Los Angeles Lakers’ head coach Mike Brown has come under
fire over the past week for his two benching incidents involving stars Kobe
Bryant and Andrew Bynum. While Bryant took his benching in stride not wanting
the situation to become a media spectacle, Bynum took offense to his benching.
Bynum was benched during the Lakers’ win over the Golden
State Warriors last night. Bynum took a three-point shot early in the third
quarter with the Lakers up by six. Coach Brown promptly benched Bynum for
taking the shot when the Lakers still had time on the clock to get a better
shot.
Bynum was not about to take the high road as Bryant did
during his benching a few nights before. Bynum’s remarks after the game show
that he realizes why he was benched but he didn’t seem to care saying that, “I’m
going to take another [three-pointer] and I’m going to take some more.”
What’s interesting is how quickly an incident like this has
occurred after the Lakers traded Derek Fisher. Fisher’s leadership and calming
presence was invaluable in diffusing situations like this one. Someone should
have spoken to Bynum and tried to rein him in before he was allowed to go
before the media and make the childish statements he made.
Now I personally believe that he will back off of his plan
to “make it rain” from the three-point line especially after he sees how stupid
he sounded during his post-game interview but pundits are already calling him a
head case which he is not.
Still, this incident puts the focus on one of the areas of
this team that immediately came into question once Fisher was shipped out and
that is team leadership. Kobe stated that he purposely took a hands-off
approach to the situation. Not what you would expect from a leader and 16-year
veteran.
This situation could end up being a potential snag for
Lakers’ management.
There are few coaches out there with the pedigree to command
the respect of a player like Bynum. Phil Jackson had so many championship rings
it was nearly impossible for a player to question his decisions. Brown has
never won as a head coach which can’t be very impressive to a young player like
Bynum who already owns two championship rings.
And if Brown loses the team behind this incident then the
Lakers will be hard pressed to find a coach who will command Bynum’s attention
the way Jackson could. Sad because there is virtually no chance of Jackson
coming back to coach this team.
Roosevelt Hall is an NFL Blogger for The Sport Mentalist and an NBA Blogger for The Sport Mentalist 2. He is also a Sports Reporter for Pro Sports Lives. He can be contacted at RHall_TPFB@Yahoo.com and be sure to follow him on Twitter @sportmentalist.
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