Pau Gasol got a little loose-lipped to a Spanish radio station after the Lakers loss to the lowly Washington Wizards this week. It wasn’t just that the Lakers lost the game, but more ‘how’ they lost the game that sparked Gasol to take his opinions on the matter to the Spanish press…
(There is) lack of concentration, overconfidence and a certain level of selfishness, in general. I’m not a person or a selfish player, but we have to move the ball more, and we have to look further the team game, because we have enough talent to use different players,” said an upset Gasol to the Catalan public radio.
And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, when Gasol says ‘we’ in the above quote he means ‘Kobe’ needs to move the ball more. Normally its tough to support a player who takes a team’s dirty laundry to the media, but given Kobe’s shot happy play of late, it’s tough not to sympathize with Gasol.
During the Lakers loss to the Wizards Wednesday night, Kobe Bryant shot a mere 9-31 from the field. That’s right, he shot 31 times in 40 minutes of play. But the kicker? Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum shot only 19 shots combined during the game. That’s right, Kobe missed more shots than his two All-star caliber big men shot total during the game. Of the shots that Bynum and Gasol did shoot they were both shooting over 50% from the field.
Theoretically, if Kobe would have passed up a few of his shots in favor of feeding the big men in the posts, the Lakers likely would have handily beat the Wizards.
I’m not sure what spells worse news for the Lakers, Kobe’s trigger happy play, or the chemistry issues that are going to result from Gasol opening up about his feelings to the media.
[H/T to BDL for the Quote Translation]
