He isn't a star anymore?
Over those 'last 4 seasons' Kobe has averaged 26.1 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists. Those are indisputable superstar numbers.
Over the past two seasons (which where his stats were obviously deflated significantly due to season ending injuries) he has averaged 21.1 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.7 assists. Those are still very much All-Star star numbers.
Obviously he is not the player he was when he was 28 years old (especially defensively) but even at his age Kobe is still a star, and I can all but guarantee you he will produce like a star.
I'll be VERY surprised if he averages any less than about 20 Pts, 5 Reb and 4 Ast Per 36 this season. I'm pretty confidence he'll average better than that.
You may, or may not, be surprised this season. But raw stats don't really matter here if he's grossly inefficient and that he's been the last couple of years. This is a guy whose VORP was around 5 to 6, whose BMP was around 5 and who was good for double-digit win shares.
The last two years? VORP is basically 0, BPM is about flat and whose win shares are 0. His last good season was going on three years ago. He's 37. He's played 47,000 minutes of professional basketball (more on this in a minute). He's played in 25% of the games over the last two years. Odds are that he's not going to rebound to form. If he's LUCKY he'll be like Jordan on the Wizards - putting up what sound like decent stats but in reality not helping the team much when you look at them closely because they're due to volume and not quality.
Now back to that number. 47,000 minutes. There are two players in NBA history who actually had decent production after that many minutes. Karl Malone was good until about 51k minutes and Kareem's last truly good season was when he had about 50k. That's it and both of those guys had two of the best PGs ever getting them the ball (Stockton, Magic) and had the benefit of being in the same system forever.
That's the entire list. Everyone else who had that many minutes was done as a player - and mind you Kobe is coming off of two years full of injuries. You're basically projecting him to do something that no one - EVER - has done in the history of the NBA, which is for him to produce at a high level after 47k minutes, at 37 years old, without a top flight PG and after 2 injury-prone years. It's laughable.
Now what's even funnier is that even if he does produce - pulls off a first in NBA history to do it - you're advocating him to come when he's even older and has more miles on the tires. Even if your best-case scenario pans out, you'd still be dealing with a 38 year old guy with 50,000 minutes who would be changing systems to come to Boston. Seriously, you'd have a better chance of winning the lottery than making the scenario you're trying to paint work. It's that unrealistic.
That 'ball hog' has averaged over 5 assists a game for his career.
So did Rick Barry. That didn't make him a good teammate.
Also that guy who is overly hard on his teammates and isn't a team player - he has 5 championship rings.
I'm not going to dismiss his contribution in winning the NBA Finals 5 times. But it's not like he did that alone - in 3 of those he wasn't even the best player on his team. The other two were against the Celtics (who only lost because the refs gave the Lakers 16 free throws in the 4th quarter of game 7) and against an overmatched Orlando team. No one is trying to say he wasn't a great player.
I understand what you're saying but lets be honest - most of the players who have taken issue with Kobe's "harshness" have been players who were either soft, lazy or childish by nature.
Of course guys like that aren't going to mesh well with Kobe because he's the type of guy who expects everybody on the team to put in 100% effort in every training and every game and to play every game like it's their last. If you have guys who don't put in the effort then he's going to get frustrated with those guys, and they are going to get frustrated with him.
I look at our team and I see a team full of hard working, high character players. With the exception of maybe Sully, Turner or James Young, I can't really think of anybody else on this roster who I feel would have a problem with Kobe. I think guys like Crowder, Bradley, Smart, Rozier, Lee, Johnson, Thomas (etc) would forge love affairs with Kobe overnight.
He might even light a bit of a confidence rocket under the backside of guys like Olynyk and Zeller - guys who seem to be very hard working, but just lack that "edge".
Honestly, I feel like any guys who are too soft to handle Kobe's intensity really aren't "Celtics" to begin with.
That "mean" nature that Kobe carries has a lot to do with why he has those things. Kevin Garnett had that same characteristics - I seriously doubt he would have gotten along with guys like Dwight Howard any better than Kobe did. Can't see KG getting along with players who are lazy and/or immature - yet without KG we would have no banner #17.
Shaq was soft? Steve Nash was soft? Really?
There's no doubt Kobe works hard. But by most accounts, you not only have to bust your ass, you have to kiss his ring for him to not be a jerk. This is a guy who bragged about making a teammate cry. Remember last year when the Lakers were supposed to land a top FA? They didn't and there were a lot of anonymous quotes about how nobody wanted to play with Kobe. A simple Google search brings all of this up. This is the kind of **** you put up with if Kobe's on your team:
http://gamedayr.com/sports/nba/video-kobe-calls-out-teammates-127808/KG was willing to change his game for the benefit of the team. Kobe has never done that. Kobe wants to be the star. That's OK. Jordan wanted to be the star. Magic wanted to be the star. Even Larry wanted to be the star. But the difference is that those guys made everyone else around them better. Kobe doesn't. He was enormously talented but for all of his talent he simply didn't make the guys around him better.
So what you have is an oft-injured, old player who isn't worth the trouble anymore. He's never been a mentor or someone who was willing to change his game. Your projection of the Celtics players "forging love affairs" with Kobe is straight out of Fantasyland. The only one Kobe loves is Kobe.
And, of course, the Cs already have Bradley, Smart, Rozier, Thomas and Hunter who all need minutes at PG/SG. Some of those guys have earned them (Bradley, Smart and IT) and others need the minutes to develop (and I didn't even mention Young). Putting in Kobe just stunts their growth for no long term benefit.
To summarize, there's not one redeeming factor in this line of thought. It's truly that bad of an idea.