mighty hounds wrote:explain more Gozu? What do you mean
Well it was common knowledge Kobe clashed with Shaq, Phil Jackson & Payton during that season. Kobe was going to be out of contract at the end of that season and he knew he was more important to the Lakers future than Shaq, Phil and the rest were. Phil was also out of contract (Kobe didn't want him to re-sign).
Kobe (as an impending free agent) knew if the Lakers won that series against Detroit it would be pretty hard not to bring a championship team back the following season for another run which I contend is why he hogged the ball so badly in that series, jacking up brick after brick and pretty much refused to pass the ball inside to Shaq. What feeds he got came from Fisher & Payton but was very underutilised in his clear mis-match against the much smaller Ben Wallace. Those three games in Detroit (Games 3,4 & 5) especially was where I thought Kobe was intentionally trying to shoot the team out of it.
What happened after that loss? Shaq got traded to Miami, the very next day Kobe re-signed with the Lakers, Phil wasn't re-signed (and went on to call Kobe 'uncoachable' in his book after that season), Payton was traded (a close friend of Shaq's and berated Kobe in practice during that season) and Karl Malone (also close with Shaq & Payton) sat out the first half of the following season considering retirement, then announced he was going to re-sign with the Lakers only for Kobe to then publicly accuse him of making advances at Kobe's wife so Malone didn't come back and went into retirement.
Kobe the impending free-agent had the decks cleared as he wanted the Lakers to be his team and his team only (career high scoring average the followiing season, new coach Rudy T couldn't handle him took up drinking again and walked out halfway through that season despite being on a 5 year deal never to coach in the NBA again and the team went on to miss the playoffs that year) which is why he made sure they lost that 2004 Finals series against Detroit.
"The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment" – Warren Bennis