Why I Consider Kobe Outside of the Top 31 All-Time NBA Players

Kobe Bryant is the most overrated player of sports in my lifetime.  As a lifelong Laker fan it pains me to make this point but from a keen sense of justice I have always been bothered by the enormity of Bryant’s legend.  To be certain he is a terrific player and one of the best to ever join the Association but not top 10.  No way. 

Kobe has been one of the best.  First, his endurance has been exceptional.  Until the last few of these 20 seasons in the league Kobe was incredibly healthy, which can be attributed to his superior physical fitness and perhaps also to genetic good fortune.  Second, he may have possessed the greatest pull-up jumper in the history of the game.  Kobe’s versatility is also among the all-time greats.

Kobe’s drawbacks begin with his ego.  When he entered the league he was groomed by many of the game’s greats to be prolific, even the best ever.  He had that kind of talent.  And that shot was so smooth from day one.  We, (I’ll speak for all Laker fans here,) all dreamed it, imagined it, and pronounced it as if his destiny was manifest by the purple and gold “Lakers,” emblazoned across his chest.  Never mind the missed three-point shots at the end of the Kobe’s rookie Lakers’ season-ending loss in the Western Conference Finals to Malone and Stockton. Kobe averaged 7 points a game and was not an integral part of the offense or the rotation.  He was the future and in many ways he lived up to the potential.  Once the Lakers brought in Shaq and surrounded the two of them with efficient workmen like Derek Fisher and Rick Fox and Robert Horry, the threepeat was born. 

In the modern NBA every team has a scorer.  The Lakers in those years had Shaq who could literally sink 40 points and gobble up 20 rebounds every night if necessary.  Bryant, however, was the team’s classic scorer.  He averaged 22, 28 and 25 points a game in those three glorious seasons.  Kobe’s points may have been easier to come by than some other scorers around the league based on the attention Shaq drew to the key.  Then again, maybe it was harder to find those points given the lion’s share Shaq achieved by owning the paint and putting back everything.  In any case he was more than proficient in his role.  I can’t help but wonder what a garden variety NBA scorer like Alex English might have achieved if paired with someone of Shaq’s caliber and stature.  Or Allen Iverson.  Iverson was not the defensive player Kobe was and he certainly brought a shitload of baggage to his team but as a scorer, he was more creative and better than Kobe and he honed his skills on a bunch of otherwise bad teams.  Carmelo Anthony may have had equal success to Kobe with Bryant’s supporting cast.  Dwayne Wade achieved at a similar level with less.  Today, around the league there are several players who will never be considered in Kobe’s class, who carry a greater burden than Kobe had to on his winning teams, and who achieved more than Kobe did when his teams were equally inefficient. 

Scorers get the recognition in the NBA.  Sometimes players like Dennis Rodman or Joakim Noah are lauded for their yeoman’s role but generally, it is the Derek Rose’s and the Isiah Thomas’s who are given the credit for wins.  This makes sense in as much as scoring is the single hardest thing there is to do in a basketball game.  At the same time they are not just plentiful in the game at any level, every team has one or two.  Kobe led the league in scoring in two of his 19 years.  Both of those years the Lakers departed the playoffs with first round losses.  For those two years, ’05-’06 and ’06-’07, Kobe was one of those scorers around the league he gets so much credit for being vastly better than.  To me he was virtually Carmelo Anthony in those years, except with good defense. 

Kobe also gets a lot of credit for somehow being a smart or heady player.  In fact he was never smart enough to focus in on his best skill and capitalize on it.  He became known as the best bad shot maker in the game, which is a truth and a manifestation of the fact that he got good at something that was unadvisable in the first place.  More, to say he was good at is a relative estimation.  It is not as if that bad shot selection yielded better results than other players or than himself when he got better shots.  Had Kobe been a truly smart player he would have made a living off of taking 1-3 hard steps and dribbles in either direction then pulling up for the mid-range jumper.  That being the shot he did better than everyone else.  Only Jordan was close and may have exceeded Bryant based on his ability to consistently get more lift on his jumper making it an easier shot for him. 

