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3 1 "That's kind of like, where are your balls at?" "Leadership is responsibility. There comes a point when one must make a decision. Are YOU willing to do what it takes to push the right buttons to elevate those around you? If the answer is YES, are you willing to push the right buttons even if it means being perceived as the villain? Here's where the true responsibility of being a leader lies. Sometimes you must prioritize the success of the team ahead of how your own image is perceived. The ability to elevate those around you is more than simply sharing the ball or making teammates feel a certain level of comfort. It's pushing them to fnd their inner beast, even if they end up resenting you for it at the time. I'd rather be perceived as a winner than a good teammate. I wish they both went hand in hand all the time but that's just not reality. I have nothing in common with lazy people who blame others for their lack of success. Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses. This is my way. It might not be right for YOU but all I can do is share my thoughts. It's on YOU to fgure out which leadership style suits you best. Will check back in with you soon.. Till then Mamba out." No, Kobe wasn't talking about a teammate, as some/most of you thought when you saw the headline. Instead, it was in relation to Kobe's abhorrence of fopping. Last season, the NBA, in conjunction with ESPN's TrueHoop site, made fopping an issue, and this past offseason, fnes were put in place for any instance of fopping found during a postgame review. But last May, ESPN LA wrote about something else Kobe hates to do: take a charge. Kobe said he's only taken one charge in his career and it was probably a mistake. He saw what taking charges did to the backs of Larry Bird and Scottie Pippen, and he saw that Magic and MJ didn't take many charges, and stayed largely healthy throughout their Hall of Fame careers. But when ESPN LA brought up fopping, Kobe made sure he knew the difference between taking a charge and fopping: "There's a difference [between taking a charge and fopping]. We all know what fopping is when we see it. The stuff that you see is where guys aren't really getting hit at all and are just failing around like a fsh out of water. That's kind of like, where are your balls at?" So Kobe hates to take charges and almost never does because of the risk of injury, but a feigned injury or foul is a lack of testicular fortitude. How can you not fnd Kobe Bryant delightful, especially as he's become like a cantankerous uncle making inappropriate comments while everyone else in the family just says, "Oh Kobe." But Kobe's comments haven't always provoked the slightly bemused reaction his thoughts on fopping did. No, when he went after former teammate Smush Parker, it seemed a little strange, since Parker hadn't played with Bryant since the 2006-07 season. 2 "[Smush Parker is] the worst. He shouldn't have been in the NBA but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard. So we let him walk on." That's Kobe's immortal Facebook post. It has garnered 91,581 likes and 6,011 comments as of this writing. It's also a pretty good explanation for why Kobe sometimes goes after his teammates. Remember, he posted this to Facebook after Smush Parker rehashed his brief time with the Lakers on the radio and called Kobe an awful teammate. Kobe Bryant doesn't particularly care what we, as fans, think. He doesn't care what former teammates, or even what current teammates think. He only cares about winning, so he says, and part of winning is being a leader. Just what kind of leader Kobe Bryant must be is pretty evident by this Facebook post. He'll do anything he can to spur you on to greatness. If you can't handle his verbal slings and arrows, he'll probably fnd a way to get rid of you. Barring that, you just got to suck it up and play. Love him or hate him, and there are plenty of people on both sides of that aisle, Kobe Bryant is still the most polarizing player in the NBA, especially this season, where the Lakers were supposed to be one of the top teams in the West, but instead they're foundering and are barely above .500. So far, Kobe has resisted the urge to go after the big fella, Dwight Howard, but if Howard's back fails to improve and the Lakers continue to set new records for mediocrity, this list of Kobe quotes will grow and Dwight might fnd himself on the receiving end. He'd take small comfort in the knowledge that he isn't the only one. When Bryant spoke with The Orange County Register's Kevin Ding back in the offseason, he reminisced about his seemingly lost 2005-06 season where he played with unheralded role players like Smush Parker, Chris Mihm and former No. 1 pick, Kwame Brown. Kobe was pretty cavalier in throwing them under the bus, which we should all be used to by now: "I almost won an MVP with Smush Parker and Kwame Brown on my team. I was shooting 45 times a game. What was I supposed to do? Pass it to Chris Mihm or Kwame Brown?'" Bryant continued, calling Parker, "the worst. He shouldn't have been in the NBA but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard. So we let him walk on." This could have been easily forgotten, but one player (Parker) didn't take the Kobe diss lying down. He aired his grievances on the "Hard 2 Guard" radio show, and said, "playing with Kobe Bryant was an overrated experience," before recounting how hard it is to play with someone as egomaniacal as Kobe. Kobe laughed off Smush's reply, but then came with the number one quote on our list, and what has to be one of the biggest Facebook posts of all time. 53