Monday, October 15th, 2012 at 9:50 am  |  192 responses

Kobe Bryant Cares About Winning–Not Being a Good Teammate


After spending a few days last week lighting up former teammates who he felt never lived up to their end of the bargain, Kobe Bryant explained in detail the thinking behind his style of leadership. From KB’s Facebook page: “Leadership is responsibility. There comes a point when one must make a decision. Are YOU willing to do what it takes to push the right buttons to elevate those around you? If the answer is YES, are you willing to push the right buttons even if it means being perceived as the villain? Here’s where the true responsibility of being a leader lies. Sometimes you must prioritize the success of the team ahead of how your own image is perceived. The ability to elevate those around you is more than simply sharing the ball or making teammates feel a certain level of comfort. It’s pushing them to find their inner beast, even if they end up resenting you for it at the time. I’d rather be perceived as a winner than a good teammate. I wish they both went hand in hand all the time but that’s just not reality. I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success. Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses. This is my way. It might not be right for YOU but all I can do is share my thoughts. It’s on YOU to figure out which leadership style suits you best.”

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  • LakeShow

    Okay good.
    You agree with me. Kobe makes power moves.

  • LakeShow

    Exactly.
    To you, JR Smith and Kobe are just two guys who shoot allot. So sad to see what seems to be an intelligent person (you) just wallow in the ‘Kobe sucks cause he had sex with a girl in Colorado and shot 43% from the field last year’ crowd with Shock Exchange and other losers. But just as I love Kobe and the Lakers irrationally you to are allowed to hate equally or more-so in same way as such in this case.

  • z

    You are actually calling somebody else incapable of reasoning or understanding? Buddy, when the topic turns to kobe you become nearly as implacably critical as the shock exchange. Take your own advice, genius.

  • z

    You need to just stop bud. Youre making yourself look stupider and stupider with each post. Which makes it look like only morons admire malcolm x, and that definitely isnt the case. Stop commenting on this thread kiddo. Do yourself (and your credibility) a favor.

  • pposse

    ill give you a reason…KD shouldn’t work out with Lebron bc Lebron does not have a go to move while KD has plenty of go to moves. Lebron is smart enough to see where KD is in his training and if any of his moves get exposed to Lebron in the summer Lebron will be smart enough to remember, and find a way to counter or figure out a defensive posture to make it hard for KD to execute during the season and most likely the finals when they meet. Most of what Lebron does on the court is unreal and not possible for anyone to imitate. There is nothing that KD can take from Lebrons game imo while there are plenty of offensive lessons that LBJ can learn.

  • z

    Or maybe its that hes gotten older and feels more &more entitled to speak his mind

  • z

    My question is where were all your criticisms and all this vitriol when mj gave that petty hof speech, calling out krause, reinsdorff and other people who had never said anything bad about him? You clearly are operating on a double standard, sport.

  • z

    At least shock exchange is hilarious. Way more than i can say for by any means necessary. Do you even know what that phrase means, slugger?

  • z

    Precisely
    allen im disappointed in you for pretending to not understand this. I know you realize what he just pointed out, but you chose to take the subjective route and pretend to not realize why kob never bashed shaq when shaq was bashing him immediately after the break up. Shame on you Allen youre one of the most sensible commentors on here.

