Kobe Means Business

Kobe now has 4 (and counting?) straight 40+ point games (3 wins).  Has he found the fountain of youth?  Is he hogging the ball more?  How about all that, and then some. 

From what I can tell it's a perfect storm of things.  The first thing attributing to the cause is due to the lack of bench.  Now, the last few years the bench, minus Odom, hasn't been that great anyway.  However, this bench is all on the injured list.  Kapono, McRoberts, Barnes, Murphy, now Steve Blake have all missed game(s) within the past few weeks.  Even Gasol is banged up. 

The loss of Odom also puts more ball handling duties on Kobe.  Let's face it, if Odom was in the game, 99% of the time he was bringing the ball up the floor.  So, since Kobe now shares it with Fisher exclusively, he would theoretically have the ball in his hands more, thus meaning (for him anyway)to shoot more.  (The fact that Blake is now out for a month, only puts the ball in his hands that much more, because let's face it, Fisher usually only brings the ball up at the beginning of games.) 

Another contributing factor is new offensive scheme.  Mike Brown is known as a "defensive-oriented" coach.  On the offensive end he is known to be a "Let my star player run the show" kind of coach(See: James, LeBron in Cleveland).  It's no wonder that he is shooting the most shots since the '05-'06 season, the very same year he dropped 81 on the Raptors.  Keep in mind his field goal percentage is higher than it's been the last 3 seasons, so at least he's being more productive with those shots than in previous seasons. 

Kobe also received a state of the art, new age, whatever you want to call it, surgery on his bad knee this past summer, and he says he feels like a new man.  Well thus far, that statement is proving to be accurate. 

Rest is also playing a huge role.  Obviously this season is jam-packed, but the Lakers didn't play into June last year, like they did the previous three seasons.  Kobe also didn't play in the Olympics or FIBA like previous seasons, and the lockout just extended that break even more.  For the first time in five seasons, he had a normal off-season.   

When it all comes down to it, I feel the bottom line for his scoring outbursts is motivation.  Firstly, I'm sure he just wants to whip everyone's ass due to the fact that he and his soon to be ex-wife are going through a rather nasty divorce, and he's taking his frustrations out on the court.  Secondly, he's tired of people talking about all his various injuries and just wants them to shut up and see he can still ball.  And most importantly, he's infuriated by the fact that people say Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose, LeBron, or whoever is the best player in the league, and he wants to show that it's still his court, he's the king, and the rest are just court jesters.