I have been interning at a radio station, and this morning the producer of the show brought up an interesting point.  No current athlete besides Kobe Bryant openly criticizes their teammates the way he does.

Kobe has repeatedly called out teammate Pau Gasol for being too soft.  After a very poor performance resulting in the loss of the first game against the New Orleans Hornets, Kobe called out Gasol.

There is no other player in the NBA, or any other major professional sport for that matter, who openly calls out their teammates in the media.

I have a few ideas on why this is.  First, Kobe has spent almost all of his career being coached by Phil Jackson.  Jackson has been notorious for using the media as a coaching tool throughout his career.  It is no secret that Kobe has great respect for Jackson and his coaching methods.  It is likely that Kobe has taken a page out of Jackson’s book of coaching and has learned to use the media to motivate his teammates.

My second thought on why Kobe can and does openly criticize his teammates is because of Kobe’s work ethic and mentality in a game.  Kobe is always in attack mode during a game.  He has an almost unparalleled work ethic, and when he sees or perceives that someone not playing with the same intensity as he is, he will call them out.

The combinations of these two things probably has led or contributed to Kobe calling out his teammates.  Why haven’t other players done this?  I think because there aren’t many players who have the ability to do so.  Not many players have the same work ethic that Kobe does, and also not many players have been coached by Jackson for as long as Kobe has.