On the one hand (the hater hand), Broussard writes a bunch of sensationalist garbage and tries to pass it off as journalism. On the other hand, he gets the wheels spinning in my head because he obviously represents the popular opinion and my views on the NBA are almost always at odds with his.
More to the point, Broussard wrote a piece today (I won’t bother linking to his piece, because it’s not worth your time reading) that points to Kobe Bryant as the problem to the Lakers woes this season. Basically, as Broussard has done his entire career, the gist of his argument is that Bryant is shooting too much and is the reason the Lakers have vastly underperformed.
Poor commentary greatly angers me and provokes a pointed response.
In his piece, Broussard got two anonymous scouts, an anonymous GM, and an anonymous assistant coach to give their take on the matter—all of whom come to the same conclusion, that Bryant is shooting too much and that the Lakers would best be served going to the post more often—namely, feeding the ball to Dwight Howard (and to a lesser extent Pau Gasol).
It’s incredible, we are talking about a player who has never won anything, who has been questioned about his mentality to lead, who was crucified for his wishy-washy manner in handling his exit from Orlando, who has been labeled as a jokester, who has been shredded for his penchant to wilt under scrutiny, who has spent his time in many activities outside of basketball, who is coming off of back surgery, who is not 100 percent athletically, who is second on the team in turnovers, who is shooting 51 percent from the freethrow line, and who has had many teams employ Hack-a-Howard against him to the point it has cost the Lakers wins.
And this is the player that the Lakers should be trying to spoon feed in the post?
The Mike D’Antoni offensive system is simply not an ideal fit for a low post player. Amare Stoudemire was the perfect center in D’Antoni’s system because he had a devastatingly effective high post game. At his peak, Stoudemire could nail that 15-17 footer with icy regularity. He made 75 percent of his freebies. And he could pick, roll and finish with the very best of all time.
A fully healthy Howard can only do one of those things. And, as mentioned above, he’s not fully healthy.
As for Gasol—who has been hindered with knee tendonitis and who was not in great physical shape to begin the year—is decent on the pick and roll, pick and pop, and can make his freebies. But his bread and butter is systematically picking a defense apart from the post, either with his array of moves down low, or by making the right pass to set up a teammate.
The Spanish National team came close to beating the US team in both the 2008 and 2012 gold medal games because of the elder Gasol. And not one Spanish media pundit or American media pundit or Pau himself for that matter ever complained that the far inferior (in terms of overall skill) Juan Carlos Navarro shot a lot. La Bomba jacked up 83 shots and made only 35 percent of them. Pau shot 116 times and made 53 percent. Still, no one told La Bomba to disappear like Lou Diamond Phillips.
Basketball people know that the function of a shooting guard within most basketball systems is to, uh shoot. Yes, dunks and post ups are the most efficient baskets, but they are also the hardest baskets to generate against elite defenses, especially when a team lacks consistent outside shooters, and even more especially if said post player can’t shoot freethrows.
Shooting guards need to shoot in order to space the floor.
With Steve Nash out, Bryant has been tasked with not only scoring efficiently, but also orchestrating the D’Antoni offense.
Chris Duhon does an efficient job at the point, but it’s not always effective. This is key for people to understand. Duhon has been efficient, limiting his turnovers and shooting a respectable 44 percent from the floor, but because he is not a consistent scoring threat (like Nash is), the defense doesn’t have to worry about him on most plays. They’ll live with him scoring five points on five shots. They can’t live with Nash scoring 15 on eight shots. Huge difference.
Bryant should be applauded for his ability to not only score super efficiently and effectively, but for his ability to conduct a top-seven offense at the same time. He leads the team in assists and the Lakers offense has been one of the better offenses this year—better than the division leading Warriors. Better than the offensive-minded Denver Nuggets. Better than the Brooklyn Nets, the Utah Jazz, and the championship contender Memphis Grizzlies.
The fact the offense has become such a focal point of the discussion is for the sole reason that D’Antoni is the coach and that Bryant is the player in question. No other player who has an over 60 percent TS% and is averaging 30 points a game would be criticized. They would be praised.
