Gasol: "Kobe can't win all the games on his own"

For the third consecutive year, Pau Gasol has been awarded La Gazzetta dello Sport's Europlayer award for 2010, given to the best basketball player from the old continent, while the giant power forward has also been named in the Western Conference's All-Star line-up in what will be his fourth appearance at the NBA's gala night. In an interview with the Italian newspaper, published on Wednesday when Gasol picked up the prize, the Spanish LA Lakers center spoke of the egotistical trait of his teammate, Kobe Bryant.

"In some games, against strong opponents like Boston, he can't win the game on his own," Gasol said. "Basketball is a team game, everybody has to be involved. The other night [a 96-109 loss to Boston] Kobe was shooting at more than 50-percent accuracy, but he ended up monopolizing the ball, which is precisely what Boston wanted."

Bryant scored 41 points in the game but Lakers coach Phil Jackson said that the player doesn't need to score that amount in every game and each time this season that he has, the Lakers have lost. The previous occasion was against the Pacers (92-95) in November.

"It's the way to beat us, and against the Celtics that's what happened," said Gasol.

Summing up the Lakers' stop-start season, Gasol admitted the team's position is "worrying."

"One of the problems is that we have let games escape that we would have won without fail in past seasons. Even though we're second in the Western Conference there is no doubt that we are not playing as well as in the last two years, mainly because we have had a reasonably amenable schedule."