In 2008 the Lakers beat the Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals and in that series, but scarcely at any other sustained time in Kobe’s career, Kobe did focus in on his strength.  He also played unselfishly and with great defense.  In a word, in that particular series, Kobe’s play was devastating.  Personally, I was overjoyed.  For me Kobe had finally become the best player in basketball and all that Laker fans had hoped for.  It was the season of his first title sans Shaq.  He had been joined by what was at that time the best big man in the game whose name was not Tim Duncan, Pau Gasol.  As we know with Lamar Odom and Ron Artest the Lakers won two more championships, which was what fueled Kobe to play as he did in that Denver series.  Getting that other title as Shaq had in Miami was a big deal to him and finally he set his ego aside and played team ball, even in his role as the scorer.  Kobe also played well in the Finals that year, and had a spectacular game one, but Trevor Ariza and Derek Fisher made the necessary clutch shots in the crucial games four and five.  (That is the reality that can be seen throughout Kobe's career in spite of his reputation as somehow being a clutch performer.  He is not and never was.)  In the following year, even though the Lakers won Kobe’s 5^th championship, he digressed.  His ego got the best of him and he reverted to slashing to the hoop to try to get crowd pleasing dunks and bombing three balls like Pistol Pete Maravich on Dopamine.  My friends and I used to feign tears when he would hit two or three three’s because we knew the end result would be him jacking up a bunch more.  He is a lifetime 33% three-point shooter and he achieved all of 35% in that remarkable ’08-’09 season.

 

One more piece of evidence on  Kobe’s ego and a bit of conspiracy.  First, Kobe gave himself the moniker The Black Mamba.  He said he adopted it as a means of coping with the turmoil he endured being accused of rape.  He got it from a Quentin Tarantino movie.  Who nicknames themselves?  That is narcissistic as hell, right?  On the conspiracy front I question Kobe’s ability to speak Italian fluently.  It’s been out there forever that he is fluent having spent a number of years growing up in Italy while his father played in the Italian professional basketball league but I have never heard it.  We have all heard him say a few words to somebody but if that is the measure of fluency then I am fluent in Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese and Armenian.  I just don’t trust him.  He seems like the type of person to lie about such a thing.  He wants so bad to be the best ever and thus far the public has cooperated.  Also, almost everything he ever says publicly, every quote, every interview, he reveals the true megalomaniac within.

I don’t know Kobe.  It’s possible I am all wrong about him.  I have always swam upstream on this one but outside of a playoff run that led to his 4^th title, the counterintuitive Kobe is the only one I have ever seen.  He won the NBA Finals MVP award when the Lakers won that 5^th championship and I was beyond incredulous.  Go back and watch that series.  Kobe gets his 20+ points per game but his turnovers were not only abundant, they occurred at the most crucial and inopportune times.  I recall thinking during some of those crucial turnovers, ‘well, if they win at least Kobe won’t get the series’ MVP.’  Wrong.  If it had been to me I would have nicknamed Kobe 'The Emperor," for obvious reasons.

As for why or how Kobe’s reputation grew to such heroic proportions, I have fragments of ideas collected and stored over the years.  Yes, we all wanted him to be great, so we were prone to believe he was achieving it before our eyes over the years.  The Lakers had great success and Kobe was a part of it if not the overwhelming catalyst he was credited as being.  Kobe always talked the talk.  From day one he was always intent on creating that legend.  He would say he did not socialize with other NBA players because he was dedicated to honing his game and working out but it may just be that he was an asshole and no one was interested in being friends with him.  Whenever he did seem like he had become friends with someone in the league the relationship was always characterized as, “Kobe has become something of a big brother figure to Carmelo.”  I used to imagine the days when years after their careers were over some of these players would come out and tell the truth about Kobe.  I still  wonder if Dwayne Wade or Carmelo Anthony will emerge one day to say they always felt superior to Kobe and despised him for the cast he had around him and the success.  I also wonder about Pau.  He has always seemed like a heady sort of guy, in stark contrast to Kobe, and as such I thought he might one day back off all the lip service praise he has bestowed upon Kobe over the years as his teammate.  When I think about Kobe complaining to the cops the night he was arrested for rape, about how Shaq would have had his indiscretion swept under the rug by the authorities, it just seems appropriate from a karmic standpoint some of these guys would come out and cut Kobe back down to size a bit.  That they have not reveals their bigger nature.

I am a Laker lover.  When I was about 6-years-old I remember the Lakers were a great team and they had this guy who shot left-handed and always seemed to hit big shots in crunch time.  I was aware of this behemoth of a man, (unbeknownst to me in the twilight of his career,) Wilt Chamberlain.  I also knew Jerry West.  He was the team’s catalyst.  But Gail Goodrich was the guy I identified with.  Other teams could not leave West or Chamberlain alone and so Goodrich got plenty of good looks at the basket and he was in his own right a great scorer, (ironically by way of the mid-range jumper.)  A few years later it was Lucius Allen and Cazzie Russell on mediocre Laker teams.  Then Kareem came over and Magic was had in the draft and the glory years began in earnest.  Five championships in the ‘80s were salad days for Laker fans.  Kareem became and remains my favorite player of all time.  Magic was great.  His exuberance in action is unparalleled in sports.  James Worthy is vastly underrated due to the mixed fortune of playing with Buck and Cap.  I also loved Rambis and Michael Cooper and most every Laker.  I even liked Nick Van Exel. When glory returned in the new millennium, I quickly became a Shaq fan, even though I had not cared for him when he was in Orlando.  I also embraced Kobe.  In the first 6-7 years of his career I too sang the faithful refrain.  It was when the debate began about whose team the Lakers were, Shaq’s or Kobe’s, that I first became dismayed.  I remember thinking geez, I bet Chris Webber and Mike Bibby would be thankful to have Shaq on their squad and they would not act as if they were somehow on his level.  Kobe was never near Shaq in terms of real impact on basketball games.  Shaq was a pulsating force in the middle of the key who affected everything that happened at both ends of the court.  By comparison Kobe was merely a good player. 