Michael Jordan was never criticized for his penchant for gunning—and the Jordan that won six championships never came close to the TS% that Kobe is currently putting up despite Jordan taking 2-3 more shots per game and playing with the second best wing player in the Association at that time in Scottie Pippen.
Carmelo Anthony, who is shooting the same amount of shots as Bryant, but with an inferior TS%, is being hailed as the MVP of the league, despite doing nothing else but scoring and pulling in offensive rebounds. He has a career low assist rate (which is really saying something) and a below average defensive rating. He’s also got three pass-first point guards on his team who are all having career years shooting, the league’s deadliest three point shooter in Steve Novak, the league’s most efficient scorer of all time in Tyson Chandler, and a bevy of other catch and shoot guys on his team to spread the floor.
The Lakers are rolling with two third string point guards, two centers (one of which is trying to masquerade as a power forward) and only two players who are shooting over 40 percent from beyond the arc.
I am not saying Howard is a bad player or that the Lakers struggles are on his shoulders. I am not saying that Howard can’t fit into D’Antoni’s system. A healthy Nash will help tremendously in that regard. I am also not saying that Bryant is above reproach in the Lakers struggles this year. He has turned the ball over at a career high rate, and he has been nowhere near the help defender he was even two seasons ago. These are areas that he'll need to fix--though, Nash will help mitigate the turnovers by assuming the majority of ball-handling responsibilities, which should in turn allow Bryant to exert more energy on the defensive end.
What I am saying is that I think the focus on how many times Bryant shoots the ball completely misses the mark on every possible level (save for the sensationalist level). For so many supposed “basketball experts” to point to Bryant’s volume of shots (which by the way equals the exact amount of shots per game he took during his MVP season when he was lauded as a team first player) is beyond ridiculous.
It’s downright stupid. And irresponsible.
I continue to read Broussard for the same exact reason that ESPN has Broussard around. Because he gets page views. He writes Kobe-degrading columns and Jordan-loving pieces and he does so because people click on those stories. NBA fans love those two players (or hate them) because they have been the two most dynamic and engaging players of the past 25 years, and because they are so similar despite being very different. People get riled up one way or another, and then leave thousands and thousands of comments. That is important for any website that wishes to be successful.
At least, this is what I want to believe, because I do not want to believe that anyone who watches as much basketball as Broussard supposedly does, is that stupidly naïve to pick a random number and base an entire theory on said number and then write a piece on that theory as if it is intelligent commentary.
Then again, apparently there are at least two scouts, one general manager, and one assistant coach who believe the same thing…
It’s incredible, we are talking about a player who has never won anything, who has been questioned about his mentality to lead, who was crucified for his wishy-washy manner in handling his exit from Orlando, who has been labeled as a jokester, who has been shredded for his penchant to wilt under scrutiny, who has spent his time in many activities outside of basketball, who is coming off of back surgery, who is not 100 percent athletically, who is second on the team in turnovers, who is shooting 51 percent from the freethrow line, and who has had many teams employ Hack-a-Howard against him to the point it has cost the Lakers wins.
And this is the player that the Lakers should be trying to spoon feed in the post?
The Mike D’Antoni offensive system is simply not an ideal fit for a low post player. Amare Stoudemire was the perfect center in D’Antoni’s system because he had a devastatingly effective high post game. At his peak, Stoudemire could nail that 15-17 footer with icy regularity. He made 75 percent of his freebies. And he could pick, roll and finish with the very best of all time.
A fully healthy Howard can only do one of those things. And, as mentioned above, he’s not fully healthy.
As for Gasol—who has been hindered with knee tendonitis and who was not in great physical shape to begin the year—is decent on the pick and roll, pick and pop, and can make his freebies. But his bread and butter is systematically picking a defense apart from the post, either with his array of moves down low, or by making the right pass to set up a teammate.
The Spanish National team came close to beating the US team in both the 2008 and 2012 gold medal games because of the elder Gasol. And not one Spanish media pundit or American media pundit or Pau himself for that matter ever complained that the far inferior (in terms of overall skill) Juan Carlos Navarro shot a lot. La Bomba jacked up 83 shots and made only 35 percent of them. Pau shot 116 times and made 53 percent. Still, no one told La Bomba to disappear like Lou Diamond Phillips.
