Kareem Abdul-Jabbar admires Andrew Bynum’s passion to learn – NBA Update
NBA’s All-time leading scorer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who recently expressed disappointment, that his former employers, the Los Angeles Lakers had not erected his statue outside Staples Centre, has again brought his former franchise into focus. This time though, the talk is about a player, who impressed Jabbar. The player that he talked about was the rather controversial Lakers centre Andrew Bynum.
After calling it quits as a player, Abdul-Jabbar always wanted to have a significant coaching position in the team. Kareem never had an authoritative rank, however, the Lakers appointed him as a special assistant coach to the hall of famer Phil Jackson in 2005. It was during that period, that Jabbar had an opportunity to mentor Lakers’ centre.
Praising Bynum’s willingness to learn and immediately correct his mistakes, Jabbar said.
"While helping with the Lakers, I had the opportunity to work with Andrew Bynum, who wanted to learn and gained the knowledge he needed to be an important player for his team. Andrew was able to use some of the fundamental moves I showed him as a foundation for his game.”
Bynum joined the league at a very young age. In fact, Andrew is the youngest player ever to play an NBA game after being drafted at the age of 17 by the Los Angeles Lakers as the tenth overall pick. Although Kareem lashed out at the trend of bringing extremely young and immature players in the main stream, which he implied as one of the reason for the financial losses that the franchises face, he considers Bynum as one of the exceptions.
“Before he got to the Lakers, he hadn't played many games. At 17 years of age, he had played in only two high school seasons, and both of those seasons were shortened by injuries. However, Andrew worked hard to master a basic repertoire of skills at both ends of the court.”
During the last season, Andrew posted his best play-off performance with an average of 14.4 points and 9.6 rebounds per game. His stay at the franchise has however been rather patchy in the last few years, during which say Kobe Bryant openly demanded his removal from the team. Bynum has been demanding a bigger offensive role and clearly had some trouble with Pau Gasol in the Western Conference Semifinals against the Dallas Maverick. The Lakers were emphatically swept in that series, in the last game of which, Bynum viciously elbowed Jose Barea.
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