Bryant Not Yet His Old Self

<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">EL SEGUNDO - Having taken only three shots in the first half of Sunday's game, Kobe Bryant came out for the third quarter determined to change things.

The Lakers were trailing Seattle 57-49 when Bryant posted up Ray Allen and caught the ball in one of his favorite spots on the floor.

He scored hundreds of points last season on identical turnaround jumpers, but this time Bryant's shot rimmed out from 11 feet.

Although he did knock down two other jumpers in the first two minutes of the second half, Bryant is far from being able to take over games as he plays his way back from knee surgery.

"I've still got to get my legs underneath me to be able to get the balance that I need to get the ball up pretty quickly," Bryant said. "I'm still having to kind of measure up my shot instead of coming off and catching and shooting."

The 15 points Bryant finished with Sunday were half as many as he scored in one quarter against the Dallas Mavericks last season. He took only 10 shots in Sunday's game, and Lakers coach Phil Jackson has no illusions that Bryant can fully assert himself.

"I don't think so," Jackson said. "He's tried to do some things that have been very effective, but I don't think for a sustained period of time he can do it. His turnaround jump shot is a little bit flat. I think his 3-point shooting's a little bit iffy.

"We'd just as soon not have to get ourselves in that position right now because we're playing such good team ball that we don't want to have to get in position where we start deferring and then our offense starts jamming up."

As long as he is on the floor, Bryant will command the attention of defenses. He had five assists in the first quarter Sunday, dropping passes to center Andrew Bynum for dunks and finding the likes of Lamar Odom and Smush Parker for open 3-pointers.

Jackson said he wasn't going to describe Bryant as "a shadow of himself, but he still has quite a ways to go until he's the ballplayer that we're used to seeing at both ends of the court."

For the time being, Bryant will continue to play a game based more on passing than scoring.

"That'll come just as my legs better and my rhythm gets better," Bryant said. "Then I'll start attacking a little bit more, being able to catch and shoot and things like that. But picking apart defenses is something that we pride ourselves on doing." </div>

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I'm getting a feeling that Kobe isn't going to have an offensive season like last year, which is perfectly fine, I prefer him the way he is right now (25, 6, and 7) over the (35, 4, and 4), but he's going to catch a lot of flack and his offense this year is going to be compared to last year's by the media and they're going to shred him.