When it's good, it's good and when it's bad, it's bad.

That's the feeling I get when I think of Kobe this year.  

He opened up the season with a solid performance against the Nuggets, shooting well (around 46%) but getting into foul trouble (4) and turning the ball over (6 turnovers to 4 assists).  

He followed it up with a much better showing the next night against Phoenix, though the Lakers lost. Jackson's implementation of the triangle offense has been getting Kobe a lot of looks from mid-range, lots of semi-open and open jumpers that he's been drilling.  He's actually been shooting quite a high percentage on the season.  

However, in losses to the Timberwolves, Sixers and Grizzlies (as of late November 14th, the Lakers are on their first 3-game losing skid of the season), Kobe's starting to return to bad habits that have haunted him throughout his career.  

Kobe's aggressiveness, his independance and his willingness and ability to isolate and score are all traits of his that are at once his greatest talents and his biggest crutches.  He has trouble balancing these two things and this is one of the reasons the Lakers' dynasty fell apart.  That's a whole other can of worms I don't want to open and suffice to say, I don't blame Kobe for that whole mess all on his own; he certainly had help collapsing the dynasty.  Anyway, Kobe has been returning to his isolation, out-of-the-offense style of playing and forcing the issue more on offense and it has hurt him.  0-5 in the fourth against the Timberwolves, 7-27 on the game against the Sixers and Andre Iguodala's defense, 7-18 against the Grizzlies...  He's scored under 20 points in each of his last two games.  

All of a sudden, a season that started out looking so promising for Kobe has begun to crash down around him and he didn't even get a chance to enjoy it for a week.  The Lakers last won in Atlanta, beating the Hawks by 6 in a game Kobe utterly dominated.  

But the question to ask is this:  Is Kobe Bryant at fault for the Lakers' troubles in breaking the offense and returning to the style of play he defaulted to so often last year, or is he being forced into this situation?  

The second-leading scorer on the team is Lamar Odom, who was shooting 40% from the floor before the Memphis game.  

Smush Parker is the third-leading scorer on the team and is mostly performing quite well... but how long his offensive game will remain a viable third option for the team is questionable.  This is the first season in which Parker is averaging 17 or more minutes per game and taking significant numbers of shot attempts per game.  His free throw shooting has been horrid and he's been foul-prone, though he's been picking the ball from defenders quite readily (2.83 spg before the Memphis game).  His offensive effeciency is exemplary but also predicated on him shooting 40% from downtown, which is unprecedented in his career.  After that, Devean George is shooting around 39% for 9 ppg and Chris Mihm is shooting about 55% to also score 9 ppg.  Then it is the enigmatic Kwame Brown.  

I have discussed Kwame at length on the forums and in other articles and I just get more confused and frustrated with him every day.  He's seven feet tall, perhaps a little more than that in shoes.  He's athletic, he's strong, he's got good mass about him...  He's a pretty good single-coverage defender... and he's utterly witless on offense, a bad shot-blocker and he's apparently a disinterested rebounder as well.  He gets 6 rebounds a game by accident, merely from rebounds coming to him.  

So with this kind of supporting cast, can you blame Kobe for taking 27 shots a game?