kobe the blight

i continue to swim upstream on this one, against the great minds of the game and virtually every tom, dick and harry laker fan on the street but i insist kobe bean bryant is by far the most overrated professional sports player ever.  recently slam magazine proclaimed kobe is no longer mr clutch in the eyes of the league's general managers.  more to the point bryant ranks 38th over the last three years in clutch shooting, (this in spite of the fact that he gets more opportunities than even durant and james who have to share occasional opportunities with messers. wade and westbrook.) 

kobe is certainly a great basketball talent.  what does he do well.  he is a great pull up jump shooter.  from mid-range he is among the very best ever if not the best.  he is an excellent defender in the half court set.  (his transition defense sometimes makes me queasy.)  he is as fundamentally sound as one can be in terms of the compulsories: dribbling, shooting, defending, rebounding, jumping and so on. 

that said my biggest complaint about kobe as an avowed laker fan is not the poor clutch performance, which i have grown accustomed to.  rather it is his obtuse nature, which manifests as a low basketball i.q.  in concert with that complaint is the public adoration of bryant and his lofty reputation, which is perhaps more reminiscent of the emperor wearing no clothes than any other real life example in my lifetime. 

kobe always wanted to be great and i believe all those who say he has an incredible work ethic.  certainly his shot bears that out.  when he came into the league the lakers had acquired him in a trade that was something of a gamble but it made all the sense in the world.  the thing was he could have been the next michael jordan.  his arrival to the lakers bench in the '96-'97 season was always colored by that storyline.  with a slightly different build but considerably ahead of jordan in terms of maturity, (having entered the league at 18,) bryant's every made shot was the young kobe bryant poster waiting to be made.  when he bricked those shots in utah in the playoffs that rookie campaign he was forgiven for being 18.  even i thought hey, great experience for the young pup.  someday he'll make those.

that day never came.  kobe has five championships as a laker but i would submit that he never, ever made the big or important clutch shot.  one could correctly say he drew the defense's attention as he has been the lakers offensive focal point certainly during these last two lakers championships when he won the mvp award both times, (undeservedly, in my opinion,) but he never hit the shot.  that distinction belongs to the likes of ron artest,(yes, that is the one where kobe looked all hurt after the game at not getting the glory,) ron artest, (bryant shot 25% from the field and 54% from the line in that game 7,) brian shaw, robert horry, ron harper from the baseline against portland, and so on.

here are kobe's top 10 clutch shots.  (the first four occur in january, january, december, december and one in april as the regular season wound down.) 
more, here is one writer's top 20 nba playoff clutch shots of all-time, which includes a few lakers and one soon-to-be laker but no kobe bryant.  anyway, as it turns out others have made the case about kobe's undeserved clutch reputation, thank god.  (the great thing about that piece is in how it admits when kobe has been clutch, clearly clutch, was when he hit late pull up jumpers that weren't from a ridiculously lucky range.  one of those i recall vividly and he deserved the praise, the other occurred while i was getting married so i missed it.  lesson learned-don't confuse priorities.)

the laker's threepeat at the outset of the century relied on a number of contributors with shaq being key.  after being unseated by san antonio when the lakers lost to detroit a year later and the demise of the shaq and kobe lakers was imminent basketball enthusiasts seemed to enjoy engaging in the debate over who was more important to all that winning.  clearly shaq was more responsible and those who took his side always won the debate hands down.  that said mitch kupchak did the right thing in keeping the younger kobe bryant who still had that huge upside.  having won three championships without being the main guy, (though he had averaged 22, 28 and 25 in those regular seasons and 21, 29 and 26 in those playoffs,) it figured kobe would become an elite scorer and perhaps the gold standard in the association. 

in some ways that did come to pass.  kobe's average jumped to 30 ppg the first year after the threepeat when the lakers missed the playoffs.  the following year when they were back in the finals his average dipped back to 24.  the next year with shaq gone it spiked up to 35 ppg and he won the first of his two scoring titles along with the following year when he scored 32 ppg.  these two laker teams were dismal.

the storyline preceding shaq's departure was all about whose team it was, an ugly byproduct of david stern's marketing money grab in which the individual was made greater than the team even to the detriment of the game's rules and referring integrity.  with shaq gone bryant seemed to determine to make the lakers his and initially he professed to expect the lakers to continue to be as competetive as the league's top teams.  as shaq and wade won in miami, and as duncan and parker and ginobili won in san  antonio, billups and hamilton in detroit, and eventually pierce, garnett and allen in boston, it became increasingly clear a guy like kobe could not win sans shaq or a shaq.  enter pau gasol. 

gasol had been a monster in memphis.  in seven years in memphis gasol had averaged about 19 ppg and 8-9 rpg.  the offense ran through him but like kobe he was rather alone in tennessee.  he arrived at the trade deadline and propelled the lakers, who had kobe and a lamar odom in his prime, a solid derek fisher, and the emerging andrew bynum and trevor ariza, into the finals where they lost to the celtics.  gasol's numbers remained about the same except in rebounds where he increased his numbers by about two per game. 

