Russell quickly apologized for his rookie mistake. Such is the draw of what could be the Kobe Bryant farewell tour. While last year’s matchup was way less anti-climatic than those early battles between the two, expect this year’s to be a little more competitive if Bryant is healthy. Silver delivered with a schedule that reduced back-to-backs to an all-time low average of 17.8 per team – 1.5 fewer than last season – while ensuring that no team plays more than 20 games on consecutive nights.
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Between 2005 and 2008, we would see the best of what Kobe had to offer. His first game comes against an old rival in Kevin Garnett, and one of the NBA’s most intriguing wing prospects, Andrew Wiggins. Because of that he’ll have to stay as aggressive as possible when he gets his minutes.
“How quickly can we get going?” In addition, he was the NBA’s scoring champion twice. While the Los Angeles Lakers may not give Brown more playing time than Jordan Clarkson, Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell, the point guard for the Dongguan Leopards of the Chinese Basketball Association could prove to be quite beneficial to the NBA team in terms of his experience.
While there is no doubt that Kobe can play the four spot against smaller opponents, there are serious question marks about whether the move would make sense at this point in his career.
There will be plenty of intrigue in the first two weeks, during which the Clippers play the Mavericks twice, including a November 11 visit to Dallas where a scored Mavericks fan base will undoubtedly voice its contempt for Jordan after the Clippers center rescinded his commitment to sign with the Mavericks in July. It’s hard not to, though, considering the expiration date on his contract is the only thing concrete in his future. It’s really tough to make those types of decisions. This ship might be preparing to sail through the murky 82-game journey one last time.
There are also a number of other teams that Los Angeles will have to compete with to get into the playoffs such as the Memphis Grizzlies, Dallas Mavericks, Utah Jazz, and Phoenix Suns. Kobe will be spent if he to guard bigs like that.
All this talk of retirement could just as easily be for naught, too.
The Lakers will be featured in 19 primetime games in what could be Kobe Bryant’s final season. Hopefully, they had their fun because it will not be long before they have to take the court against some of these players.
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But with the youth movement in full effect, the Lakers are rumored to be looking to Team USA for more veteran help.
