LSU freshman Ben Simmons is the best player in college basketball, and he has Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant’s attention.
“He’s a fantastic player. He obviously has a tremendous amount of potential,” Bryant said to The Los Angeles Daily News Monday.
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“It’s just a matter of what he wants to take on. Do you have the attitude that winning championships is your only mission and your only goal? If you don’t win a championship, the season is a failure. If you have that attitude, the city will absolutely love you and you’ll get this team back to playing and winning at a level that it’s accustomed to.”
LSU is just 7-4, but it’s no indictment on Simmons, who is averaging 19 points, 13 rebounds and six assists. Barring injury, there’s almost no doubt Simmons will be taken first overall in the 2016 NBA Draft, even if the Tigers miss out on the NCAA Tournament. Simmons should pay attention to Bryant’s words; not only has Bryant won five rings with the Lakers, Simmons could be in Los Angeles next year.
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The Lakers have the second-worst record in the NBA, with Philadelphia’s 1-29 record the only mark worse than L.A.’s at 5-23. As a matter of fact, if Bryant really cares about Los Angeles, he’ll stop turning in 31-point efforts like he did Monday to beat the Nuggets so that he can hand Simmons the keys to the Lakers.
Bryant was left for dead at the beginning of the season as he piled up atrocious shooting nights, and even had some analysts calling for his immediate retirement. In Bryant’s last 10 games he has scored 21 or more points six times, and averaged 19 points. He’s hit 31 points twice, both of which were Lakers wins. The ferocious competitor is coming out in him, but these performances may actually be detrimental to the franchise, because they’ll place the Lakers in danger of minimizing their chances to pick No. 1 overall.
It should be noted that if L.A. doesn’t have a top-3 pick, their choice belongs to the 76ers. So Kobe, if you love the Lakers and Ben Simmons so much, you should really stop playing so well.
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