Kobe Bryant the Leader, the Future Head Coach?

What is most fulfilling as a coach is to see that your players have matured, that they get the big picture, and that they can take control themselves. In watching Kobe Bryant throughout his career, he's had times of immaturity, he's made mistakes, but I think he's in a place now where as a coach you want all your players to be at. He's become a true leader. He's demanding of his teammates, but provides constructive criticism instead of embarrassing them. He understands that his ability to affect the game goes beyond just scoring. If I were to venture a guess, I would say that Kobe Bryant is a future head coach, he's much more cerebral about the game than most.

We all know Kobe is a prolific scorer. Here a few sequences of his playmaking at work, finding teammates and making the extra pass for the open shot,


A Spike Lee special to ESPN which will air in full on Saturday May 16, some mic'd up sequences of Kobe behind the scenes "doin' work". This first one is Kobe on the bench,

This second one is Kobe the director,


Summary:

The Lakers are clearly playing at such a high level at the moment, offensively and defensively. Certainly, nobody in the West appears to have what it takes to take them on. At this point, the build-up is for a Lakers-Cavs finals which would probably be the highest-rated, most anticipated finals even more so than last season.

If you're looking for speed and conditioning help, you should definitely check out Ganon Baker's new DVD on Ball Skills for Creating Seperation. Be sure to check out the X's and O's Basketball forum to discuss your favorite coaching topics.