Kobe Bryant Shoots 6-22 After Proclaiming Self "voice of ball movement reason"

Kobe Bryant’s farewell tour continued with another pitiful stop at the Staples Center on Sunday. The Trail Blazers came to LA and beat the Lakers, 107-93. The Lakers are now 2-11 on the season. Kobe scored 18 points on 6-22 shooting. He started cold, making 3 of 10 shots in the first quarter before cooling down to make 3 of 12 the rest of the game. Did I mention the Lakers lost? After the game, Kobe explained his early shot volume.

And this came hours after he said this (via ESPN):

"“When I’ve become the voice of ‘ball-movement reason,’ you know you have an issue,” Bryant said. “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be the one preaching that stuff. That’s crazy."

That is crazy. Kobe is shooting 33% this season. With Sunday’s game, Kobe has now scored 163 points on 166 shots this season. He’s shooting .331 from the field and a nice even 20% from three after going 0-5 against the Blazers. Is Kobe having the worst high-volume shooting season in the NBA? Not quite.

James Harden is shooting .380 on 287 field goal attempts. Rookie Emmanuel Mudiay has actually taken more shots (201) and is shooting worse from the field (.328). Marcus Morris, a power forward who fancies himself a shooter, has taken nearly a third of his 176 shots from distance (25%), but is still shooting a higher percentage (.386) than Kobe. Joe Johnson (.346 on 162 attempts) and Trevor Ariza (.361 on 158 FGA) aren’t that far behind. But I bet none of those guys have quite a fancy highlight video on a game-by-game basis. (When you remove all the misses.)