If Shannon Brown Had a Gatorade Commercial

Oberto chose the Wizards over Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Sacramento and the Lakers. He was hopeful for a return to San Antonio, where he spent his first four seasons, but the Spurs signed veteran center Theo Ratliff on Thursday.

I guess the Lakers wanted to pick him up with the vets minimum.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/wizardsinsider/2009/07/oberto_agrees_to_join_wizards.html?wprss=wizardsinsider

http://20secondtimeout.blogspot.com/2009/07/when-did-kobe-bryant-really-become-team.html

As I have mentioned before, assist totals have to be taken with a grain of salt and Bryant has astutely noted, “There is more to making your teammates better than just passing them the ball. You have to teach them a lot of the things that you know, the way that you prepare for the game. There are so many different levels to making guys better.” However, whether you judge Bryant’s playmaking purely by his assist totals or you take a broader, skill set based view, it is clear that he transformed himself as a playmaker quite some time ago, not just in the past two years as some people insist. Bryant’s apg average made its first big jump in 2000: he played roughly the same amount of mpg that he had in the previous season, but he averaged 4.9 apg compared to 3.8 apg in 1999. Bryant ranked third on the Lakers in apg in 1999 but led the team in that category in 2000 and he has led the Lakers in apg every season since then except for 2004 (Gary Payton) and 2006 (Lamar Odom). Ironically, Bryant’s apg averages the past two years—when the ignorant pundits claim that he learned to “trust his teammates”—are only the fourth and eighth highest of his 13 year career; Bryant averaged a career-high 6.0 apg in the 2004-05 season, a time when he was being blasted left and right for supposedly running Shaquille O’Neal out of town and not passing the ball to anyone.

It always amazes me that some people actually think that Shaquille O’Neal singlehandedly carried the Lakers to three championships while Bryant was going through some kind of version of NBA puberty on and off the court; the reality is that Bryant’s emergence as an elite player in his own right—and the hiring of Phil Jackson as coach—directly correlated with the Lakers’ ascension to the top of the league. The subsequent “feud” between O’Neal and Bryant had nothing to do with Bryant being selfish or not knowing how to “trust his teammates”; as I wrote earlier this year, “O’Neal injured his big toe but declared that since he got hurt ‘on company time’ he was entitled to get surgery and heal ‘on company time.’ So he enjoyed himself during the summer of 2002, had the surgery late, missed 15 games and took his time getting back into shape. As a result, the Lakers did not have homecourt advantage in the playoffs and eventually fell to the Spurs in six games in the Western Conference semifinals. O’Neal’s conduct escalated his conflict with Bryant, who became the team’s leading scorer; O’Neal declared that if the big dog is not fed (the ball) then he won’t guard the house (play defense in the paint), to which Bryant pointedly retorted that O’Neal needed to get in shape so that he could run down the court, because Bryant had no intention of walking the ball up and waiting for him.” By the time O’Neal returned to the lineup and struggled to get back into shape, Bryant had clearly become the number one option on the team, averaging 40.6 ppg on .472 field goal shooting in February 2003. While Bryant proved as early as the 2000 season that he could fill the playmaking role on a championship team, O’Neal immaturely chafed at Bryant’s rising status during the 2003 season. O’Neal’s poor work ethic and his subsequent petty jealousy of Bryant’s record-setting scoring run led to the Lakers’ downfall and weighed heavily on owner Jerry Buss’ mind when O’Neal publicly screamed at Buss during the 2003 preseason, “Pay me!” As Lamar Odom is learning now, Buss keeps his own counsel about just how much money he is willing to pay players.