As a Laker fan I loved Robert Horry and I embraced Ron Harper and Brian Shaw.  Along with Ron Artest later these players hit crucial important shots.  Derek Fisher also hit some big shots.  By contrast Kobe had a million chances to hit big shots and hit very few.  According to an article several years ago in Slam Magazine Kobe was statistically among the worst clutch shot makers in the league.  The cable network Prime Ticket created a show out of Kobe’s 10 greatest clutch shots.  Most of them occurred in the early season.  One or two were in the same last game of a season and another one was in the 2006 playoffs against Phoenix.  In 19 years and all those playoff games, given that Kobe has shot the basketball more than anyone to ever play the game, (the all-time leading misser of shots but well behind Kareem on the all-time scoring list,) isn’t it shocking he doesn’t have some real big clutch makes to show for all those attempts?  Fisher has “.4.”  Metta Worldpeace made hay of Kobe’s airball and made the layup as time expired in the Finals.  (Ron Harper from the baseline against Portland…Horry top of the key vs. Sacramento…so many big shots come to mind.  Only that one against Phoenix comes to mind for Kobe and the Lakers lost that first round series and the Lakers were a bad team, Kobe’s bad team.  Yes, that team was truly his.) 


Kobe is and was better than Robert Horry or Derek Fisher.  Fisher was a smarter player who used his brain and moxie to perform at a level higher than what might be expected of him physically.  Horry landed on several excellent teams that needed another really good, versatile player in their push for championships.  He was exceedingly skilled and as cool under fire as could be.


Kobe's legend was fueled by victory and Hollywood, self aggrandizement and folklore.  It was built over time by fans who wanted to believe.  It is groupthink and it is mostly harmless. 

There is not much I like about Kobe.  Even on a bad team when he calls a team meeting to tell the young guys they need to stop complaining and just go find ways to win, he could not be more tone deaf.  He is shooting 33% from the field, hoisting up way too many three-point shots and spending disproportionately more time on the court than these young guys while producing less. As it is Kobe’s legacy is larger than life and for me, larger than it should be.  I am interested to see if age changes his attitudes and if somehow he finds humility in his gray years.  It could swing my attitude about him.  I mean look, he was involved in a lot of Laker achievement.  I have no intention of changing my tune but I could see him popping up on an NBA broadcast and waxing humble for a period of time convincing me of some late-arriving maturity but then who knows how my opinion might evolve.  Still, no doubt as of today his reputation is completely overblown and unjustified. 

The odd videos one can find on the internet.  So I don't know that these are the top 10 but it is not surprising to me the only two Kobe makes are with a 5-point lead on an ill-advised two-point shot with Grant Hill all over him and one jump shot with plenty of time left in game 7 against the Celtics.  In that game it is pretty clear Ron Artest was the clutch shooter and in fact he should have been awarded the series MVP.

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?

kobe bryant - doin' work

kobe: doin' work, is probably the worst piece of work spike lee has ever been involved in. this is one of the great film makers of his generation. in addition to turning real life stories into great movies, spike lee is a documentary film maker extraordinairre. he turns documentaries into art. however, in this case lee's skills are for naught because the subject is simply not compelling.

kobe: doin' work, is technically sound. everything looks good. the lighting is right. it is a courtside seat for the lakers-spurs at staples center and the movie conveys that feeling to the viewer. music is interspersed throughout the production effectively. kobe and the other professional players are terrific basketball players capable of amazing athletic feats. still, kobe bryant is boring, unbelievable, and at once milquetoast in his predicatability and outrageous as he sets about managing his perception. the title could just as easily be 'kobe: doin' work trying to be perceived exactly as i want to be perceived.'

kobe bryant really is a wonderful basketball player. among the greatest of all time, bryant has a unique combination of skill and size. he is a scorer, to be sure, but it is his jump-shot that sets him apart. it is one of the best jump-shots of all time. bryant's ability to consistently make that shot under pressure, with the best defenders in the league as close to him as they can possibly be, is what is special about him.