  • AndyK

    Kobe’s the man…unfortunately has to play with a loser like Howard now

  • pposse

    he quit while posting up a trip dub? oookay…no quitting is when u shoot the ball twice in the second half of game 7 against the phoenix suns like Kobe did, squandering a 3-1 series lead.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    Explain the double standard you think I have. Jordan called out everything that he used to motivate himself. Kobe is talking about people who most of us don’t pay any attention to and haven’t thought about in years.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    KD averaged 30 plus points on 53% shooting in the Finals with Battier and LeBron guarding him. They trained together for a week last summer. So if he couldn’t learn enough to contain him defensively in a week, my guess is he didn’t learn much more in one day this summer. That makes absolutely no sense. They played together for a while in the summer of 07 before the World Championship games even though Durant didn’t make that team. They’ve played each other many times during the regular season. I’m sure LeBron has watched plenty of tape of him before those regular season games. Add all of that up and KD still gets his when he plays against LeBron. All of a sudden, you think something is going to click after this summer and LeBron will now be able to stop him? Explain yourself. KD doesn’t have to work with him so that he can take from him and LeBron isn’t trying to take from KD. They’re friends. They train together because they most likely realize that they’re the two best players and it’s fun to compete with and against each other. It’s not a big deal. You have no reason to take issue with it.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    Little boy, exactly what do you have to say that has any substance to it? Because so far, you’ve said absolutely nothing. Anything pertinent to add to the discussion or are you just here to offer your measly little opinion? Do you have anything to say to refute anything I’ve said? What is your purpose here? Anything?

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    Exactly what did Kwame Brown say about Kobe for Kobe to now say that basically Kwame doesn’t deserve the money he’s going to make? Why is a man commenting about what another man is making? Especially a man who’s probably the highest paid player in the league right now. What’s it to him?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=509819249 Gaurav P.

    Lebron in 07 was in a completely different period in his career then Kobe was in 07. Essentially, it would have been like last year’s version of Lebron playing with the team that featured Larry Hughes as the second best player. Kobe dragged that sorry team to 45 (!) wins in a loaded Western Conference, which is almost as impressive as Lebron dragging that sorry Cavs team to the Finals. Context matters in this case. Kobe was at his physical peak as a player, he wanted out because Kupchak had no direction…the Lakers weren’t swinging any trades, weren’t making any moves in free agency, etc. There was no direction – Bryant felt as if the Lakers were just using his prime to sell tickets and wait it out, which he wanted no part of.

    I’m not saying Lamar was a scrub; I’m saying that if he’s your second best player, you’re not going to get very far. And below him there was a huge drop in talent. I think either KWame or Smush were the third best players.

  • Yi-Cheng Chen

    Wow. Even Kobe needs to explain himself through FB. He seems like a good guy after all.

  • Yi-Cheng Chen

    Wow. Even Kobe needs to explain himself through FB. He seems like a good guy after all.

  • Yi-Cheng Chen

    so the conclusion is: winners can rape girls. am i right?

  • z

    Kinda sad…it’s been 5 years and this kid byanymeansnecessary still cant figure out what was going on the day kob requested a trade then retracted that request several hours later…which points to byanymeansnecessary being a moron, however he DOES demonstrate intelligence on non-kobe threads, which leads one to conclude that he nurtures a bit of an anti-kobe bias. Yet unlike shock exchange this kid takes himself so seriously that he tries to pretend that you’re just a kobe sycophant when i can personally recall plenty of times youve taken a fair and honest look at kobe and his game. You want a lakers sycophant talk to the seed. Byanymeansnecessary is a child

  • z

    I have nothing to say to refute your opinions.lakeshow (among others) already refuted your opinions, moron, that’s my whole point. Youre too dense to even see that tho!

  • z

    In the USA, hell yeah they can. Whats that say about us?

  • Datkid

    that’s true. but the point is you can empower your teammates without being a jackass to them.

  • Salty

    Kobe has proven that he is a superb basketball player. He has not proven that he can “elevate” the people around him with his dickish behavior.

  • redoct31

    I concur with that train of though with one addition, In order to be a good leader you have to be a loyal SOULJAH

  • EP

    Sincerely, Kobe Bryant’s Facebook public relations ghost writer

  • pablo

    once again slam used tabloid-like title for this article

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    LakeShow only says Kobe’s great and the Lakes are great. That’s not refuting anything.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    How stupid are you, really?

