@AB LOL – Getting rebounds comes in the flow of the game. Rebounding you don’t really have a choice, unless you’re Brook Lopez. For the good of the team, players in position to rebound should rebound. Theoretically, every player is in position to score but as you very well know, you can take good shots or bad shots. Taking a bunch of bad shots and making them doesn’t make them good shots.

If a player is looking off a better shot that makes him selfish.

I know that rebounding and scoring are fundamentally differt, but here’s my thing. At its core, basketball is made up of a few simple components: rebounding, playing defense, passing, dribbling, shooting. Of those components, shooting is the only one where somebody will be called selfish if they do it a lot. Shooting (and to a lesser extent, defense) is the one where we believe there should be balance on a team. How come you never hear of a player griping that he’s not getting more assists? Or that he’s not getting more rebounds? Why is shooting any more important and more glorified than those other elements?

(I know the answers — at least I think I know — but I’m just playing Devil’s advocate and seeing what others think.)

Or look at it this way: When the Heat constructed their team, the biggest question was “Can LeBron, Wade and Bosh stay happy while not getting as many shots as they used to?”

Was anybody concerned that Bosh might be unhappy not getting as many rebounds as he used to? Was anybody worried about Wade being unhappy that he might not get as many assists? Why was scoring the only area of concern?

Same goes for any loaded team. We all assume Pau Gasol won’t be happy if he doesn’t get X-amount of shots. But why is nobody writing articles about how Pau reacts when Bynum “hogs” all the rebounds?

@ Ian

Sure Gasol was Finals MVP last Finals lol SURE

Once again.. i cant blame you as a Spurs fan.. Kobe has literally ripped ur hearts through your asses more than once.. and way worst than Shaq ever did..

So i guess Robin had his way with you??? and u could say that he has had his way with you FOR ALL THESE YEARS lol so like i said.. i feel your hate..

Too bad u just cant respect it like i respect Timmay..

“He was his teams primary playmaker, perimeter defender and closer. That is a lot of things to do and he also was putting up 28 PPG. He was playing some of the best basketball of his career. He had a fro.”

Naaaaaahhhhh but he was REPLACEABLE for surely!

I mean you couldve PLUGGED anyone in there and they wouldve been just as clutch and played just as solid defense..

Just sayin

@Mt. Pleasant — Actually, there is such a thing as a selfish assist. I actually interviewed Steve Nash one time and asked him about it, and if I recall (it was a few years ago) he said something about some guys trying to rack up assists outside of the flow of the game just to get stats.

I’ve personally seen players go into a game saying, “I’m going to get X-amount assists today” or promising to break an assist record for a certain game. (Usually it’s in an All-Star setting.) Now if you heard a guy say, “I’m going to score 40 tonight” or promise to break a single-game scoring record, and during the game he’s clearly jacking up shots in an attempt to get that record outside of the flow of the game, wouldn’t you say he was being selfish?

It’s like if I got up in the morning and said, “I’m going to do 10 good deeds today.” Sure, my good deeds are ultimately helping other people, but if my goal is to hit a certain number, at what point am I doing it more for myself?

That whole Batman Robin comparison shit is another way for haters to have something on the man..

Because seriously people so quick to point it out its ridiculous lmao

I never heard ANYONE call McHale, Pippen or anyone else for that matter “Robin”..

So if there HAS to be CLEAR CUT number ONE

Who was Robin when Kareem and Magic played together??? who would you call Worthy????

That shit is retarded lmao

Save the comic book characters for the comics children

@Austin

Sure people pad assist stats. But its less selfish than a shot attempt, and no one talks about it because its rare and because passing is unselfish by nature. If I get an assist to pad my stats its still two points and someone else was involved in the play. A shot attempt is not necessarily two points and doesn’t involve any teammates.

And if you don’t want the pass, you can always pass it back.

@Stunna
What can I say? I’m speechless. Lol. Greatest all time?? That’s crazy talk.

@AB
I averaged just over 6 stls in my senior year in high school. Growing up, my 2nd coach trained me to think “selfish”, as he called it. He was a defense first coach, and instructed me to want to steal the opponents spotlight, and the spotlight is always on offense. So when I played, I gave my all defensively. He’s said that every time the opponent passed the ball, think the ball was mine… when they dribbled the ball, think it was mine for the taking. So I was trained to think “selfish”… mine, mine, mine. It was a personal thing to motivate me but in the grand scheme of things, my selfish mindset wasn’t selfish at all because it didn’t take away from what my teammates were trying to do… UNLESS I gambled and took myself out of defensive position.

Now to draw parallels to shooting…
The sheer number of shots isn’t the issue. It’s the number of bad, forced shots taken outside the flow of the offense. If he takes 30 good shots, that’s fine. Once he starts shooting when there are better shots for his teammates, then there’s a problem. Likewise, if I got 8 steals in one game and played good D, then I’m the man. If I got 3 steals but gambled 11 times and my teammates had to shift to cover my mistakes, then I was selfish.

My point is, if you try to “get yours” at the expense of the team, then that’s being selfish. You bring up K. Love. He takes himself out of defensive position early, so that he can get into good rebounding position. So in a way he IS being selfish. Ain’t nobody going to call Love a selfish rebounder, but I guess I just did. Play defense you fat fuck!

