With the Los Angeles Lakers currently sitting in last place in the Western Conference, Kobe Bryant has revealed he is open to providing advice to those in charge of the struggling franchise.
In an interview last Friday with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN Radio (h/t William Lou of the Score), the five-time NBA champion said he is available to provide input to the front office should it seek his opinions:
“I’m always around behind the scenes for Jeanie, Jimmy, and the entire Buss family if they need assistance or if it be to reach out or call for advice and things of that nature,” Bryant said. “Now, being front and center about it, it’s not something that is really my cup of tea. I’d rather be behind the scenes and focus on the content I’m creating because that’s where my passion truly lies, but the Buss family knows that I’m always a phone call away.”
The Lakers are just 16-32 under first-year head coach Luke Walton, but Bryant expressed his belief that Walton is doing well and still in the midst of instituting his system:
“I think Luke is doing a fine job,” Bryant said. “It’s tough because you have to teach players how to play within a structure, and within that structure you have a myriad of options that you must be able to recognize and take advantage of. If one player is taking advantage of them, the other four on the floor must understand where their opportunity is and they can read and react accordingly. It’s very difficult to teach that to a group of young guys so fast, so I think patience is the key word here.”
Walton and Bryant played together from 2003 through 2012 with the Lakers and experienced a great deal of success, as they won two titles together.
Success has largely eluded the Lakers in recent years, though, as they haven’t won more than 27 games in a single season since 2012-13.
Despite the issues that are still present, L.A. is just one win shy of matching its total from the entire 2015-16 campaign, which was essentially a season-long send-off for Bryant.
Young players such as Julius Randle, D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson and Brandon Ingram remain in the developmental stages, but they are providing hope that a winning foundation is finally in place.
There is nothing Bryant can do any longer from an on-court perspective to speed up the process, but there could still be value in the opinions of one of the NBA’s all-time greatest players.
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