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    Kobe makes punk moves. The only reason he’s not in another uniform is because Gasol ended up in LA. Some of his peers all had worse situations and they handled it better than he did. It’s pretty easy to see this. KG, T-Mac, later on LeBron. Neither one went on the radio asking for a trade and retracted on the same day. Neither complained about needing to go elsewhere.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    You wouldn’t know intelligence when you saw it seeing as how you have none going by your comments.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    You have no point. You’re just here to back up LakeShow. Look around. You two are outnumbered.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    He’s not the most successful player in history. Read what the dude wrote. He said that Kobe has been as successful as any player in the history of the game. Which obviously isn’t true. Learn how to read. It’s so simple.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    For a dude who can’t seem to create an opinion of his own that is worth reading, I could care less about if you value my opinion or not.

  • pposse

    its a known fact that Lebron does not have a go to move offensively, one on one (address that for me, that was the original point). I like and respect Lebron’s game, but lets be real here..at end of game situations with the ball in Lebron’s hands, you just do not know what he is going to do. I have seen him jag end of game situations a lot, especially in the past 3 years. On the other hand, KD (at least what i have seen) has come thru a lot in the clutch by shouldering the offensive production. I am saying, that there is a lot more that Lebron can get/learn out of practicing with KD than vice versa. KD cannot imitate or duplicate the things that Lebron can do, he is not built physically to do those things. My theory is that Lebron is willing and promotes practicing with KD because he is trying to learn a thing or two offensively (one on one move) from KD. KD can learn nothing from Lebron. And to your point about defense, Lebron is no fool, KD does not have the same type of averages he had in the Finals against Lebron historically. Im not saying it was flash in the frying pan, just that I think what happened in the finals can be corrected.

  • http://twitter.com/AjpDos Allen Powell

    So the argument is that Kobe was only willing to make these comments from a position of strength? That proves my point about bullying doesn’t it?

  • http://twitter.com/AjpDos Allen Powell

    Kobe. No media person brought up Smush. Maybe kwame but not Smush.

  • ByAnyMeansNecessary

    Did you watch last season? LeBron doesn’t need a go-to move. He did just fine with the moves he has. Everyone wants him to make end of game shots as if that’s the most important thing for a superstar player to do. After Jordan, there hasn’t been a player since who has had a great percentage when it comes to “clutch” shots. The shots that guys like Melo and Kobe have hit are shown so much that people forget that they’ve missed a lot more than they’ve made. It’s not really all that important when you look at what he can do. People only really have a few examples of him not coming through during the 4th quarter. There are more examples of him making the best decision whether it was a shot or a pass. Besides Game 5 against Boston and the Finals against Dallas, people can’t name any other big moment where he didn’t come through in the 4th quarter. The only reason they talk about it so much is because there’s more attention on playoff games. KD plays a different kind of game. He doesn’t have the all-around game that LeBron does. He’s more of a scorer than anything else so of course, he’s going to take end of game shots. Who said that guys should only practice with players they can learn or take from? Can’t they just do it because they feel like it? They’re grown men. They can do whatever they want to do. And if LeBron is trying to learn from KD, then that’s a sign of him knowing that there is still a level he can get to. But no mind games are being played here. KD can learn how to get more intense and involved defensively just like LeBron learned from Kobe after the 08 Olympics. Nothing wrong with them helping each other. This isn’t the 80s/90s. Guys have different relationships now. Most of them grew up playing against each other as teenagers in AAU and high school ball. These two guys have known each other since KD’s first season. No one can think of one good reason why they shouldn’t work out together.

  • LakeShow

    I expect more, even out of children. Common, top 10 talent. Act like it gents. Geezuz.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Bishop.SeanMagicJuan Sean MagicJuan

    I guess I’m a moron then. SMH at your Malcolm X comment.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Bishop.SeanMagicJuan Sean MagicJuan

    Has Kobe Bryant ever shot 50% from the field in a season? Has Jordan, LBJ, Wade, Magic, Bird, Dr. J, Russell, Chamberlain, Abdul Jabbar, Malone, Barkley, Oscar, or Elgin? All of the names in the latter (generally considered the all time greats) have, Kobe never did. He is a “great” volume shooter.

  • luv2ball

    In the military we have a saying called “Leadership is not Likership” I have no problems with Kobe’s leadership style. The task is to complete the mission, not to make friends.

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