Kobe

[mjl]

Kobe needs to shoot about 44% over his remaining eight games to avoid having the worst single-season FG% since 1961.

[mjl]

also interesting: the league FT% in 1959 was 75.6%, in 2015 it was 75.0%. however before 1960, no player had over 50 fg% for a season.

[heyelander]

The Lakers need to make a strong push to get some wins at the end of the year so as to increase their chance of getting out of the top 3 in the draft... at least that's what I think.

[mjl]

The Jazz benched most of their starters, though I admit I didn't watch the game and maybe they tried on defense.

Kobe was 22 of 50 on field goals including 6 of 21 on threes, 10 of 12 from the free throw line. Kobe set the record for the most FG attempts in a game tonight and now has six of the top ten games for FG attempts since they started tracking it in 1983, and 10 of the top 20. The rest of the Lakers took 35 shots.

Kobe still finishes with the worst season FG% in the last 55 years.

[chancellor]

It was evident from the start the Lakers were going to give him an opportunity to go out big. I'm really glad his body let him do it one more time. It would have been one great game to be at.

[Lucky]

Yeah, of course they tried . Not sure why it'd be important to try and be a downer about this, but that was one of the more legendary performances I've ever seen. Kobe is truly one of the greatest of all time. This was like hitting 4 HRs in your final game. Incredible. And his team won, on top of it, in vintage Kobe fashion. What an epic ending. That was awesome to see watch.

He was 22 out of 50? Sounds more like hitting 4 HRs and striking out 4 times.

[chancellor]

I hate it when you guys make me agree with ElD, but he's pretty much right. His shooting behind the arc wasn't special, but Kobe just simply dominated a team that knew he was coming inside the arc.

A true hall of fame performance for his going away party.

[Lucky]

His career FG% is 44% (not that FG% is really a helpful stat in the first place, but nonetheless....)

I think people don't understand just how difficult it is to even get 50 shots in the first place. Or, ridiculously, folks just think that any old player could score 60 points if they just got the ball enough. Only 22 players in the history of the NBA have eclipsed the 60 point mark. Kobe's performance last night was absolutely masterful, and I say that as someone whose disdain for Kobe (and Shaq) caused me to stop following the NBA in general. I'd say this was one of the top 3 performances I've ever seen. I was literally jumping off the couch shouting and that's something I haven't done for many years for a basketball game. Hearing all these excuses and "yeah, but" statements is annoying. No one who watched that game could possibly have come away with anything less than respect for the clinic Kobe put on.

Hey, I don't disagree. You have to be damned good to have 28 misses. Very few players would get that opportunity. I'm just saying that while he was hitting those four dingers he whiffed a few times, too. That's the down side, but it's fair.

[heyelander]

Met Kobe a couple of times while he was still in HS when I was interning at LaSalle and his dad was an assistant coach there. Jellybean Bryant and I use to do lunch every once in a while. I asked him once if all the hype around his son was warranted, and he said "oh, yeah, he's going to be one of the greatest of all time."

Joe was a class guy who would sit with an intern and give advice and help with anything I needed.

[Lucky]

They sold 1.2 million dollars worth of Kobe merchandise at the venue during the final game, a record for any event anywhere in the world. Yes, any event anywhere in the world. The previous record was one million dollars in merch sold at the O2 in 2007 during the Led Zeppelin reunion. And they were selling gold baseball caps at the LZ gig.