Roundtable: Peering into the crystal ball for Kobe Bryant in 2015-16
Our NBA crew -- Jovan Buha, D.J. Foster, Fred Katz, Andrew Lynch, Michael Pina and Brett Pollakoff -- answers six questions about how Kobe Bryant will fare in 2015-16.
1. Over/under: 60 games played for Kobe Bryant this season.
Jovan Buha: Under, but barely. Bryant has played only 41 games over the past two seasons, so one can assume he's going to be champing at the bit to play as much as he can in what's possibly his final season. The Lakers will probably rest him on some back-to-backs and in any other grueling parts of the schedule, but I doubt he agrees to sit out more than 25 games (barring another major injury).
D.J. Foster: Under. It seems unlikely he plays in any back-to-back games this season, and the Lakers have 18 of those on their schedule. That takes him down to 64 games. Factor in even a few minor injuries or rest games, and he's below 60 fairly easily. The Lakers are going to play it safe whenever possible.
Fred Katz: Under. Kobe has played exactly one-quarter of possible games (41) over the past two seasons. One more year on those knees and that Achilles doesn't necessarily make 60 games played an encouraging prospect for someone who really fell off in the 35 he participated in last season.
Andrew Lynch: Under, but only just. After a couple years where injuries robbed him of any meaningful number of games and demonstrated just how deep into the twilight of his career Bryant is, I'm optimistic he can bounce back this season. There'll be more talent around him than in years past, which will take the load off a little bit. And what are the odds he suffers a major injury for a third consecutive season?
Michael Pina: Under. In 2012-13, Bryant scaled the 3,000-minute wall and jacked up more shots than any player in the NBA. That feels like one million years ago. Thanks to a torn Achilles, fractured knee and shredded rotator cuff, he played only 1,384 combined minutes over the past two seasons. It's not unprecedented for a 37-year-old to find success, but the injuries in Bryant's immediate rearview mirror can't be ignored; more than 50,000 minutes of action over the past 19 years have turned his body into an especially tense game of Jenga.
Brett Pollakoff: This seems like an irrationally high place to start, considering the fact Bryant has been limited to just 41 games over the last two seasons due to injury. I'm not confident his body can hold up to the rigors of the NBA season any longer, but if this is going to be his final year in the league as is widely expected, I imagine he'll try to play as much as possible. I'll say under 60, but I don't think 50 is completely out of the question.
2. Buy or sell: Kobe Bryant will average at least 20 points per game this season.
Buha: Buy. However, this will be closer than most think. Byron Scott is going to yield to his star's wishes and play Bryant as much as he wants (like he did last season), so Bryant should be logging enough minutes to average close to 20 points, regardless of his inefficiency. At the same time, the Lakers have plenty of offensive options -- Jordan Clarkson, D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle, Lou Williams, Nick Young -- who can lessen the burden on Bryant, and I expect him to take more of a backseat offensively than he ever has.
Foster: Buy. Look, Kobe is always going to get his shots. In 35 games last year, Bryant shot 20 times a game ... even though he was a 37.3 percent shooter. If he averaged 22.3 points a night coming off an Achilles tear, he's a good bet to hit that plateau again with a cleaner bill of health.
Katz: Buy. Who's going to stop him from doing it? Bryant averaged 22.3 points per game last year whilst putting up some of the least-efficient scoring numbers we've seen from a volume shooter in years. All he has to do is shoot a little better than the 37 percent from the field or 29 percent from three he did a season ago, and he'll be well on his way to another 20-point-per-game season.
Lynch: Buy. Even when he's been injured, Bryant has managed 20 points per game. If he wants to reach that plateau, or if he thinks it's necessary that he score that much for the team to win, then that's what he'll do. The only thing that might slow Bryant would be a conscious decision that he needs to get others more involved.
Pina: Sell. This question was soooo not easy to answer. It's not that Bryant isn't capable of smashing a 31-point sledgehammer into Minnesota's windshield on a Tuesday night in February -- he averaged 22.3 points in 35 games last year -- but wear and tear throughout an entire season is more than likely to show its face. Los Angeles also has too many mouths to feed. Forget about D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and Jordan Clarkson -- three bushy-tailed beams of light to help guide the purple and gold into its post-Kobe era -- and feast your eyes on that made-for-reality-television Lou Williams and Nick Young backcourt. Neither has peripheral vision, and both were born to shoot while ignoring open teammates. Pass them the ball and you'll never see it again. (Plus, Roy Hibbert and Brandon Bass need to eat every once in a while, too.)
Pollakoff: Buy. This question is as much about health as anything , because when you look at the roster, it's tough to see Bryant choosing to facilitate very much by deferring to his teammates. Now that he's passed Michael Jordan on the NBA's all-time scoring list, I don't expect him to be in the same full-blown gunner mode we saw last season, but I still believe he'll take the bulk of the shots when he's on the floor. So, as long as he shoots closer to his career average of 45.1 percent instead of the career-low 37.3 percent he managed last season, averaging 20 points per contest should be well within reason.
