National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver says Kobe ‘deserves’ to be an All-Star

Opportunities are something Russell has (finally) had plenty of in the Lakers last two games.

They played against LaMarcus Aldridge for the first time since he rebuffed them in the wild first few days of July.

“It’s the shot that I’m getting”, Russell said after going 5-10 from behind the arc, another new career high on a night full of them.

Spurs: Point guard Tony Parker sat for rest.

Aldridge, 30, has been only OK with the Spurs, averaging 15.4 points and 8.8 rebounds before Friday.

The Kobe Bryant farewell tour made its way to San Antonio on Friday, but the Spurs spoiled the outcome the Los Angeles Lakers were hoping for. Russell only made nine of his 23 shot attempts, but it was his second straight night finishing with more than 20 points.

Despite his underwhelming performance throughout the first month-and-a-half of the season, it would be hard to argue Bryant’s legacy doesn’t deserve recognition on the All-Star stage one final time. He also mentioned that the Spurs are that team that always brings the best out of others.

“Two gold medals is surely an accomplish not many players can ever say they accomplished, but the insane part is Kobe could have Three, if not Four gold medals, but didn’t participate in the 00″ or 04” olympics because of personal reasons. “We’ve had some epic battles”.

The Lakers may have lost another game, a 109-87 defeat to the San Antonio Spurs on Friday at AT&T Center cementing a five-game losing streak. Patty Mills led that charge as he nailed back-to-back three’s.

The Spurs will also be in action on Saturday, going east to face the Atlanta Hawks. However, the results are relatively inconsequential at this point as the Lakers have seemingly (or hopefully) moved to the next phase of this season. Kobe Bryant fell flat after a hot start, Randle had one of his worst games of the season in virtually every regard, and really no one off of the bench did much to contribute to the effort.

Again, the Lakers were far from ideal in this game, which would explain the 22-point loss. Oh how nice it is to have young legs.

Kobe is second on the team in minutes per game (trailing Jordan Clarkson by less than a minute), and is the team’s leader in shot attempts per game by a wide margin, despite his inefficiency this year.

Admittedly, while the questions about whether Coach Scott’s approach could still be successful in today’s National Basketball Association were absolutely valid, I was in the group of people that at least expected him to be able to assist with a relatively smooth transition between Bryant’s era and the next due to their history and apparent mutual respect for one another.

Star Performer The first choice would be Aldridge. “If they go under, I’m just taking what they give me”.

An example of his extraordinary scoring abilities came when in 2006 Bryant scored 81 points in a single game against the Toronto Raptors.