “it’s a tremendous story and a tremendous opportunity. It’s a story of reconciliation, redemption, of reuniting – a lot of things in this make for a wonderful opportunity for the team, the Lakers and myself.” Jackson wore a suit and sandals to the press conference. “I’m not the panacea for this basketball club,” Jackson told the media. “It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to take some time. But we do think there is some hope, and we can make some changes that will really benefit this team and we can get back into the playoffs again.” For his part, Bryant, who turned 27 in August, issued a prepared statement saying, “His hiring is something I support.” Jackson made a point of telling reporters that Bryant had phoned his congratulations that morning. “You know, I think after we play a few games and get kind of a feel of working together, we’ll really feel like we’re ready to go,” Jackson said. “I really encourage him to find a way to get his zest back for the game, not that he doesn’t lose his competitive edge, but the whole game. He wants to come back and make some people eat some words.” THE MEETING Jackson and Bryant finally had that first serious meeting at Laker offices in July. According to Winter, Bryant wasted no time in making his feelings known about certain things Jackson had done to him. It was first step in the two trying to re-establish some sort of trust. Jackson had endured a similar meeting several years earlier. In 1991, Jackson had served as an anonymous source for Sam Smith’s explosive expose, The Jordan Rules, a book that infuriated both Bulls GM Jerry Krause and Jordan for its unflattering portrait of them. Seeing their anger, Jackson blamed the anonymous leak on his mentor and assistant coach, Johnny Bach, a sweet old guy and basketball lifer. Eventually, Krause, Jackson and the Bulls fired Bach for “leaking” the Jordan Rules info, although they never explained that. He had a heart attack in the weeks after his devastating release. In 1998, Jackson’s treachery became known, and sometime later Bach and Jackson had a meeting. Bach wouldn’t reveal what he said to Jackson in the meeting that day, although the elderly coach said he made it clear what he thought of Jackson’s lowdown ways. Now, Jackson was having a similar come-clean meeting with Bryant. It’s not an issue that Bryant wants to discuss publicly. As much as Jackson did to color Bryant’s image in the public’s eyes, the guard knows that he has done far more damage with his ill-thought actions, including his world-famous sexual assault case in Colorado. “I don’t really think about my image,” Bryant says. “It will shake out. People who talk about me in a negative manner, they don’t know me. If they had a chance to be around me, to kick it with me or whatever and get to know me, then they could judge. I think that will come out as the years go by, or whatever. People will see how I truly am, what I’m really about. The first step in rebuilding his reputation will come with the upcoming season, predicted to be another difficult one for the Lakers. Some observers wonder if the history between the guard and coach will resurface in the challenging months ahead. Jackson doesn’t take losing well. He once threw two chairs on the floor while coaching a Continental Basketball Association game. Winter, though, thinks it will work. “I think they feel like they can help each other,” the longtime assistant said. “I think Kobe feels that Phil can help him be more effective. And Phil certainly feels like we need Kobe if we’re going to have any kind of season. “Phil will take an entirely different approach with Kobe now, ” Winter said. “I think he will spend more time with Kobe individually and involve him in the strategies of the game. Kobe will like that. Before, Phil didn’t include him in things. In the final analysis, Phil felt the big guy was more important. But that will change now.” Another thing that will change is how the team runs the triangle offense. Now, the Lakers’ triangle offense will look like it did when the Bulls ran it. With O’Neal in Los Angeles, the triangle was more flattened because O’Neal demanded the ball, Winter said. “We had to spend most of the time getting the ball into Shaq. Otherwise, he’d be very upset and yell, ‘Feed me the ball!’ With a player like Shaq, that was the thing to do, but it took away from the other players. We had to adjust to Shaq. Kobe tried to do what he could do on his own. He got the ball inside to Shaq. And Shaq got Kobe the ball, too. They played well together. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have won three championships. But there was always that attitude.” Now, the ball will still go inside in the Lakers offense, Winter said. But the offense will work a lot better than it did when interim Lakers coach Frank Hamblen was forced to adopt it on the fly at midseason. “Frank didn’t have the time to install the offense like it should be done during training camp,” Winter said. “That was tough on Frank. He knows the offense very well, but he had newer players who didn’t understand the offense. With players not sure what to do, Kobe had to take over. Yes, he tried to do too much. But he was forced to do that to try to win games. When the ball went to Kobe, he had to try to do things off the dribble.” When the triangle works, the ball goes into the post and then the other players move and feed off the center. “This year, the ball will have to go into the post, even if that post isn’t Shaq,” Winter said. “we’ll get back to a semblance of how we ran the triangle in Chicago. Luc Longley and Bill Cartwright were our centers in Chicago. Neither one of them ever aspired to be great scorers. They were happy to move the ball.” Even though Bryant knows the triangle better than any NBA player, Winter isn’t ready to predict that the guard will blossom this year in the system. “I don’t know,” the 83-year-old coach said. “his bad habits are pretty well entrenched. Bad habits are hard to break. Kobe has got such great physical tools. And he wants to do the right thing. That’s the big thing. He wants to do it the right way. If he gets the right leadership, that will be the big thing. And that’s where Phil comes in.” During the spring, Winter had expressed concern that Bryant’s spirit had been irreparably crushed by his team not making the playoff. But Bryant wasted little time in showing during the offseason that his competitive fires were restoked and roaring. He showed up at the Lakers facilities at 6:30 each morning for grueling individual workouts. Shortly after 8 a.m., Bryant’s schedule then shifted to intense weightlifting sessions. “He’s definitely motivated,” Winter confided. “I hope he’s not overdoing it.” That, of course, has always been the concern with Bryant, from the very moment he came into the league. “It’s gonna be interesting to see how he carries himself this year,” Winter says. “he’s had some humbling experiences over the past year. You have to be concerned that he doesn’t put too much pressure on himself. He’s always done that, always had this tremendous need to prove himself. He has this notion to prove he’s the best basketball player to ever play the game. That’s ridiculous. He just needs to go out and have some fun.”

I haven't played many of the games in quite some time. Tim, you remember what happened the last time you guys started talking smack right... lol.

Unfortunately, it's unlikely. I know the buzz is there, but I don't know if the Wolves would trade for anything less than Kobe. The Lakers have to give up a considerable number of their players, preferably with short contracts to get Kevin; from a field of Bynum, Odom, Brown, Mihm, Georges, Walton, Jones, Cook... a resonable combination of those players... If, on the off chance, the Lakers were able to pull it off, it could likely be Kobe, Garnett, a decent player, and scrubs... It doesn't necessarily have to be that way, but it's a possibility. Now all that being said, if the Lakers were able to get him, it's also possible that a lot of players would want to head to LA to play with them. Their contracts wouldn't be stellar, but with all the publicity, endorsements and so forth LA promises, a few players would be more likely to sign on with the prospect of a championship and the possibility of revenue from other sources. But again, I doubt the Lakers would be able to get Garnett. I've also heard all the "Kobe won't be able to play with him, Kobe is selfish stuff." You guys know the real deal with all of that. I don't see that as being a problem at all.