<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">DALLAS ? The man who never passed up an open shot turning into the man who never passes up an open teammate? It will never last, the Kobe Bryant doubters said. Wait until those teammates start missing their shots. Wait until Bryant starts missing his name among the league's scoring leaders. Wait until the Lakers struggle. When the team lost Lamar Odom and Kwame Brown to injuries last month, surely Bryant's transformation would end. But it hasn't. Compared with last season, he is taking fewer shots a game (19.7 compared with 27.2 a year ago), making a higher percentage (47.5% to 45%) and averaging more assists (5.6, up from 4.5). And with the halfway point of the season nearly here, doubters are becoming supporters. In Thursday's Dallas Morning News, columnist Tim Cowlishaw named Bryant as his second choice for league most valuable player, right behind Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks with two-time winner Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns third. Cowlishaw called Bryant's switch to playmaker "staggering." Lakers Coach Phil Jackson didn't dispute the MVP analysis. "I'd certainly put Dirk out there," Jackson said. "It's hard to throw your own player's name out there, but Kobe's having a really fine season. Everybody thinks Nash is having another great year. His play for Phoenix is contagious." While Bryant has sustained his team play over a longer period than ever before, Jackson said it's not the first team he has seen this side of Bryant's game. He pointed to the end of the 2000-2001 season. "He was absolutely terrific," Jackson said. "At that time, we saw the potential of what he could do."</div> Source
i think that a big part of these assists is, that other Laker players have improved, they can shoot pretty good and when i look at box scores, they have usually at least 4 players in double-figures, thats nice cause it shows they great teamwork. And Kobe is the man who leads them. Gratz to Kobe. I want Kobe to be MVP.
Yeah Steve Nash is having another great season. But his assist comes with the fact that he plays with Athletic players, players who can flash, and dunk anything time they want. Place Steve Nash in another team and do you think he'll be succesful? I dont think so. Why do you think he never won MVP when he played with Dallas, or the first time he was the Suns. That's because he didnt have athletic guys that made him look good. Now everyone is impress but Steve Nash has been the same player all along. It jus that now he has way better athletic players. Place Kobe with Suns, the SUns will be unbeatable. Place Steve Nash with Lakers I dought he'll have the a great record.
Kobe would have even more assists. But when I watch Lakers games. It's often like Kobe makes a triple pentetration, then comes the helpside defense. Kobe passes (for example) to wide-open Walton, but then Sasha's defender runs at Walton so Walton passes the ball to wide-open Vujacic (who buries it) ! ;D But he sure is a better this season and his passing has given confidence to other players. I mean Odom, Walton, Vujacic, Cook, Radman - they all can hit the wide-open shots now. We could see MANYYY chokes on wide-open shots by some of those players last year. Just watched the pretty old Lakers-Mavs game, Lakers had a nice lead in the 1st quarter but from 2nd til the start of the 4th they were down, but then Kobe took over and Vujacic made a huge 3-pointer. Vujacic had a career-best 16 points with shooting 4/5 from downtown or something. Walton is a very smart player and he also made a nice circus and-one shot. One of the most important plays of the game was Smush's block on Terry in the last seconds. He came out of nowhere !;D Okay, a lil' bit of OT, but I just couldn't handle my positive feelings after that game. And again, KOBE FOR THE MVP.
