Byron Scott and Kobe Bryant are orchestrating a crime against basketball in Los Angeles, and we’re all helplessly watching it unfold with mouths agape.
The Lakers’ head coach says he has no issue with his superstar guard shooting at a horrifying 33.1 percent clip from the field—according to Lord Byron, The Black Mamba has earned the right to fire away as much as he wishes, results be damned.
Your daily Byron update: he told team today that he's going to make lineup changes if he doesn't like effort tomorrow
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) November 23, 2015
This is what Byron said when @billoram asked him specifically about Kobe's shots/how that affects ball movement: pic.twitter.com/T31OzzGpEy
— Serena Winters (@SerenaWinters) November 23, 2015
The Lakers take their 2-11 horror show to Oakland tonight, as they attempt to stop the defending champion Golden State Warriors from making history.
Per the LA Daily News:
Another debilitating loss caused Lakers coach Byron Scott to stay restless. He watched tape of the Lakers’ 103-97 defeat to the Portland Trail Blazers at Staples Center. He joked, “I woke up like I had a hangover and I didn’t drink.” […] “Guys are playing one on one. We don’t have that type of team,” Scott said. “Guys have to play together. That was the thing that was keeping me up.”
Yet, Scott refused to cast blame on the most prominent Lakers player that has contributed to the poor ball movement. Kobe Bryant posted 18 points on 6-of-22 shooting. He took 10 field-goal attempts. He scored one fewer point than Jordan Clarkson, who only needed a 8-of-14 clip to reach it. This all happened despite Bryant’s insistence two days earlier that he wants to prioritize on accelerating the team’s development with ball movement instead of padding his scoring. […] Scott conceded that Bryant’s high-volume shooting “could” disrupt ball movement before defending his star player.
So instead, Scott told his team during Monday’s practice that he would make lineup changes if he continues to dislike the team’s various efforts on transition defense, setting screens, floor spacing and ball movement. […] “Some of it is getting redundant. When you have a bunch of young guys, you have to say it over and over and over. Hopefully it’ll start sticking,” Scott said. “For the last two months, I’ve been very patient on the message we need to do on both ends of the floor. Ive told them my patience has run thin. I’m going to start taking guys out. They have to get it.”
