Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
The Los Angeles Lakers are a mess right now. With all the injuries that the team has suffered this season, it has been a bad year for the Lakers and their fans. Now with Kobe Bryant guarding the opponent’s best player each game, it sounds to me that things aren’t going to get better.
Bryant is needed more on the offensive end than the defensive end in my opinion, and having Bryant run around at his age with much younger, faster players is only going to slow him down on offense. There is no point in doing this. It is obvious that the Lakers are old and slow; Los Angeles has a coach that wants to go up and down the court, and right now the Lakers are a team of players closer to Social Security in basketball terms than young pups. The team needs Bryant to score 30-35 points every night just to survive.
All this will blow up in the face of Mike D’Antoni sooner than later, when Bryant just doesn’t have the stamina to do this night in and night out. If it continues, the Lakers are heading down the slippery slope of completely missing the playoffs. The embarrassment of that happening for Bryant and the Lakers will be huge. There would be many changes for next season, but one fix that can be made now is if D’Antoni can get Bryant to be an offensive force only. There will be many 120-115 games along the way, but it is the only way the Lakers can survive.
Andy Schmidt is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ASchmidtSports or like his Facebook page.
