Remember Kobe Bryant’s typically laughable opinion that he’d rather shoot 0-for-30 from the field than 0-for-9? Deron Williams, the player whose performance sparked the hot-button assertion, finally responded to Kobe’s critique. And unsurprisingly, he’s standing behind his far more logical take.
Here’s Bryant’s original comment, courtesy of a late August story from Sports Illustrated’s Chris Ballard:
Gotham Chopra, the director of “Kobe Bryant’s Muse”, an upcoming documentary on Bryant, told a story about being with Kobe and watching the Nets and the Heat play. Recounts Chopra, “Deron Williams went like 0-for-9. I was like, ‘Can you believe Deron Williams went 0-9?’ Kobe was like, ‘I would go 0-30 before I would go 0-9. 0-9 means you beat yourself, you psyched yourself out of the game, because Deron Williams can get more shots in the game. The only reason is because you’ve just now lost confidence in yourself.’
And here’s how Williams responded yesterday, via The Brooklyn Game:
“I’m a point guard,” Williams said about adopting Bryant’s mentality. “If I’m 0-for-f**king-9, I’m not shooting 20 more shots. Not going to happen. I’m a point guard. I’m going to find somebody else. Kobe Bryant, that’s what he’s supposed to do. He’s got that mentality. That works for him, I got my mentality, it works for me.”
It’s not hard to tell which player with whom we agree. And as for Williams’ belief that Bryant’s mentality “works for him,” there’s this to consider:
Kobe Bryant has shot 25+ shots with under 40% FG 98 times. Lakers 29-69 in those games. Deron’s done it once, in a win in 2012.
— devin kharpertian (@uuords) September 28, 2014
There’s obviously noise associated with those numbers. Bryant was likely trying to will the the Los Angeles Lakers back from sizable deficits in many of them, for instance. And as Williams says, his responsibilities as a point guard differ from Kobe’s as a high-volume scorer.
But the notion that any player would rather shoot and miss an additional 21 shots after erring on his first nine as opposed to sharing the ball with his teammates is utterly ridiculous. Williams’ defense of his strategy only lends further credence to that line of thinking – not that it should have needed more anyway.
What do you think?
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