Kobe’s contribution

“I don’t want to be the next Michael Jordan. I only want to be Kobe Bryant.”– Kobe Bryant

There’s so much to talk about when one realizes that Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant is retiring. His career spanned so much for so long that even his highlight reel would be a full-length film for other players. Kobe’s arrival in LA was a result of happy circumstance, as the Lakers traded away center Vlade Divac for the 13th overall pick of the Charlotte Hornets, only consummating the deal the day before the draft. Bryant was still a minor, so his parents had to cosign the contract until he turned 18 and could sign official documents independently. He was the first guard to be taken into the NBA straight out of high school.

Twenty seasons ago, Bryant entered the NBA a ferocious, overconfident phenom almost with enough raw talent to back up his belief that he could take on anyone in the NBA and prevail. As fate would have it, he would run smack into head coach Del Harris who, smack in the middle of an impressive five-year run with the Lakers, held him back. Chomping at the bit that rookie season, Bryant was only allowed to start six games, a maddening number given his prodigious ability and iron will. The next season was even worse: he only started once. Save for the last three injury-plagued seasons, those were his worst years offensively in his career. He ended the season averaging just 15.5 minutes a game. Harris, who had a similar struggle with Allen Iverson later on, simply overdid the incubation of this incomparable talent.

Of course, that first year was already replete with records: youngest player at the time to play in an NBA game, start an NBA game, win the All-Star Game slam dunk contest. Then, of course, there was the disastrous final game of the season, a second-round loss to the Utah Jazz. Bryant hoisted up four bad shots, including three three-pointers that could have kept the Lakers alive. Some say very few players would have had the courage to take those shots. In this writer’s opinion, it was conscienceless to keep shooting and missing. But in the end, it fed the growth of the legend.

Of course, the mass media that had solidly embraced Michael Jordan were also nitpicking this proud neophyte. Bryant entered the league in the middle of the second Chicago Bulls three-peat presided over by His Airness, and he wanted a piece of that trophy so bad, he couldn’t sleep. His frustrations over the seasons mounted, and the rush to equal – and if possible – outdo Jordan, was on. After all, they were the same size, played the same position, and had virtually the same abilities. The first half of Bryant’s career almost mirrored Jordan’s, and he quickly tired of losing.

In 1998, Bryant made his first visit to the Philippines, still a rambunctious youth exploring the vast world that was laid out before him. Kobe was in the country to grace the third edition of the adidas Streetball Challenge, the precursor to the various 3-on-3 basketball tournaments that eventually led it to becoming an Olympic event. At the time, the excitable kid managed to evade his coterie of security personnel lounging at the lobby of the Manila Peninsula, and with a cousin, casually sauntered around Glorietta window-shopping, as luck would have it, some teenagers recognized him, and soon, a throng of noisy, giddy youth were following the pair around. Ultimately, Bryant tried to hide in one of the stores until his security detail could extract him. After that, his extra-curriculars were confined to his hotel suite.

His career path actually started to look more like that of Julius Erving. Dr. J had toiled tirelessly for the Philadelphia 76ers, was one of the main draws of the league (some would say the reason the NBA absorbed the last four members of the dying ABA), but could not win a championship despite his constant defiance of the laws of physics. After seven years, Erving’s pleas landed the Sixers future MVP Moses Malone, and they finally won a championship in 1983, breaking the decade-long stranglehold of the Lakers and Boston Celtics before Detroit finally won a pair of titles to end the 1980’s.

Finally, when Phil Jackson arrived in Los Angeles, Bryant’s full potential was realized. Jackson was, after all, the mastermind of Jordan’s success in Chicago, thanks to his magic of mindfulness and Tex Winter’s triple-post offense, or triangle. That was, of course, if Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal could get along on and off the court, one was a giant jester, the other an overly serious competitor. Under Jackson’s guidance, the pair would own the first three seasons of the new millennium, Jackson’s third three-peat. It seemed as if things were finally going smoothly for Kobe. A dynasty was aborning.

But, true to form, his seriousness and Shaq’s playfulness caused public clashes, exacerbated by Bryant’s off-court legal troubles. Inevitably, the two alpha dogs were separated by trading Shaq. And the media which had some lovingly embraced Michael Jordan before him started burning him under the magnifying glass. Saying he couldn’t win without a dominant center, in fact, that dominant center that had just left him. 

After a failed experiment with desperate All-Stars Karl Malone and Gary Payton, a pair of titles would follow for Bryant, with a team that looked almost entirely different. The 2009 playoffs would be an unbelievable showcase for Bryant, including a string of game-winners, record single-game scores, and a title without his disgruntled former partner, O’Neal. If you could encapsulate and isolate Bryant at his best, perhaps that mind-blowing run would suffice.

Overall, it has been Kobe Bryant’s will that has carried him through adversity and his body breaking down over the years. He has been hardheaded and tried to do things his way, until a certain level of enlightenment (signaled by changing his jersey number) would open him to winning more readily. Even in the NBA, there have been few players who have been so consistently willing to place themselves in the line of fire – or blame. This writer respectfully disagrees with Bryant’s assessment that his body has started to let him down. I believe his mind has finally declared him mortal, and therefore can no longer command him to do the incredible things he once did. He has fallen off a precipice where he once resided, one that exists in his mind, a zenith that separates the immortal from the rest. And as he descends back among us, he is not the charred Icarus who flew too high, but the scarred returning hero who challenged the gods of the game, and won, on his terms.