it's not his drives to the basket. michael jordan was significantly better than bryant at that. jordan went with a certain power that made defenders reconsider getting in front of him as jordan would hold the ball away from the defender, throwing his body headlong towards the basket and into the air but leading with his shoulder and his left bicep. kobe can do that on occasion but mike did it with regularity. jordan's jump-shot was just as good as kobe's but kobe's longevity in the league will add to his legend some day whereas jordan's hiatus from basketball may cause his stats to pale by comparison.

it's not kobe's basketball i.q. bryant is solid in that area. he understands the game, moves well without the ball, defends effectively and by instinct. still, bird, abdul-jabbar, west, nash, and yes, jordan, also compare favorably to kobe in this area. kobe still makes a lot of thoughtless mistakes on the basketball court. as an example to begin game six of the western conference semifinals recently, kobe turned the ball over twice in the first three minutes of the game as the lakers went down 17-1. the elite players of their respective generations made mistakes but not like kobe. his mistakes belie his greatness.

kobe bryant has always wanted to be recognized for his prowess on the basketball court. this was never more clear than when shaquille o'neal departed los angeles. bryant was interested in being seen as the laker. he wanted the team to be identified as his team and this is a concept kobe has always struggled with. he never seemed to understand that leading by example would lead to the personal accolades he coveted. post shaq he whined like a child, demanded a trade at one point in time, threatened to test free agency. he has simply owned a blind spot of epic proportion.

in kobe: doin' work, all of bryant's words come across as designed to give a certain impression. kobe: doin' work is a work of kobe's marketing skills. some viewers may buy kobe's message, which would seem to be; "kobe bryant is an unreal basketball player because he is a hard-working, student of the game whose dedication is unsurpassed and who is also humble." (yes. seriously. kobe wants you to believe he is humble. you can hear it between the lines every time he deigns to compliment a tony parker or a d wade or a manu ginobili.)

in a way kobe is superior to michael jordan and all the rest. what he does on the court that is positively unstoppable is in how he explodes into the air like a rocket. he can be dribbling and running in any direction but he has the ability to pop, straight up into the air, at which point his shot is effortless because his legs have done all the work. the ball must feel like a feather to kobe.

what is puzzling is this reputation kobe has for hitting big, last second shots. as a laker fan i root for him to hit these shots and while he has hit some, i remember a deluge of missed shots as time expired. yes, it started in utah in his rookie season... he hits big shots. he does-no question. last week he hit a big shot with ron artest all over him from about 35 feet away from the rim. it was a momentum changer, but not a game winner. i was in attendance at staples center one night a couple of years ago when he caught fire late in the third quarter against the clippers. he was unconscious. cuttino mobley wanted to crawl in a hole as kobe fired threes while falling out of bounds and every other manner of shot, and everything found the bottom. it was unbelievable but it was not game-winning.

remember those big shots when the lakers were three-peating their way through the beginning of the century? remember ron harper's shot from the baseline? remember "bob's," shot? hell, robert horry had like three big, game-winning, season-saving, playoff-delivering shots. brian shaw had a big one. d-fish had .4 to extend a losing season. kobe? well, he has had some game winners to be sure, (one against the suns comes to mind two nights before i got married,) but over the last five years he has taken pretty much every last second shot the lakers have had. this reputation kobe has is more legend than truth. still, he does not crumble at game's end. just last night he dished to d-fish for a couple of big buckets. he draws a big crowd after all, when he has the ball at the end of games.

the point of the film is to study the man who is kobe bryant. spike lee is documenting the work ethic of the superstar basketball player. the viewer should be impressed with kobe's work ethic, his attention to detail as he explains how things develop on the basketball court and strategy, and how giving he is as a subject, opening his life to lee's camera and an adoring public. the problem is, there is almost nothing about his life.

the documentarian recorded a day in the life but since basketball is just basketball and not a mystery, since the pros are merely a slice above the d league and the euro leagues, which are just above the middle eastern and australian leagues and the college game, since so many americans have played some organized basketball, the mystery we might sense and thereby be amazed at the simple feats of kobe bryant's basketball wizardry are essentially debunked.

had kobe bryant waxed philosophical or expounded on his thoughts on barack obama, (a la james blake at the australian open,) had he weighed in on the issues of the day or even talked about what he learned from his banishment post rape allegations, had he been the first to mention that he really has not hit a bunch of huge, game winning shots, (thereby showing real humility instead of the faux version he foists upon the public regularly,) had he, instead of praising dwayne wade's crossover dribble move to the basket, admitted that wade would beat him nine times out of ten in a one on one game, had he explained how it was he came to make a "rap," record, had he said something, anything at all that was remotely interesting instead of the snide, self-promoting drivel he oozes unceasingly throughout the piece, (spike lee held up his end of the bargain after all,) this could have been a good documentary.