OK, enough nit-picking about Kobe. Yes, he sometimes takes more shots than you’d prefer, but sometimes that same mentality allows him to pull the Lakers out of the fire. The man is one of the greatest players of all-time obviously, though he’s not as superhero-like as he’s hyped up to be. Who cares if he was or wasn’t always the best player on his team? The list of players who can touch his career accomplishments is short.

ANYWAY, what’s up with the NCAA title game tonight? Who are you guys pulling for? What is going to decide the game?

Ohhhh shit. Here they come.

Lakers lose. Heat win. Spurs win. Nuggets win. Knicks win. And what do they all wanna talk about? Lol some of you haters are funny. When the Lakers win, you don’t hear Laker fans cryin about what other teams need to do, but when a 5 time champion loses one game, they come out of the woodwork like cockroaches.
I’m readin some dude who posts under ‘beiber news’ gettin upset cuz a fellow Laker fan says “Oh well, you can’t win them all” lol. In 2 months, nobody will remember Denver got one in LA, but ‘beiber news’ wanna dwell on that.
I gotta read some dude callin Gasol soft cuz ALL his weight came down on a knee and ankle, which THANK GOD didn’t snap on a foul.

Let’s be real for two secs. If Andrew Bynum doesn’t tweak his knee and Phil didn’t hold him out for precautionary reasons (cuz, you know, it’s a game in April….), K-Mart ain’t sniffin that tip in; Nuggets ain’t gettin that win. Point blank. This team is 16-2 since the all-star break with two losses to 2 good teams that came down to the wire and ladies wanna bitch about Kobe’s shot selection.
Why you all had nothin to say when we smacked down the Spurs and Mavs by 30??? See how weak it lookin?

I’ll be honest. I want the Spurs in 1st. I just want a better record than Chicago. I would rather face the Mavs in the 2nd round than the Thunder…

Lakers, baby! Still better than your squad in a 7 game series!

@ Ian

See that’s your hater goggles right there. I don’t mind if you hate but hate reasonable

Smush, Kobe, Luke Walton, Odom and Kwame with Brian Cook, Devean George and Chucky Atkins on the bench. I don’t care who you put in there instead of Kobe. Replace Kobe with Reggie Miller, Clyde Drexler, Ginobili, or for all I care even Magic, Stockton or any other all timer. That roster isn’t beating the 1st or 2nd seed in the West.

dizzle
hehe i want 1 cuz i rather play the thunder than the mavs
funny thing how everyone assumes denver will fold

@AB

Having an NCAA party tonight so I’m mildly excited for that. I kind of want Butler to win since they lost last year and losing two years in a row is something I wish for no team (cept Duke) but gotta go with my boy Kemba. I picked UConn to win it all in my bracket (though I had them beating Kansas )

To me the Finals comes down to who can basically stop who. Shelvin Mack has been close to Kemba in terms of dominance lately so it should be an interesting game.

My only worry is UConn dominate and some team ends up taking Kemba too high (he is a borderline lottery pick to me) and ends up regretting it.

Hoping for a good game though, UConn 63 Butler 55 Kemba Walker MOP

I understand the “Lakers were due for a loss” talk (although no player on any team would ever say that BEFORE a game); what annoys me is when L.A. fans come up after every loss like, “Oh, we weren’t even playing our hardest” or “Well, that game meant more to them than it did to us.”

It’s OK to admit that your team just got beat by a team that was better that day. Plus, that “We didn’t play our hardest/game wasn’t that important to us” mantra goes against everything we’ve been told about Kobe (your team leader) for the last 10 years. If he’s SO focused and SO relentless and his “will to win” is SO great, why would he go into a national TV, big-time game and not play his hardest? Why would he allow his team to lose focus so often?

@AB

Don’t think on it, its just one of those things that is what it is.

Or do you seriously buy Kobe’s machine like intensity the way the media portray it?

@ StunnaBoy

That was in the East.. and that only happened because a player went off to the tune of 25 straight points and no one decided to send a double team his way

JUST SAYIN

@ AB

Ill admit we lost yesterday.. not much to say about it.. Except we hate Sundays.. what can you do??? lol

@ Austin

I’m not gonna lie. All I knew was UConn, Tennessee, Stanford and Baylor. Now that all four are out, my knowlegde on the Final 2 is weak at best. Who’s favoured?

@ Ian – I feel like denver catchin teams nappin now cuz everybody assumed they would suck now that Melo is gone, but they so ridiculously deep now, they gonna be a problem. yesterday, they didn’t even have Birdman or Afflalo. Their problem is gonna be that once the playoffs come around, teams are gonna gameplan for you. They’ll watch tape and take away their strengths. You already saw it yesterday that they couldn’t play Lawson and Felton together cuz Kobe got a postgame. When Lakers go big with Lamar at the point and Kobe at the 2 with Barnes, Pau and Bynum, Nuggets lose one of their best lineups. I like em tho. They should take OKC 7 and soften them up for us lol

shit dizzle when the lakers go big every damn team in the nba losses their best everything.

“Jeff Van Gundy said that he thinks Lawson is as good a fast-break passer as anyone. Jeff, have you ever heard of Rajon Rondo? Or Steve Nash?”

Why even ask about Rondo or Nash? It’s not like he said he was the best, he said “AS GOOD a fast-break passer AS ANYONE.” I don’t get it?

@ AB

you can blame the media for the fans obsession with scoring (ESPN!)

Definitely would love to see the Nuggets advance deeper than they did with Melo. That shit needs to happen.

um sh!tface, are u asking to see the nuggets in the nba finals? cuz thats never happening, at least no time soon. dum bitter hater