Latest news with #PauGasol
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
"Kobe [Bryant] Didn't Play Well": Dwyane Wade Discredits Lakers Legend; Says Pau Gasol Deserved 2010 NBA Finals MVP
"Kobe [Bryant] Didn't Play Well": Dwyane Wade Discredits Lakers Legend; Says Pau Gasol Deserved 2010 NBA Finals MVP originally appeared on Fadeaway World. One of the few achievements that Kobe Bryant was yet to conquer after the 2008 season, when he won the regular season MVP award, was the NBA Finals MVP Award. Bryant appeared in the Finals seven times with the Lakers in his career and only won the award twice, in 2009 and 2010. Advertisement During the 2008 Finals, the Celtics won the championship and Paul Pierce took the Finals MVP award home, but in the 2009 appearance, Bryant finally got the award for the first time in his career. However, the second time he won the award, many people felt that he did not deserve to win the award. And instead, his teammate Pau Gasol should have won it. Among those people is the Heat legend Dwyane Wade. On the latest episode of his podcast, Wade was explaining what Shai Gilgeous-Alexander needs to learn from Kobe Bryant when he recalled his last run in the NBA Finals. While he was trying to teach Gilgeous-Alexander a lesson, he inadvertently discredited the Lakers legend. 'A lot of people don't know that, in that Finals, the last Finals that they won, Kobe didn't play well. Kobe didn't shoot the ball well; actually, everybody thought Pau Gasol should have been the MVP. That's how well Pau was playing, and Kobe was playing awful." "But you never could tell when you turned the TV on that he was struggling. Because his leadership is always there, his intensity is always- that fire is always there. So, because he's 8 for 24 from the field or something like that, you could never tell with a player like Kobe.' Advertisement While Wade was trying to give Gilgeous-Alexander a lesson, he reminded the NBA fans that, essentially, Bryant's impact on his team won him the Finals MVP in 2010. Did Kobe Bryant Deserve The 2010 NBA Finals MVP? Pau Gasol averaged 18.6 points, 11.6 rebounds, and 3.7 assists while shooting 47.8% from the floor, averaging 12.9 attempts in seven games of the 2010 NBA Finals. Kobe Bryant averaged 28.6 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 3.9 assists in that series. He shot 40.5% from the floor while averaging 23.3 attempts per game, nearly twice as many as Pau Gasol. And while on paper, these numbers don't seem all that bad, Bryant struggled in three of the seven games. Advertisement In Game 2, he shot 40% from the floor (8 for 20) and struggled mainly from beyond the arc, where he went two of seven (28.6%) in that game. In Game 3, he shot 34.5% from the floor (10 of 29) and went one of seven from beyond the arc (14.3%). And in the close-out game, Game 7, Bryant also did not have a particularly memorable performance. He went 6 of 24 in the field (25%) and did not make a single one of his six attempts from beyond the arc. Looking at the facts as shown above, do you agree with Wade that Pau Gasol, not Kobe Bryant, deserved to win the 2010 Finals MVP? In my personal opinion, Bryant still deserved the Finals MVP. The Celtics focused their entire defensive attention on Bryant, which can lead to the argument that his teammates would not get the open looks they did if he did not draw as much attention as he did. He showed up for the team in crucial moments on multiple occasions, including three 30-point games in this series. While he may not have been as efficient as Gasol, he still deserved the award since I can conclusively say the Lakers would not have won the 2010 Finals without Kobe Bryant, but they may have won it with another big instead of Pau Gasol. Related: Former NBA Players Think Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Is The Next Kobe Bryant This story was originally reported by Fadeaway World on Jun 19, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
"Hey, Duke boy, shut the fu*k up and sit in the corner!" - Battier reveals what really happens during players-only meetings in the NBA
"Hey, Duke boy, shut the fu*k up and sit in the corner!" - Battier reveals what really happens during players-only meetings in the NBA originally appeared on Basketball Network. After a storied career at Duke, Shane Battier entered the NBA in 2001, eager to make an impact with the Memphis Grizzlies, who selected him with the sixth overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft. However, it didn't take long for the 6'8" forward to realize he wasn't in Kansas anymore as the Grizzlies slumped to a 1-11 start to the season, prompting the team to call a players-only meeting. Advertisement Despite being a first-year player, the native of Birmingham, Michigan, believed he could participate in the locker-room discussion. However, Shane soon learned that his status as a former NCAA superstar and a high draft pick didn't mean much among grizzled NBA veterans. Memphis felt the heat early on Although the team had talent (they drafted highly skilled big man Pau Gasol that season), they barely had experience and leadership. In fact, their starting lineup was led by flashy point guard Jason Williams, a 26-year-old who had just gotten traded by the Sacramento Kings. To try and stem the bleeding, the players decided to call a meeting. "So a players-only meeting only happens when you're, you know, getting heat from the media, the fans are on you. All right, look — you're not playing well. Okay, so all the movies say, the captains, the veterans, call a players-only meeting. We're going to air our grievances and have a kumbaya moment, and that's going to propel us to better performance," Battier shared. Advertisement A bona fide winner with the Blue Devils with an impeccable pedigree, having been trained and mentored by the iconic "Coach K," Mike Krzyzewski, Shane was no stranger to being a positive locker room presence. And on this occasion, Battier thought the time was right for him to share his thoughts. "Here I am, full of righteousness, coming from Duke, the Coach K way. Yep. And uh, I'm the first one to stand up, and I say, I got to be honest: the veteran leadership on this team sucks. Very honest, very direct," he disclosed. "And they said, "Hey Duke boy, shut the f**k up. Go sit in the corner. Who are you?' And I was just like, 'Oh man.' I did not read the room." Related: "Dad, you at 17, me at 17, who was better? I said, 'Listen, son...'" - Dominique Wilkins on the moment he realized his son didn't know how great of a player he was A lesson in humility The moment was an eye-opener for Battier into how locker room dynamics in the NBA work. There's a hierarchy, and rookie players like him were expected to simply follow the lead of the veterans. In this situation, the two-time All-Defensive Team member learned a valuable lesson in humility. "Battle" may have come from one of the top college basketball programs in the country with a legendary coach, but in the NBA, he was still a rookie player who needed to earn his place among veteran players. Advertisement "It humbled me, and I realized, man, I can't come in here guns a-blazing, because there's kind of like an ethos, a creed, an unspoken locker room path you got to take to earn credibility. And I hadn't done that to that point. And so I shut my as*, I went to work, right?" Shane recalled. "But I didn't become cynical, didn't become jaded. I wouldn't allow that locker room to change me. So I kept working. And a funny thing happened: the guys who maybe were on the fence and didn't know how to act and win started to have winning attitudes and behaviors. And all of a sudden, you kind of feel the locker room shift a little bit. And we started to believe a little bit," he added. The Grizz finished the 2001-2002 season with a horrendous 23-59 record under head coach Sidney Lowe. However, after Hubie Brown took over the following season, Memphis began showing promise and made three first-round appearances in the NBA Playoffs from 2004-2006. Battier also developed into one of the best defenders in the Association, using his smarts and mastery of angles to make up for a lack of elite athleticism. Related: "I pushed my wife away, I pushed my kids away, I was a jerk" - Battier admits depression almost ruined his life after he retired from the NBA This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jun 9, 2025, where it first appeared.