3. Over/under: Kobe will log 10 percent of his minutes as a small-ball power forward.
Buha: Over, though I think the idea is terrible. The Lakers have enough depth inside -- Roy Hibbert, Julius Randle, Brandon Bass, Tarik Black, Ryan Kelly -- to find a combined 96 minutes for the two big man positions. The issue is that once Byron Scott has his mind set on an idea, he generally sticks with it. Bryant is no longer fit to defend quick, athletic wings, so the move to small forward makes sense. But playing power forward is a whole other beast and could work only against stretch 4s who can't post up and/or super-small lineups. I don't see it as a viable option.
Foster: Over. Roy Hibbert has never averaged more than 30 minutes a night in his career, so the Lakers should slide Julius Randle or Brandon Bass over to the 5 pretty often. That would shift Bryant down to the 4, where he should hold his own just fine if teams foolishly try to attack him in the post. He can bang better than he can move these days.
Katz: You know what? I'm taking the over, and you can't stop me. People met Byron Scott (who is hardly the best coach in the world) with loads of criticism when he floated this idea a few months ago, but isn't it just a tad hypocritical for a crowd to bash Scott for promoting scrunched offensive schemes and then to turn around and lament his existence when he comes up with an unconventional way to try spreading the floor? Maybe it won't work, but on a Lakers team that has tons of flaws and needs to run into some unexpected fortune to win games, using Kobe at the 4 is worth a try. Why not?
Lynch: Under. There'll be a rash of said minutes in the early season as Byron Scott sees how well it works. But the Lakers don't really have anyone who can play small forward offensively then slide over to defend bigger forwards and take the stress off of Bryant. It's something the Lakers will only be able to use if the other team is super-small.
Pina: Over. I guess the real question here is: Does it matter? To which the answer is "not really." But for the sake of argument, it makes sense for Bryant to close his career playing up a position (or two). He hasn't been able to stay in front of primary or secondary ball-handlers in, like, four years, and chasing guards around screens could do more physical harm than sticking to a non-shooter and dancing in the paint. Most teams won't bother testing Kobe in the post, but the trickle-down effect would disrupt L.A's most logical rotation. What's best for Bryant is no longer best for the team, but Byron Scott doesn't know that yet.
Pollakoff: Over. Maybe. Because 10 percent of Bryant's minutes translates to only around three per game or less, it's not a very high threshold to hit. But with Roy Hibbert, Julius Randle, Brandon Bass and Larry Nance Jr. all in place, it seems like there will be enough bigs to fill that four-spot without Bryant having to spend too much time in the post.
4. Does any NBA player use social media more efficiently than Bryant?
Buha: No. Kobe has consistently put up 50-40-90 seasons on Twitter since he joined in early 2013. Basically any time he tweets it gets picked up by every major sports outlet and becomes a trending topic. He doesn't overdo it, picking his sports wisely -- essentially the opposite of his offensive approach on the hardwood.
Foster: This feels like a trap to call Kobe efficient and be quoted out of context, so I'm not falling for it. Joel Embiid's dogged pursuit of a date with Rihanna probably isn't what you would describe as efficient tweeting, but if it ends in a date with Rihanna, he wins. You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take, or something.
Katz: No. Definitely not. Ekpe Udoh is funny but tweets a little too often about his book club (and is no longer an NBA player). Kendall Marshall, J.R. Smith and JaVale McGee are volume tweeters.
Kobe Bryant, the Kyle Korver of Twitter.
Lynch: No, because Bryant's social media usage is the exact opposite of his late-career approach to shooting the basketball. Twitter Kobe picks his spots, makes the most of his opportunities and lets the masses fill in the gaps. Although he hasn't used emojis to call someone a snake in the grass, which is pretty social-media savvy.
Pina: Probably not. Bryant's Twitter and Instagram accounts double as a content-creating factory. It's highly entertaining, especially when he makes teammates delete their opinions.
Pollakoff: Only LeBron James comes close. Bryant tweets so infrequently that whatever he does choose to put out there gets picked up by every major sports news website, making his batting average nearly a thousand.
5. Can the Lakers properly rebuild and reload with Bryant still in the fold, or do they have to wait until he retires?
Buha: The Lakers are already rebuilding, but how's that going? They have some nice young pieces -- Russell, Julius Randle, Clarkson -- but it's unclear if any of those are franchise cornerstones yet. Bryant's mammoth salary and me-first attitude has pushed away star free agents. Though the Lakers can rebuild with Bryant, I don't see them rising to contention until he retires.
Foster: The Lakers already are rebuilding! D'Angelo Russell and Julius Randle are two top picks on the roster, and Mitch Kupchak scooped up another first-round pick last year (which turned into Larry Nance, Jr.) in a classic rebuilding move by absorbing Jeremy Lin's salary.
