re: Lakers @ Thunder | Game 2 | LA choke: OKC Bandwagon explodes, LA bandwagon cries

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whatever his numbers were last night in no way do I actually think Kobe sucks in the clutch.

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I never said he wasn't clutch. He's just pretty bad when it comes to game winning shots.

It is interesting when you think about how we treat our sports stars. Obviously a lot of what we think ends up being results dependent and not really fair (esp when we cherry pick particular results and ignore others).

If Blake for the Lakers or the random Miami player hits that jumper to tie or win their most recent game it changes how we think of Kobe and Lebron (or at least how they are talked about over the next 24-48 hours). But that is pretty silly when you think about it. And so are a lot of the discussions you see revolving about Kobe and/or Lebron at the end of games.

If a person is inclined to be a dick about it they can point to Lebron "not wanting" the ball at the end of the last game or Kobe having just pretty bad numbers when you look at him at the end of games for his career.

But I find both arguments a bit staged. My bias is that Kobe's numbers are probably lower than they should be because of not just the added pressure but also the difficulty of the shots he ends up taking. Should he be forcing some of those up? Maybe not, but if he didn't then we would destroy him like we have Lebron for "not wanting" to take a bad shot.

I did look at Lebron and think he was scared to be on the foul line in the last game (after missing the earlier two foul shots)... but I'm not sure if that's fair or just the overwhelming chorus of dumb talk radio and internet discussions that has colored my thinking.

If you look at Lebron over the years he has hit some unbelievable pressure shots when no one else was going to step up and do that for him. Could there be an emerging mental problem for him now? I think there could be... but the discussion about him not being clutch was raised well before that was reasonable (I just wonder if it has gotten into his head now when it never should have been)