unlike kobe, gasol is as unselfish a player as exists on the planet.  when he is surrounded by like-minded guys, as he is every four years on the spanish national team, he wins mvp awards and the basketball is lovely.  it is a team game after all.  sans gasol, of course kobe would not have won the last two championships.  then again it is unlikely the lakers would have won those last two championships without artest who seemed, in contrast to kobe, to rise to the occasion. 

i wish kobe was a different player, a smart player, a charismatic player, a humble player.  i would love to root for him.  i wish he had become the player i thought he would develop into all those years but it did not happen.  in the 2008-09 playoffs in the series against the nuggets, kobe played the best basketball of his entire career.  there have been glimpses of that level from time to time since then but that series in particular, he was unselfish and the lakers looked crazy good.  recently as the lakers have fumbled through a star-studded letdown of epic proportions kobe has been an enigma.  as capable as ever he has seemed driven by his ego.  it is after all, "his team," and the rest of the lakers, the coaching staff, the management and the city at large must recognize his brilliance or else.  as the lakers tumbled down the standings with kobe accompanied by perhaps the league's two best big men, bryant continued to assert his dominance.  early in the season he led in the scoring race as the lakers led in disappointment.  later as his scoring production dropped off but his assist production spiked, the lakers began running off small streaks of wins, which culminated in a national tv audience win over okc, them of the gaudy record and probably the best player in the game in kevin durant.  (durant was cited as the guy who eclipsed bryant in the estimation of league general managers as best clutch scorer.) 

kobe dropped out of the scoring title hunt but the lakers crept back into playoff contention.  then came the loss in boston the other night.  the lakers were blown out.  kobe had 27 points but zero assists. why do the lakers suck?  even with gasol out they lineup with bryant, howard, nash, world peace and antawn jamison.  that is a lot of (old,) talent.  those five are complemented by earl clark, steve blake, and perhaps one or two other guys who aren't named chris duhon who are worthy of a little time on the floor.  that team should be competetive.  add gasol and they should be beastly.  however, that does not account for kobe's ego, his propensity for turning the ball over, (15th all time, typically top 7 in in the league season over season,) the vacuous effect he has on his team's offense, which is derived from his ego: other players know the deal.  kobe's reputation precedes the idea of playing with the lakers and so everyone knows their ego must take a backseat.  that matters even if the guy is a low ego guy to begin with because it is a team game. 

while talking heads slobber all over the great kobe bryant, night after night kobe goes out there and scores his 25 points a game and protects his image.  when he is in a giving mode, (or mood,) the lakers tend to win.  when his short attention span pulls the entire team back down to the mentality of getting the ball to kobe and clearing out, (because you know, he is the self proclaimed best one-on-one player of all time,) kobe often faces double teams and fails and the lakers fail right along with him. 

as this season circles the drain i am hopeful someone named buss or kupchak will come to their senses and reward kobe with a great opportunity to win his 6th nba title, elsewhere.  if only they could trade him, you know, one of those four team deals in which the lakers get 3 first round picks from teams on the brink of the lottery, somehow...  i know, i know...

still, let howard go to brooklyn or wherever. he is good but he is not that good, not as good as gasol.  let nash retire with dignity.  perhaps a playoff contender could use his services?  put meeks and company out their and bite the bullet and rebuild.  there is no shame in rebuilding and the way to do it is around a great young talent. 

kobe, for his part, won five championships as a laker.  he will always be a laker and he will be beloved in los angeles, (if not by me.)  he is a supremely talented player, though his ego is ridiculous and he has always lacked a certain intuition for the game.  two more examples.  ever seen him play against dwayne wade?  wade owns him-always has.  i always grimace when the lakers play the heat and i see wade guarding kobe out around the perimeter forcing kobe to take three-pointers.  i always know the worst thing that can heppen is for kobe to hit one or two.  the lakers are in trouble for sure when that happens.  i remember once when the lakers actually bea the heat and wade said after the game how they had gotten what they wanted, for kobe to shoot the threes, but it just did not work out that time.  that was rare, indeed.  another example, have you ever heard kobe speak italian.  he claims to be able to.  he lived there for a number of years.  all i have ever heard of it is a few  stock phrases.  i don't believe he speaks italian.  maybe i am wrong but it is just like kobe to let us all believe he really is fluent, because you know, he is just so all around brilliant and all, but i have never seen him just stand there on camera or on the microphone and have an italian conversation with gallinari.  if kobe is fluent in italian, the i guess i am fluent in japanese, portuguese, armenian and spanish.  yeah, i lived in japan for two years, like kobe in italy i lived amidst an enclave of americans but still, if you'll believe i am fluent in japanese, i won't tell.  i mean, come on. konichiwa, genki desuka and domo arigato already.  what's it going to take for you to believe me?