Katz: That all depends on Kobe's future contract. If he takes on the same mentality he has in the past -- that he'll try to make as much money as he possibly can -- then probably not. You can't build around Bryant, whose contract runs out next summer, at 37 years old. But if he takes a discount and allows the Lakers to bring in loads of pieces while he takes a back seat, then sure.
Lynch: The rebuild has already started; a team doesn't often get the No. 2 pick without being in the middle of one. And the Lakers front office seems steeled against Bryant's inclinations to win now. At this point, he has two choices: fall in line and help the young guys be the best they can be or go elsewhere.
Pina: As Bryant's contract mercifully nears an end, two questions need an answer -- assuming this isn't his final season. Is he willing to take (a lot) less money on the next deal? And will he accept a dramatically reduced role? The Lakers won't be respectable until either both answers are yes, or Bryant hangs them up for good.
Pollakoff: The Lakers aren't as hamstrung from a salary cap perspective because of Bryant's contract as the team's detractors would lead you to believe. The bigger problem has been moving forward each summer with the plan of trying to land the top free agent(s) available, even though the chances of that happening have been long shots, at best. While L.A. waits for decisions from the top-level players who were always unlikely to go their way, the second-tier guys get snatched up by other teams as the Lakers sit on their available salary cap space. Adding some mid-level talent and improving incrementally in the win column would be a better way to go because it would show star players that a plan is in place and that things are heading in the right direction, which would make L.A. a more desirable destination. The team's position near the bottom of the league-wide standings matters far more to prospective free agents than does Bryant's place on the team and his supposed unwillingness to relinquish his alpha-dog status.
6. What is your favorite memory of Kobe Bryant?
Buha: There are far too many to choose from, but if I had to pick one that really stands out in my head, it'd probably be Kobe's ridiculous pair of 3-pointers against the Portland Trail Blazers that sent the game into overtime and then won it -- the final game of the 2003-04 season -- which gave the Lakers the Pacific Division crown and ultimately helped them make The Finals. The magnitude of difficulty on those 3s was mind-numbing, yet Bryant somehow found a way to get up a clean look and knock them down (the trend of his career). The fact that it also came against Ruben Patterson, the so-called "Kobe stopper," didn't hurt either.
Foster: It feels silly choosing this given all of Bryant's incredible playoff performances, but my personal favorite Kobe moment is when Matt Barnes pretended to throw an inbounds pass right at his face, and Kobe didn't flinch a muscle. That's how I'll remember Kobe -- he didn't back down from anyone or anything, ever.
Katz: Anything that involves Smush Parker.
Lynch: Eighty-one points, without a doubt. At his best, Bryant's scoring always seemed so effortless, and he made the Toronto Raptors look absolutely helpless on that night. And the best part was watching it all at a poker table while playing and chatting with Connie Hawkins.
Pina: The entire 2005-06 season, when Kobe was a samurai sword. It was the most polarizing segment of his brilliant career -- a black eye and a gold star. Bryant averaged 35.4 points per game -- eighth in NBA history and the most since Michael Jordan poured gasoline on the sport in 1986-87 -- with the highest usage percentage on record. It was a season for the ages and ended when a frustrated Mamba quit on the Lakers after they blew a 3-1 series lead against Steve Nash's Phoenix Suns. Dra-ma.
Pollakoff: As someone who lived in Los Angeles and had Lakers season tickets during Bryant's first three championship seasons, there are far too many to narrow down to just one. However, the one that immediately came to mind when reading this question was this bit of madness, where Bryant hit both the game-tying and game-winning shots to help the Lakers to an overtime win over the Suns in Game 4 of their 2006 playoff series.
Bonus: Over/under 26 wins for the Lakers this season?
Buha: Over, but I don't have confidence in my pick. The Lakers still project to be a bottom-fivee team defensively -- who else is an above-average defender in their rotation besides Hibbert and maybe Bass? -- and a top-12 offense at best. They're going to blow a lot of close games like they did last season. Plus, the team actually played worse when Bryant suited up last season, so those saying his return will add a few wins are probably wrong.
Foster: Over. Roy Hibbert will help a ton defensively, and there's finally some promising young talent on board. The West is brutal, but the Lakers added some proven commodities this offseason in Lou Williams and Brandon Bass. You can stumble your way to 27 wins pretty easily.
Katz: Over. But just barely. The Lakers won't be very good, and their roster doesn't make much sense, but the additions of Roy Hibbert and Lou Williams should help them rise from the franchise-worst season they had a year ago.
Lynch: Under.
Pina: Over. The Lakers won 21 games last season with Jordan Hill and Carlos Boozer as their two leading scorers. This year's team has better players. Probably.
Pollakoff: Over. The West is brutal, and Bryant's health is a real question mark. But if he plays in even half the season's games, the Lakers getting to 30-35 wins wouldn't appear to seem too far out of reach.
