Kobe Needs to Hold Off His Ego

By Ryan Raigrodski 

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Steve Nash and Dwight Howard. One is one of the best point guards of all time and the other dominates the post as the best center in the league. Acquiring one in an offseason would greatly improve a team, but acquiring both should make that team a top contender for the NBA title. There is potentially one thing that could stop them from achieving that goal, however, and that’s Kobe’s ego.

AP Photo/ Elise Amendola

Kobe Bryant unquestionably reigns as one of the top players to ever play the game of basketball. But his play has begun to decline in recent seasons. Last year, Kobe led the league with 1,336 field goal attempts, most in the league, but was ranked 77^th in the league in field goal percentage, shooting 43% from the field.

Right now, he takes too many shots because he thinks it is “his team.” Even with the addition of Dwight Howard, Kobe still believes this.

“I got a question earlier about whose team this is,” Kobe said to the LA Times. “It’s my team.”

The issue is, at this point in his career, Kobe is not the best player on his team. That honor belongs to Dwight Howard. Although he missed time last year with a back injury, Dwight has resided as the best center in the league for the past few seasons, winning defensive player of the year three of the past four seasons and being First Team All-NBA since 2008.

At least publicly, however, Dwight is attempting to say all the right things.

"Learning from Kobe I think this is something that I need for myself so I can grow as a player and as a person," Howard said to the LA Times. "He’s been through almost every single situation possible on the court and off the court, and I think he can really help me out a lot."

To realize how the dynamic between Kobe and Dwight could be an issue, all one needs to do is look back to the end of the 2004 season, where Kobe convinced the Lakers to fire Phil Jackson and trade dominant center Shaquille O’Neal because he wanted it to be “his team.” This caused the Lakers team to struggle for several years. Also, even playing with Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum this season, Kobe was very unwilling at times to pass the ball and caused the Lakers not to perform to their highest ability. If the Lakers are going to win a championship this year, and if Kobe wants to end his career on a high note, he needs to realize it doesn’t matter whose “team” it is, but everyone plays for the same team and has the same goal.