Basketball people know that the function of a shooting guard within most basketball systems is to, uh shoot. Yes, dunks and post ups are the most efficient baskets, but they are also the hardest baskets to generate against elite defenses, especially when a team lacks consistent outside shooters, and even more especially if said post player can’t shoot freethrows.
Shooting guards need to shoot in order to space the floor.
With Steve Nash out, Bryant has been tasked with not only scoring efficiently, but also orchestrating the D’Antoni offense.
Chris Duhon does an efficient job at the point, but it’s not always effective. This is key for people to understand. Duhon has been efficient, limiting his turnovers and shooting a respectable 44 percent from the floor, but because he is not a consistent scoring threat (like Nash is), the defense doesn’t have to worry about him on most plays. They’ll live with him scoring five points on five shots. They can’t live with Nash scoring 15 on eight shots. Huge difference.
Bryant should be applauded for his ability to not only score super efficiently and effectively, but for his ability to conduct a top-seven offense at the same time. He leads the team in assists and the Lakers offense has been one of the better offenses this year—better than the division leading Warriors. Better than the offensive-minded Denver Nuggets. Better than the Brooklyn Nets, the Utah Jazz, and the championship contender Memphis Grizzlies.
The fact the offense has become such a focal point of the discussion is for the sole reason that D’Antoni is the coach and that Bryant is the player in question. No other player who has an over 60 percent TS% and is averaging 30 points a game would be criticized. They would be praised.
Michael Jordan was never criticized for his penchant for gunning—and the Jordan that won six championships never came close to the TS% that Kobe is currently putting up despite Jordan taking 2-3 more shots per game and playing with the second best wing player in the Association at that time in Scottie Pippen.
Carmelo Anthony, who is shooting the same amount of shots as Bryant, but with an inferior TS%, is being hailed as the MVP of the league, despite doing nothing else but scoring and pulling in offensive rebounds. He has a career low assist rate (which is really saying something) and a below average defensive rating. He’s also got three pass-first point guards on his team who are all having career years shooting, the league’s deadliest three point shooter in Steve Novak, the league’s most efficient scorer of all time in Tyson Chandler, and a bevy of other catch and shoot guys on his team to spread the floor.
The Lakers are rolling with two third string point guards, two centers (one of which is trying to masquerade as a power forward) and only two players who are shooting over 40 percent from beyond the arc.
I am not saying Howard is a bad player or that the Lakers struggles are on his shoulders. I am not saying that Howard can’t fit into D’Antoni’s system. A healthy Nash will help tremendously in that regard. I am also not saying that Bryant is above reproach in the Lakers struggles this year. He has turned the ball over at a career high rate, and he has been nowhere near the help defender he was even two seasons ago. These are areas that he'll need to fix--though, Nash will help mitigate the turnovers by assuming the majority of ball-handling responsibilities, which should in turn allow Bryant to exert more energy on the defensive end.
What I am saying is that I think the focus on how many times Bryant shoots the ball completely misses the mark on every possible level (save for the sensationalist level). For so many supposed “basketball experts” to point to Bryant’s volume of shots (which by the way equals the exact amount of shots per game he took during his MVP season when he was lauded as a team first player) is beyond ridiculous.
It’s downright stupid. And irresponsible.
I continue to read Broussard for the same exact reason that ESPN has Broussard around. Because he gets page views. He writes Kobe-degrading columns and Jordan-loving pieces and he does so because people click on those stories. NBA fans love those two players (or hate them) because they have been the two most dynamic and engaging players of the past 25 years, and because they are so similar despite being very different. People get riled up one way or another, and then leave thousands and thousands of comments. That is important for any website that wishes to be successful.
At least, this is what I want to believe, because I do not want to believe that anyone who watches as much basketball as Broussard supposedly does, is that stupidly naïve to pick a random number and base an entire theory on said number and then write a piece on that theory as if it is intelligent commentary.
Then again, apparently there are at least two scouts, one general manager, and one assistant coach who believe the same thing…
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