Kobe Bryant Doesn't Deserve Free Pass for Treatment of Teammates

It's bad enough when coaches air their team's dirty laundry to an all-too eager media, satiating our collective voyeurism at the expense of locker room loyalty.

But, it's that much worse when a player does so—even when that player is Kobe Bryant.

Of course the Los Angeles Lakers' legendary star has earned the right to have an opinion. There may even be something bizarrely noble in sharing such opinions publicly rather than behind closed doors.

Nevertheless, Kobe's pointed fingers now seem to have better aim than his fourth-quarter jumpers.

He first started his postseason lecture tour by questioning his team's effort after a most unfortunate Game Six blowout at the hands of the young Denver Nuggets (via the Los Angeles Times's Mike Bresnahan):

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"Yeah, we let each other down for sure ... they know that," Bryant said. "I expect them to come out in Game 7 and play with a sense of urgency and desperation that wasn't there the last two games."

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There's no question Bryant was absolutely correct in his assessment—he just shouldn't have broadcast that assessment to the whole world.

That's what huddles are for.

Worse yet, there's something horribly exceptionalist—if not outright hypocritical—about the way Bryant has handled all this. He's evidently confused leadership with entitlement.

After all, there's been plenty of well-founded criticism directed at Bryant's on-court performance, especially his questionable shot selection in late-game situations (against the Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder alike).

His ill-advised (and fully contested) jump-shots in Game Four against the Thunder were easily one of the principal reasons Los Angeles lost a game it was dominating with just eight minutes remaining.

Yet even as Bryant's own decision-making was suspect at best, he still felt the need to spread the blame—this time to Pau Gasol (according to Yahoo! Sports's Johnny Ludden):

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"Pau's got to be more assertive," Bryant said. "He's the guy they're leaving [open]. When he's catching the ball, he's looking to pass. He's got to be aggressive. He's got to shoot the ball or drive the ball to the basket. He will be next game."

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Perhaps there's some school of thought that accepts these kind of public grievances as motivational tactics, but it just might feel a bit more like betrayal from the perspective of a teammate Bryant could just as easily have spoken to privately.

That can't feel especially good for a guy who was already betrayed by general manager Mitch Kupchak when Chris Paul was ever so briefly on the Lakers' horizon.

Bryant is obviously one of the all-time greats, and there's no question he remains the undisputed leader of this team—more so, even, than its own coach. Rather than pondering aloud for the media, however, he should be using that leadership to take care of business in the locker room.

No one wants a teammate talking about them in a position of supreme judgment. That may be how a callous superior treats his underlings, but it's not how peers treat one another amidst a shared title pursuit.

Perhaps there's a reason the Lakers were better when Bryant was the sidekick, and perhaps Phil Jackson was ultimately the only thing standing between Kobe and himself. Today, however, the future Hall of Famer is proving one word at a time that he's much better at leading his team in shot attempts than he is at leading them to victory.