Friday And-1 links: Can Kobe and Nash coexist as leaders?

Kurt Helin

Aug 17, 2012, 2:30 PM EDT

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Here is our regular look around the NBA — links to stories worth reading and notes to check out (stuff that did not get its own post here at PBT) — done in bullet point form. Because bloggers love bullet points like these guys love Alex Morgan.

• Interesting post by the always… well, at least usually interesting Henry Abbott over at TrueHoop talking about the contrasting leadership styles of Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash. Kobe is old-school, Michael Jordan, scare your teammates kind of leader. Nash wants more of a love-in. This could work — a few years back the Lakers had Derek Fisher to play good cop to Kobe’s bad cop. That worked out pretty well, the same kind of dynamic could develop here. And just like then, Pau Gasol will try to ignore it all.

• Another fascinating post, this one from Zach Lowe at Sports Illustrated, looking at the most efficient scorers from the low post last year. Yes, it’s Paul Pierce, just like we all thought. And keep an eye on Carl Landry.

• Antoine Walker is thinking about his life after basketball.

• Should the Wizards just accept the mistakes and start Bradley Beal at the two, because he is the long-term answer there. Yes, yes they should.

• One of my favorite posts of the day: Dream Shake takes a look back at the Rockets career of Brian Cook.

• There are reports Greek team Panathinaikos are talking to Ben Wallace about playing overseas.

• One of the odd notes out of the New York Times story detailing Jay-Z’s involvement with the Nets was the part saying the rapper had to call the league office and convince them to let the team’s new uniforms be black because the home office thinks African-Americans don’t look good in black uniforms. As you might imagine, the league vehemently denies this. Kelly Dwyer at Ball Don’t Lie makes the best point — the Spurs wear black, the Heat wear black regularly and other teams have black alternate uniforms. Since when is this a problem?

• Could the Bobcats be the 29th worst team in the NBA this season?

• Be very, very careful reading too much into numbers from summer Pro-Am games, but Trail Blazers rookie Will Barton scored 72 points during a contest in Baltimore. The young guard dropped those numbers on Brandon Jennings, Kemba Walker and Derrick Williams.

• The Hornets signed guard Brian Roberts to a make-good deal (he gets a camp invite and some money with the chance to make the team).

• Former Raptors head coach Jay Triano may end up as an assistant in Portland.

• Eastern Michigan coach Rob Murphy will not join the Magic’s scouting department. I can think of about 210,000 reasons for that (think $).

• Nets second round pick Ilkan Karaman has signed with Fenerbahce Ulker in Turkey.