Are you kidding me?!?

Normally during the all star game, there's an unwritten rule that usually happens when a superstar/marquee player is doing one of two things: Either wrapping up his career, playing in his teams arena (in some cases not all). That unwritten rule is to get that player the ball, let him score, repeat. End result of this being to get him the MVP award...er Bill Russell Trophy when the game is concluded. Now last night was the perfect way to send the Big Cactus, Big Aristotle, Big etc, etc off with a nice parting gift of the games MVP award. And for the most part, it seemed as if the west had their sights set on this outcome, correction MOST of the west squad had their minds set on that outcome about I'd say about 99 percent of them did.

But it seemed as if Kobe didn't get the memo, hey Kob we get it, you're a superstar player who can score whenever you want, but seriously man, let someone else shine for once. Normally I'm a huge Kobe/Lakers fan, but between Kobe almost breaking the All-Star single quarter shot attempt record in the first quarter of the game, and Phil Jackson making the west team play zone defense (Really?, Seriously? Zone in an All-Star game?!) I'm really disappointed in them both taking a lot of the excitement outta the game on Sunday. And because it would've been a travesty of justice for Shaq not to get the hardware for this game, the NBA thought it'd be cute to do this:




















Part of me wished Shaq would've just cracked Kobe over the head for not allowing him to shine in his possible final ASG appearance. But thinking about it, hasn't this been the pattern of their relationship? Both would produce, and when one should have deferred to the other and gone with the plan, one didn't, leading to a selfish out for one's self mentality. And one only needed to look at half of the game to see that on display, pretty much if Kobe got his hands on the ball, he was shooting it.

This isn't the first (or last) occasion Kobe has had to have people talk about his inability to compute logic when it comes to playing with others, and this is eventually why Lebron James has, and will continue to get so much more support than Kobe does from fans, and talking heads alike, who want to anoint him the best in the game ASAP. Realizing strengths and weaknesses, and learning to win with your team as opposed to trying to outgun your opponent by yourself is what will always set the two apart. Real classy Kob, real classy.