LOS ANGELES. Frustrated by a disappointing game five loss to the Boston Celtics in which his Lakers blew a 24-point lead, superstar Kobe Bryant lit into his teammates today and challenged them to be as unselfish as he is.
"We got to play as a team so I look better!"
"I gave them the same speech I've been giving teammates since third grade CYO basketball," Bryant told reporters after emerging from a closed door meeting in which he reduced teammate Pau Gasol to tears by calling a "Eurotrash cream puff". "I told them--there may be an 'I' in team, I don't know, but there's no 'I' in Kobe."
Gasol (right): "I'm sorry I bumped into you."
Bryant is generally considered by himself to be the greatest basketball player of his generation, the equal of past greats such as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Hot Rod Hundley. He holds the career record among active NBA players for most commercials filmed in Italian (1) and biggest diamond purchased for a wife after allegations of sexual assault on a 19-year old (8 carats, $4 million).
Hot Rod Hundley: Closed course, professional basketball player. Do not attempt.
Bryant told teammates that their continued poor play would hit them where it hurts--in the pocketbook--if they didn't turn things around. "The endorsement deals you all--I mean me--will get if we lose are basically car dealerships, men's clothing store openings and non-franchise pizza places, which are chump change."
Bryant had ten assists in game five, but criticized teammates for missing open shots. "You guys gotta make those shots," Bryant yelled during one timeout. "If you don't, I don't get an assist."
LOS ANGELES. A look at the box score to Tuesday night's game 3 of the NBA finals was as revealing as the clipboard at the end of a hospital patient's bed, according to Dr. Wu Yi Lee, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital a court-length pass away from the TD Banknorth Garden. "Big Ticket has Ralph Sampson's Disease," Lee said. "He need to take it to hole."
The right way
Ralph Sampson was a number one draft pick out of the University of Virginia who was expected to transform the game when he was paired with Hakeem Olajuwon in the Houston Rockets' "Twin Towers" offense. The 7' 4" inch Sampson opted for mid-range jump shots over low-post moves, however, and never realized his potential, causing college basketball scouts to apply the name "Ralph Sampson's Disease" to a big man's phobia of driving to the basket.
World's Largest Point Guard
Garnett was fouled only twice in Game 3, four times in Game 2 and 6 times in Game 1, causing Celtics trainer Ed Lacerte to call for help from high-powered basketball pathologists at Mass General, a hospital that has treated other NBA greats for ailments such as Iverson's Rock-Retentive Syndrome, colloquially known as "Ball Hog's Disease".
Dr. Lee: "Take two Dance Team members and call me in the morning."
Garnett's long-term prognosis is good, but he is day-to-day in terms of his ability to overcome the limitations of the disease, says Lee. "He is one very lucky man," Lee said. "Medical conditions named after athletes can be fatal, like Lou Gehrig's disease, although Sampson ended up in the Spanish League with Unicaja Ronda, which merely sounds like it could kill you."
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
