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10 "Everybody shut up. Let us work." 9 7 "I don't give a (expletive) how it was interpreted." After the arrivals of Steve Nash and Dwight Howard and the continued presence of Pau Gasol, many were wondering before the season whether maybe Kobe would cede some of the leadership duties to his incoming All-Stars. Kobe put the kibosh on that real quick. He told The Los Angeles Times, "I got a question earlier about whose team this is. It's my team." We all stopped wondering after that, and maybe we shouldn't have posed the question to him at all. It was apparent, even after all the offseason moves by Mitch Kupchak, that it was still Kobe's team as he entered into his 17th season in the league. But we also thought he'd welcome the relief the acquisitions provided. Nash would be facilitating a lot more of the offense, which would allow Kobe to work off the ball, something he's a lot better at than he gets to show. And Dwight could shore up their so-so defense down at the rim. Yet, Kobe started out by shooting even more (and on a higher percentage) than he has over the last couple seasons, and he told us why that is, too. After the Lakers started 0-2 under head coach Mike Brown, everybody was yapping in Los Angeles about what the problem was with the team. Kobe put all that to rest, when he told The Los Angeles Times: "Now you have Mike Brown telling everybody to be patient. Back then, it was Phil Jackson telling everybody to shut up." Now Bryant can do it… for Brown. "Because I've won, so I can," Bryant said. "So I'll say it for him: Everybody shut up. Let us work." It appeared like Kobe was defending his coach, even after starting 0-2 and losing Steve Nash in that second game. But Brown wouldn't last for long, and Kobe would play a role in his fring, even if he didn't say anything overt to precipitate it. But after two games, Kobe was just trying to get the L.A. media to stop hassling the team, and he wanted people to shut up and let them work things out internally. Unfortunately for Lakers fans, that still hasn't happened. 6 "I like shooting. I don't care how it comes, I like putting them up… I would defnitely much rather shoot it than pass it. That's just how I am." We all watched the Kobe Bryant death stare on head coach Mike Brown. But after Dave McMenamin showed Kobe Bryant the footage of it during the fourth quarter of their fourth loss in fve games to start the season, Kobe, of course, was colorful in explaining its lack of importance. Seeing the video and ensuing kerfuffe from the media, Kobe fred back: "I don't give a (expletive) how it was interpreted," Bryant said. 'It doesn't really matter to me. I'm too old to deal with that stuff. I really am. I've been (Brown's) biggest supporter. So, I'm really too old to be dealing with childish things." He continued with "God, people are bored," before reciting the poetry of William Blake and changing his Facebook signature to "The Tyger." Okay, that last part was a lie, but it's awfully funny going back and reading what Bryant said about Brown - he was fred before he coached another game for the Lakers. Brown was replaced by Bernie Bickerstaff on an interim basis. 8 "It's my team." This quote came after a 34-point night a week before Christmas in his hometown of Philadelphia, where he shot the Lakers to their second consecutive win in a game against the Sixers. Bryant was leading the league in scoring at the time. Even though Kobe is only 34 years old, he's still been in the league for 17 years and recently passed the 30,000-point mark for his career. Kobe doesn't apologize for how much he likes to score, but he made sure in that same ESPN article to distance himself from the pejorative label many people assign him: ball hog. He spent 20 minutes in the postgame describing his love for scoring: "I wouldn't say I'm a ball hog. I'm a shooter. I don't necessarily hog the ball, but I put them up though. "I defnitely much rather shoot it than pass it. That's just how I am. "I'm a scorer, man. You don't get 30,000 points without knowing how to put yourself in positions to shoot it. The ball just fnds scorers and I can always, no matter what system you're in, you can always fnd a way. Getting up 30 shots ain't easy. A lot of people don't know how to do that. "That's what I do. It's like superheroes. Superman can fy. Spider-Man has webs. Steve [Nash] can pass. I shoot. … I get 'em up! I make no bones about it. That's what I do. That's what I do. Some nights they fall, some nights they don't. But, [Dennis] Rodman was a rebounder, Coop [Michael Cooper] was a defender, I'm a shooter." We're glad Kobe could laugh at his analogy to superheroes, but it's going to be harder to laugh if he doesn't fnd a way to get his Lakers teammates to love shooting the ball and scoring buckets as much as he does. It's also going to be a quick end to the season if his love for dropping buckets outweighs the importance of involving everyone on his team, including Dwight Howard and Steve Nash. Kobe hasn't been the easiest teammate to play with, and sharing the ball doesn't come naturally to him. Obviously, scoring does, and so it's no wonder he was so gaga over another guy that got a small slice of fame in 2012… even if it was only scoring at the Division III level. "He's good, he's getting the f___ outta the way." When ESPN Los Angeles reporter Arash Markazi asked Kobe Bryant what he thought after a couple games playing for Bernie Bickerstaff, Kobe again sounded off without the flter normally reserved for tenuous questions surrounding your coach. Kobe said Bickerstaff was good, but with the caveat that it was because "he's getting the f___ outta the way." The implicit undertone of the comment was that Mike Brown, with all his calls for tougher defense and his new Princeton offense, wasn't getting out of the way enough for the Lakers to succeed. It also doubled as a warning to management to get a real coach on the sidelines, or Kobe's personality was going to eat the team alive. The implied theme of this quote is that Kobe and the Lakers are a talented bunch, who had – at that time – been offset by coaching ineptitude, even as he'd earlier supported his former coach. It was a fun quote in an already fun season for the Lakers; fun, that is, for everybody but Lakers fans. And really, with the additions of Steve Nash and Dwight Howard, the Lakers are talented enough on paper where a coach doesn't seem all that necessary. But as Bryant showed us with his next quip, he represents the Lakers. 51