The Los Angeles Lakers have everything this season that they didn’t have in Kobe Bryant’s last few years with the ball club. Imagine how would he have reacted if he was still around?
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Lakers have one of the game’s most consistent stat stuffers in Russell Westbrook. A free-flowing and dominant big in Anthony Davis. And one of the all-time great floor generals, LeBron James.
They had the best odds in the West to win the Larry O’Brien this season. But as of now, they are struggling to get consistent wins and be above .500.
Currently, they sit at sixth below the Grizzlies and the Clippers, who have been playing at least without one of their key players since the start of the season. And the Warriors are top-2 with Klay Thompson still to return.
Lakers have by far been the biggest disappointments of the season in the league with a 14-13 record. They have lost two games to an 8-17 OKC and Grizzlies without Ja Morant or Dillon Brooks.
Just imagine how Kobe Bryant would react to these shambolic performances by the Purple and Gold if he was still around.
Kobe would’ve given the Lakers a major reality check
During Kobe’s playing days, there were many occasions when he infamously criticized his teammates and got on their backs to bring out their best. He simply hated to lose, and it was all Lakers did during the latter end of the Black Mamba’s career.
So he had to sometimes trash talk his own teammates during the team’s practice session. The Lakers had finished the 2013-14 season at the worst position (14th) since drafting Kobe. One can guess how mad the Mamba would be with his team.
This clip from 2014-15 shows how it was to be on that team, and how TNT’s Inside the NBA crew reacted to it.
Chuck left Shaq and others in splits when he joked Kobe should torch the “Staples Center up with the players in it”. But he wasn’t surely far from what Kobe would’ve felt at the time. The Mamba would have felt something similar now, if he were around.
Although Shaq was right to say he would never criticize his guys on camera, unlike Kobe, he would surely have found it hard to do that in the social media era. And if he were to play with this season’s talented group to fail every other night, he would surely have lost it much like the Mamba.
Kobe and Shaq won three championships in their time together. And the latter himself hates losing as much as his former Lakers teammate.
The biggest Lakers fan, the Diesel, even switched sides recently and now roots for the Warriors, amid the Lakers’ shambolic performances. He even went as far as to say he’s glad Staples Center is renamed for good.
