In 2015-16 Kobe had the highest salary in the league at $25 million.
He put up 17.5/4/3 with the 4th highest usage rate that year playing around 28 MPG. Shooting splits of 36/28/83 for the 7th lowest TS% in the league. Meanwhile, the lakers finished bottom of the West with a 17-65 record.
Looking at advanced metrics: 2nd worst plus minus per game, 4th worst defensive box plus minus, 7th lowest win shares and 2nd lowest WS/48 (both negative) and all of which are the worst among Lakers players that year.
I understand he was injured and it was a farewell tour but purely from a production relative to salary perspective is this the worst season by a player ever or would it still be better than e.g a star being injured all year or refusing to play but making the max.
Gordon Hayward for the celtics - even after he came back from injury
He was only good for one season. We probably make it to the finals if he doesn’t get injured in the bubble. Might’ve even won.
Everyone dumps all the blame solely on Kyrie for those disappointing teams. I get that it’s fun to dunk on Kyrie and he played like shit in that Bucks series. But the reality is the Celtics’ highest-paid player was completely useless most of the time, and probably detrimental to the development of a lot of other guys (because he played a lot of mins/took shots away from other guys). Gordon Hayward was a much bigger reason those teams fizzled than Kyrie was.
He was a max contract player who put up 9/4/2 on 54% TS and bad defense in the playoffs. He took minutes away from better players like Rozier and Morris. Even if Kyrie had absolutely balled out, that team was still going nowhere. You can’t win in the NBA when your max contract player is that terrible.
The blame Kyrie gets isn’t just based on his play. He spent the whole year publicly throwing his younger teammates under the bus. He was locker room cancer. The year he was injured, those young guys went to the conference finals. The year he played and spent publicly trashing them, they got embarrassed in the playoffs. The following year after he left, they’re back in the conference finals.
They were also in the conference finals in the first year he was there, when he was injured for most of the season.
I remember him criticizing the younger guys for not having the experience, when they made a conference finals without him.