The narrative out of Los Angeles is not a unique one -- an aging star hanging on past the point of being an asset to his team or playing so poorly that he is clouding the memories of his dominant prime.
It's happening in Denver with quarterback Peyton Manning; it's happening on the golf course with Tiger Woods.
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The Lakers appear headed for another dismal season, and their leader, Kobe Bryant has been -- by his standards -- awful.
He's averaging 16.9 points per game -- his lowest average since the 1997-98 season. He's shooting 38.9 percent from the floor and an even more abysmal 23.3 percent from 3-point range and still is jacking up 20 shots per game.
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Can you blame him? Most do, but that's wrong. He might be the only hope the current Los Angeles squad has of returning to prominence in the future. Here are three misnomers about the Black Mamba.
His salary makes it impossible for the Lakers to retool
Bryant is the NBA's highest-paid player at $25 million, according to ESPN; he's making more than LeBron James, more than Steph Curry, more than Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden.
The Lakers made a business decision to sign Bryant to his two-year, $48.5 million contract. They were under no obligation to do so.
And which big-name free agent in the past three years have the Lakers not tried to sign? Dwight Howard? Carmelo Anthony? LaMarcus Aldridge? DeMarcus Cousins?
Everyone points at the Dwight Howard situation and says no one wants to play with Bryant. But what has Howard, who is making more than $22.3 million with the Rockets, done since coming to Houston? He was hurt for most of the Rockets' run to the Western Conference finals, and now the Rockets have just fired their coach.
Aldridge recently said Bryant was the best part of the Lakers' presentation.
He's not a team player
That has been absolutely true ... until the past two or so seasons. He reportedly was hard on Jeremy Lin last season, but he was quoted as saying he loved Lin's fearlessness so he probably felt he could be tougher on Lin and Lin could take it.
Bryant now says his focus is helping the young players develop and that's good because coach Byron Scott doesn't appear to be. Scott has said he's not going to sacrifice wins to develop his young nucleus, which makes no sense on a 2-9 team.
And even during his "selfish phase," he acted as such because he wanted his teammates to reach his level of competitiveness.
"It's the relationships that I enjoyed the most," Bryant said, according to insidesocal.com. "We've had some ups and downs with teammates and kind of have had contentious relationships. But it was all done to try to win a championship," said Bryant, no doubt referring to Shaquille O'Neal. "It's been a great teacher of understanding how to challenge each other and hold each other accountable. But it all works itself out in the end. To be able to look back now and look at those relationships and where we are today and be able to look at each other in the eye and have been through the battles and been through the wars and come back and reminisce with all those things, to me that's beautiful."
Aldridge recently said Bryant was the best part of the Lakers' pitch last summer to lure him, so Bryant's temperament seems to have changed in that regard
The Lakers' youth never will develop because he's a ball hog
Question: Who is the coach of the Lakers? Oh, that's right, it's not Kobe Bryant. The Lakers leadership has brought in Mike Brown, Mike D'Antoni (bypassing Phil Jackson) and now Scott --- none of whom seem to have a strong enough character to control Bryant, actually coach him and get the best out of him like Jackson did. The Lakers have enabled Bryant.
Bryant still thinks he's better than any other Laker, which is why he still jacks up more than 20 shots a game. He does have five NBA rings, after all. But he'd probably love it if one of his young teammates called him out --- as long as the player could back it up by proving himself as a better option. To Bryant, that would show confidence and leadership, which is what he wants to see and what the Lakers need.
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