Fear Factor
Aside from his skill set on the court, Jordan was able to instill a high level of confidence in his role players because of how demanding he was both on and off the court. This was due to a fear, which he instilled in his players. Sometimes respect can be mixed up for this particular type of fear I’m referring to. Forget letting down Phil Jackson, Bulls’ role players were scared to death of not meeting Michael Jordan’s expectations. Just ask Steve Kerr. He had a swollen face from a punch Michael threw in practice due to frustration with teammates. This doesn’t mean I’m asking Kobe to knock a teammate out cold in practice, but if he did have to, I would have to nominate Sasha. Kobe takes this fear to a whole new level and Sasha earns street cred for taking a punch, win-win situation right?
All joking aside, Kobe’s teammates are more scared of him now than ever. This pattern started right after the Suns defeated the Lakers in the 2007 NBA Playoffs. The following year all of the young role players came back tremendously ahead of schedule in their development. My theory is that this was strictly because of the fear factor. Bryant has learned how to channel the fear, thus resulting in him being able to “jockey” this squad. Similar to a jockey in horse racing who paces his horse in order to maximize the effort, Kobe has kept the level of effort at an extremely high level for such a talented team.
Remember when Shaq was the leader of the Lakers? Remember how many bottom of the barrel teams the Lakers lost to at home or how poor of an effort they gave in the second game of back to backs. This year, the effort is noticeably higher than any Lakers teams of recent past, thanks to Kobe jockeying this team throughout the course of a long year thus far.
Next: Hitting the Switch
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