Almost Two Decades In, Some People Still Don’t Get Kobe Bryant

Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

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Through the first 14 games of his 19th NBA season, Kobe Bryant is averaging 26.7 points.

That’s the good news.

He’s also shooting 27.9 percent from three-point range, and 38.1 percent overall. The former would be the third lowest figure of his career (in any season in which he played more than six games, at least), the latter, by far, his worst. Nobody in the NBA comes close to Kobe’s 24 shots a game – 336 field goal attempts overall, a whopping 71 more than noted hoops wallflower Carmelo Anthony. On a per-minute basis, Kobe has never shot more, and his league-leading usage rate is just a hair below career highs.

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In the endless debate involving Kobe loyalists, Kobe haters, basketball purists, and just about anyone else who has seen an NBA game over the last two decades, these numbers are that much more grist for the mill. Given the results, both for Bryant and the Lakers, it’s hard to argue his approach to this point has been effective. Points of legitimate discussion: The best ways to maximize whatever talent the Lakers have on hand, the ideal balance of Kobe-to-team, or if as a practical matter of consequential wins and losses (meaning the type getting them to the playoffs, or even close) any of this matters, anyway.

(Hint: No, it doesn’t.)

The easy, low nuance explanation is old-fashioned, stat-hoarding selfishness. An only slightly more nuanced, though even more selfish, Michael Jordan-fueled explanation is making the rounds among at least a few insiders, like this one, dishing to ESPN.com’s Dave McMenamin

…or another, speaking to ESPN.com’s Tom Haberstroh (ESPN Insider required):

So why is Bryant doing this?

“He knows the Lakers are bad,” one top league exec suggested to ESPN Insider. “He thinks the best way to deal with it is to go for the scoring record.”

Haberstroh notes how Kobe shoots more — much, much more — when the Lakers are behind, basically running counter to every other premier scorer in the NBA. All this garbage time shooting, so the (not necessarily endorsed by Haberstroh) argument goes, is evidence of a guy padding his stats in an effort to catch Jordan faster.

As they say, the simplest explanation for something is generally the best. Kobe Bryant needs just over 200 points to catch Jordan on the all-time points list, so the only way the hurrying-to-pass-Jordan-while-healthy theory holds water is if Bryant worries he’s got 10 games or so left before his body turns to goo. He doesn’t. At some point, likely not long from now and all but guaranteed before the end of next season, Bryant will have more points than M.J.. And while I’m sure it’ll be personally meaningful whether he admits it or not, Kobe is smart enough to understand passing Jordan won’t change even a little the consensus all-time rankings for shooting guards. Bryant learned a long time ago it’s not an argument he can win (not that he should) and stopped trying.

The Jordan thing, then, is not the simplest explanation.

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Kobe Bryant On Michael Jordan Comparison, Late In Career


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CONTINUE READING: Almost Two Decades In, Some People Still Don’t Get Kobe Bryant

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For all the time Kobe has been in the league, time almost entirely spent in an intense spotlight with virtually every aspect of his game sliced and diced and analyzed, it’s amazing how people still seem not to understand him. Kobe Bryant has, for nearly 20 years, been unrepentantly himself, always believing he’s the best chance for the Lakers to win. When the Lakers fall behind, he really thinks he’s the best chance for the Lakers to win. This is not some strategy he came up with sitting on the sidelines last season. He’s always done it this way.

He’s a control freak. Giving it up, even when it makes good basketball sense, has always been difficult for him. While it has come with some cost, fundamental to Bryant’s overwhelming success over the course of his career is an unfailing confidence in himself and the belief that come hell or high water nobody is better prepared, mentally and physically, to meet challenges the game presents. Being 36 on a lousy team doesn’t change his fundamental wiring.

It does, though, change the context in which he’s operating. First and foremost, Kobe there are the candles on his birthday cake and 54,708 high-intensity regular season and playoff minutes on his odometer. Then there are the injuries, not just the ones to his Achilles and knee robbing Bryant of his 2013-14 season, but all the other stuff built up over the course of his career. His brain might be the same, but the body no longer allows superior skill to overcome, often spectacularly, questionable tactics.

But it’s not simply a matter of age. At his most successful, Bryant has been surrounded by an infrastructure checking his worst impulses. He had much more talent around him, which helps, and also greater continuity. Kobe and Shaq may have grown to detest each other — should time have dulled your memory a bit, click here for a reminder of how much — but on the floor they had a great deal of understanding. On a basketball level, Kobe trusted him. He had a comfort level with Derek Fisher, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, and Metta World Peace, to name a few, and his comfort in them made it easier to be comfortable with the other guys, too. He had Phil Jackson on the bench, and Jerry Buss upstairs.

Now he’s surrounded by the weakest supporting cast of his career, without the self-editing demands of a title chase. At a time where Kobe needs the most protection from himself, he has the least. Should anyone really be surprised how this is playing out?

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Kobe is skilled enough to play any way he wants, frustrating people who believe he could have periodically achieved even greater heights, and in the grand scheme of his career, “Selfish to Pass M.J.!” barely makes a blip on the Kobe criticism landscape. But because he’s such a bright, interesting guy of monumentally strong will and extraordinary talent, finding interesting and/or Machiavellian motivation for his play has become a form of sport over the last 18-plus years. Sometimes, though, it’s just not that complicated.

Kobe Bryant is shooting as much as he is this year because he’s Kobe Bryant — nothing to apologize for — and he’s too far down the road to be anything else.

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Kobe Bryant On Michael Jordan Comparison, Late In Career


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