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Bryant closes in on Jordan's Career Tally inspite of 'Soft' teammates'
Kobe Bryant just 9 points behind Michael Jordan
Kobe Bryant scored 22 points for Lakers against defending champs Thunder defeating them 112-110 in overtime on their home ground.
Had Bryant played for the record, he would have easily secured it by the end of the night, but instead he went for the win and played the sort of team game that was required.
Kobe may have missed 15 of 22 shots, but he had ample opportunity to gun for Jordan’s scoring mark several times in this contest, but instead chose to make the intelligent and proper basketball play that suits his basketball genius – obvious passes he often ignores in order to launch yet another shot. He is now just 9 points behind MJ on the all-time high-scorers list.
Kobe Bryant returned to practice for the first time this month and called his teammates "soft" on Thursday.
Bryant and Nick Young were already trading barbs during the scrimmage with Young telling Bryant, "Nobody in the world can guard me one-on-one," and Bryant telling Young, "You're going exactly where I want you to go."
Later Bryant said, "You motherfuckers are soft like Charmin in this motherfucking. God damn, is this the type of shit that's going on in these practices? Now I see why we've lost 20 fucking games. We're soft like Charmin. We're soft like shit."
Bryant was also getting on Jeremy Lin during the scrimmage, daring him to shoot whenever he had the ball, yelling, "This motherfucker don't got shit. He ain't got shit right now. Shoot! Shoot!" After Lin missed a pull-up jumper, Bryant said, "I talked his ass right into that bullshit. I talked his ass right into that bullshit."
By the end of the scrimmage, which the starters won, Bryant said, "Practice gets real uncomfortable when I'm in this motherfucker."
After the team gathered together at center court to close practice, Bryant passed Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak and said, "I'm supposed to practice and get better, Mitch. I'm supposed to practice and get better. These motherfuckers ain't doing shit for me."
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Bryant Clinches 32000 Career Points
Inches closer to Michael Jordan's spot
Kobe Bryant, the shooting guard for LA Lakers clinched his 32,000th point against Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday, thus coming close to overtaking Michael Jordan's all time 3rd highest tally of 32,292 points.
Bryant scored 28 points from the game with 4 rebounds, 3 assists & a steal in Lakers' 114-109 win over Hawks.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar (38,387) & Karl Malone (36,928) are the only players ranked ahead of Michael Jordan in total career points. Although Kobe has been scoring in bunches this season, it has still been a dull for the Lakers yet again sitting at 2-9 right now. But he is a constant force who will never stop pushing, lifting his team time and again.
With an average of 27 points per game, Bryant will hopefully overtake Michael Jordan within 10-15 games comfortably, adding to the saga of comparison between the two Legendary Athletes.
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Skill most important in Basketball: Bryant
At 36, Kobe Bryant is no longer one of the quickest or most athletic players in the NBA. The 18-year veteran simply can’t do what he used to do on the basketball floor resulting in the five-time NBA champion needing to evolve heading into potentially the last two years of his career.
As it does to every player in the league at some point, Father Time has started to take its toll on the face of the Los Angeles Lakers franchise and Kobe isn’t denying that fact. The superstar appears to be embracing the challenge of altering his game, but emphasized that speed isn’t the most important thing in basketball during the Nike RISE campaign in China:
“I do the moves over and over,” Bryant said. “Especially in my younger days, I didn’t really focus on trying to get my feet faster. I focused on the moves. Whether it was a fadeaway, or whether it was a crossover, I did the move over and over and over. Then, I got faster at doing moves. My feet got faster at doing the moves. When you have repetition with what it is you’re trying to do, you inevitably get better and faster at that. The most important thing in basketball isn’t speed anyway. It’s not speed. It’s skill.”
After consecutive season-ending injuries, there’s no telling what kind of player Kobe will be entering his 19th season in the league. Although Kobe seems confident that he’ll return to form as an elite NBA player, while admitting he’ll have to change things up, the odds are against him to continue playing at a high level next season.
Heading into the 2014-15 NBA season, the consensus seems to be that the Lakers will be one of the worst teams in the Western Conference. Only time will tell if Los Angeles can truly contend in the West, but the odds are definitely not in the team’s favor with the start of the season right around the corner.
source: http://www.lakersnation.com/kobe-bryant-says-skill-is-most-important-thing-in-basketball/2014/09/03/
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