Laker fans remember the Mike D’Antoni era about as fondly as the rest of us would remember a bout with whooping cough. But not to worry, Purple and Gold Nation. None of that is lost on the Black Mamba.
Ahead of Thursday night’s matchup with the Chicago Bulls, Kobe Bryant took some time to comment on former teammate and now-Bull Pau Gasol, criticizing the way D’Antoni treated him as head coach of the Lakers (per Mark Medina of the LA Daily News).
Kobe on Pau/D'Antoni: "Everybody kind of fell in line with the Mike D'Antoni rhetoric of small ball and all this other bulls—."
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) January 27, 2016
Kobe: "For a guy that has 2 championships to be treated that way, you don't do that, man."
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) January 27, 2016
Gasol was definitely marginalized in the Lakers offense under D’Antoni. Though he averaged 15.7 points per game and 9.2 rebounds per game over those two seasons, Pringles tried turning him into a stretch-four despite the fact that Gasol has always been at his best with his back to the basket and in the mid-post area. The result was often Gasol standing idly by the three-point line for entire offensive possessions on end. This led to bickering between the two that repeatedly spilled out into the media as well.
That D’Antoni bungled his handling of Gasol (and really that entire team) as Lakers head coach is common knowledge. And it’s no shocker either that Bryant, one of Gasol’s most vocal supporters and closest friends, won’t soon forget it.
