Koby Bryant NBA Career

With O'Neal gone, Bryant became the Lakers' unquestioned leader of the team going into the 2004-2005 season. As it turned out, however, his first season at the helm of a team would prove to be a very rocky one. With his reputation so badly damaged from all that had happened over the previous year, Bryant was closely scrutinized and criticized during the season.

A particularly damaging salvo came from Phil Jackson in his book The Last Season: A Team in Search of its Soul. The book detailed the sordid events of the Lakers' tumultuous 2003–04 season and hurled numerous harsh criticisms of Bryant. Along with other unsavory adjectives, Jackson called Bryant "uncoachable."

Then, midway through the season, Rudy Tomjanovich suddenly resigned as Lakers coach, citing the recurrence of health problems and exhaustion. Without "Rudy T," stewardship of the remainder of the Lakers' season fell to career assistant coach Frank Hamblen. Despite the fact that Bryant was the league's second leading scorer at 27.6 points per game, the Lakers floundered and missed the playoffs for the first time in over a decade.

Phil Jackson returned to coach the Lakers for the 2005-2006 season, a move that Bryant said he welcomed, despite Jackson's past pointed criticism of Bryant. The two have had no major public disagreements since Jackson's return.

Currently, Bryant is the leading scorer of the 2005-2006 NBA season, averaging 35.0 points per game, the most since Michael Jordan averaged 37.1 points per game in 1987. He has done all this while helping the Lakers maintain the last playoff berth in the Western Conference. Consequently, he is among those mentioned as possible candidates of the Most Valuable Player award.

On December 20, 2005, in one of the most spectacular individual scoring feats in NBA history, Bryant scored a then career-high 62 points in only 33 minutes of play in a 112-90 rout of the Dallas Mavericks. His 30 points in the third quarter alone surpassed the Lakers' previous franchise record of 24 points in a single quarter. Bryant had outscored the entire Dallas Mavericks team 62-61 by the time he departed at the end of the third quarter, becoming the first player ever to outscore his opposition through three quarters since the advent of the 24-second shot clock.

On January 22, 2006, Bryant scored a career high and Los Angeles Lakers team record 81 points as the Lakers defeated the Toronto Raptors 122-104 at Los Angeles. The 81 points rank second all-time in points scored in a single game, behind the late Wilt Chamberlain's 100 on March 2, 1962, and broke Elgin Baylor's previous franchise record of 71. 55 of Bryant's 81 points were scored in the second half alone. Bryant shot 28 of 46 from the field, including 7 of 13 from 3-point range, and made 18 of 20 free throws. He also recorded 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals and 1 block. The accomplishment made Bryant only the fifth player in NBA history to score 70 points in a game (the others being Chamberlain, who accomplished the feat six different times, David Thompson, Elgin Baylor, David Robinson), and only the second player to score 80.

Bryant's 2005-2006 scoring splurge--especially his two career best games--have sparked a widespread discussion in the media and among sports fans regarding the implications of his scoring so many points. Commentators have vehemently debated whether Bryant's 81 point-game in the modern NBA era is a more impressive feat then Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962.

Additionally, there are frequent arguments over whether Bryant's prolific scoring is a good thing for the Laker team as a whole. Some consider him to be a "ball hog" and argue that Bryant taking so many shots is not true 'team' basketball and thus sets a bad example and inhibits the development of other Laker players. Others argue that the other players on the current Laker team are not nearly as talented as Bryant, and thus having Bryant take the bulk of the team's shots gives the team the best chance to win. Nevertheless, the Lakers are fighting for their first playoff birth since the departure of Shaquille O'Neal and currently hold the 8th and last seed in the Western Conference.