Hey Lakers, that was a real nice showing in Houston on Sunday. I truly am embarrassed for you! All I have been hearing about since the Celtics destroyed your soft weak hearted team last season and a re-newed sense of toughness and enthusiasm. I've heard about a team concept and Kobe growing up and showing that he doesn't have to score 40 a night to win. But then I watch this awful display on Sunday and have to wonder if the Lakers can even get out of the conference semi-finals.

I don't remember ever seeing a Championship contender getting rolled so badly without their top two players playing. Forget about Kendrick Perkins and Kevin Garnett bulling you last season in the Finals, you guys can't even handle Luis Scola and Chuck Hayes. For all the hype surrounding Andrew Bynam coming back and being the answer to your weak frontline, there are now even more questions in the aftermath of your game 4 efforts, or lack there of.

Pau Gasol showed once again that he is softer than a Dairy Queen ice cream and Kobe showed once again that he is in fact just a good player who has no leadership qualities. Lebron James is a leader and has every one of his players on board. They'd run through a wall for him, he's infectious, whereas Kobe is just a scorer who compliments a leader. Shaq used to be that leader and the Lakers haven't won since, and they won't win in the future.

Kobe is just a newer version of Scottie Pippen, a very good player, but not a leader. Both are followers and need someone to take charge and be the man. There is nothing wrong with that, it's just the make up of certain people. But in the Lakers case, they'll never win because Kobe will never accept being that number two guy now. He thinks he's that leader and that is why they'll never win it all.

In the Rockets game Sunday, he should have taken over and gone for 50 instead of meekly waiting for his teammates to hit their shots. Be a leader, take over when the others aren't performing. As you go, so will the team. To go down so badly to the Rockets without Yao Ming will have a lingering effect. Those type of losses aren't the kind you can just toss to the side and forget about. Not only will it linger in the minds of each Laker player, but it will also give confidence to their opponents. Should they get by the Rockets in this series, The Nuggets will be waiting with a world of confidence led by their leader, a bonafide NBA champion leader in Chauncey Billups.