The Los Angeles Lakers held a team meeting to “clear the air” on Wednesday morning, but it doesn’t seem to have helped. The team lost to the Memphis Grizzlies 106-93 Wednesday night to drop to 17-25.
Based on what has been reported, it seems like one of the big focuses of the meeting was to get Dwight Howard to accept a lesser role on the team without complaint. Earlier in the day, Steve DelVecchio posted a story saying that Howard was taking responsibility for the team’s struggles. Maybe that’s because Kobe Bryant reportedly got in his face during the meeting.
According to the Los Angeles Times, which provided details about the meeting, coach Mike D’Antoni told his players he was tired of hearing complaints about players’ roles in the offense. He allowed players to speak, and Steve Nash supposedly went first. Then came Bryant.
Here’s what Mike Bresnahan reports Bryant said:
Bryant also spoke up, acknowledging he could be “hard to play with” and asking Howard if that bothered him.
Howard’s answer was unclear, though he did not engage Bryant in nearly as vocal a manner as Bryant engaged him.
“He didn’t go back at Kobe,” said the person who witnessed the meeting.
So the Lakers have a meeting to clear the air, Kobe confronts Dwight, Dwight takes responsibility for the problems, and then they still lose? Obviously the team is not working. I’m guessing the next step for this team will involve a trade.
