Basketball has defined so many greats. A plethora of analogies have grown from the game, and Kobe Bryant, playing in his 20th and final season, has re-defined the way people comprehend the sport. From the casual bystander to the NBA diehard, plenty will insist that his famed hard work is all for the game, striving to perform on a nightly basis, helping the team win. Well, the Lakers aren’t winning a whole lot and Bryant, with the calendar about to turn to 2016 and his final year in the sport, is working harder than ever.
You’ve all heard the stories about the 2am workouts, Bryant summoning one of his personal trainers out of a deep slumber and into the anti-sleep environment that is a lit gym. Relentless. But the new protocol, on top of those middle-of-the-night jaunts, if you can believe it, are the necessary workouts unlike anything from the Kobe of yesteryear. I’m talking about the ones that help him elevate high enough to execute a jump shot from 15 feet, preventing overuse of his upper body. Oh, and the workout to help him walk upright to his car after a strategically managed 30-minute game from Byron Scott. The Lakers head coach, who from afar seems more a friend of Kobe’s than a manager, is working more on convincing Bryant that nearly 10 fewer minutes per game than in his prime can get him through the season than improving the development of the likes of D’Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and Jordan Clarkson. And by workout, at this stage of his career, it means to ice, to visit with one of his two chiropractors, or the neuromuscular therapist, personal strength-and-conditioning trainer or stretch professionals. Just so you’re sure, this is still basketball.
The last-place Lakers, at 5-26 and in the midst of an identity crisis, are utilizing their huge workforce to make sure their best player, despite what the media will tell you, stays upright and can perform at his peak. Who knows what that is. This, now his last season, has become a circus, and everyone wants to get inside the mind of a man who speaks three languages, loves the game, but has already admitted this year that he doesn’t want to do it anymore. From what you’ve read above about the around-the-clock process caused by suffering an injury in nearly every major joint, it doesn’t sound like it, does it?
Last week Bryant, amid his least effective season, attracted the biggest ever global conference call for an NBA player, 146 reporters from 24 different countries dialing in before the holidays wanting to know how he is dealing with the retirement ‘tour’, his recent improved performance and the possibility of ending his career on the international stage at the Rio Olympics.
He has just competed in his record 16th Christmas Day game – a 94-84 defeat to the Clippers – adding to his more than 56,000 career minutes. For those that prefer a different metric, that’s almost 1,000 hours of basketball. It’s a miracle one can find time to ice their knees and shoulders with that sort of schedule. But he does, after every game.
Nothing put a bigger exclamation point on the work the vast Laker staff does than when Bryant, in a defeat to the Rockets at home this month, did something he hadn’t all season. Right side of the three-point line, former teammate Trevor Ariza guarding him: His first step blows by Ariza, and as Clint Capela comes over to help, Bryant rises, then rises some more, before slamming it over Capela. Dwight Howard chuckled on the visitors’ bench, another face from the past. The Lakers bench rose, cheering like it was an And1 Streetball event.
“How they reacted is pretty much how I was feeling inside,” Bryant recalled with a laugh. “The things that I have accomplished, being able to drive and dunk like that after all that my body has been through, was one of the special moments of my career.”
But was there not a little thought in Bryant’s mind, as he ran back down court, of befuddled anguish? “I’m Kobe Bryant”, he must have thought, seeing all those bright-eyed teenagers cheering as if he has never done anything like this before. “Don’t they know what I used to do?”
It is because of this that you cannot swallow everything he says about his career at this point. Do you really believe he is less concerned with his standing amidst the all-time great players and more concerned about “leaving a legacy for the next generation”? Is he not pining to compete at Rio 2016 given his international roots and passion for competing in the biggest moments?
Let’s not even get started with the current state of the Lakers. Knowing Bryant, he must be embarrassed.
The same emotion must be building in some Laker fans, in reaction to the circus that has been travelling around the US since Bryant gracefully penned a poem to tell all that the 2015-16 campaign would be his last. In every NBA arena that he enters since the announcement – “What’s new?”, Kobe proclaimed – it’s been a bit like throwing 20,000 groupies in to watch the game. But a tour?
“I don’t really consider it much of a tour, the way it’s been going has been beautiful.”, Bryant said. Amongst the other things he finds beautiful; being able to play in the TD Garden against the Celtics one final time on 30 December, mentoring young players and traveling abroad to grow the game.
“I’m paying my respects to the fans and they are doing the same in turn. It’s a beautiful moment, after 20 years playing, for me to say thank you. I couldn’t have imagined it being better than it is.” So when Kobe sat down after his fifth NBA championship in 2010, this is how he scripted a perfect end? If honesty is the only policy then the way it has gone has been nothing short of a nightmare. Three season-ending injuries in consecutive seasons and, at 37, Bryant is one of a very small number to return from a torn Achilles tendon, let alone at his age. And what for? So he could complete a season healthy? To mentor the kids? He certainly won’t be matching Michael Jordan’s total of six championships, a number that Bryant has obsessed over since he was a young boy.
“When I leave the Lakers, it’s not about handing over the keys. It’s more about do you have the attitude to win championships, which is the only mission, that’s the only goal. If you don’t win a championship, the season is seen as a failure in Los Angeles. If you have that attitude, this city will absolutely love you, and in turn you will get this team back to playing and winning at a level it is accustomed to.”
The problem is, nobody has the same attitude. Not on his team, anyway. It isn’t about the Lakers, and it won’t be until he walks away, taking most of the attention from the trainers in the organization and the players integral to them moving forward. “I think I will always be around, not just from a Laker standpoint but also around the league, just to be a mentor and continue to talk and help players around the league.”
And that is the biggest conundrum. Bryant is the highest-paid player in the NBA, in a period where fans want to talk about Steph Curry, LeBron James and the beard of James Harden. (OK, the monobrow of Anthony Davis, too.) Has Bryant’s relentless and passionate flagellation of himself and teammates had its time in the game? Where is his legacy going to stack up against the skinny, short guy from Charlotte who shoots threes over freakish athletes with relative ease? What do kids want to replicate more, and what can they relate to more?
It was an interesting moment when Bryant was asked about the Olympic Games. Not because that could be the fairytale ending to his long and hugely successful career, but because of the way the reporter framed the question: “Do you want to end your career playing alongside LeBron and Curry?”, Bryant heard, as if he were a forgotten star.
Just as we loved to watch him evade his defenders over the years, Bryant seemed to give the men in question the same treatment. “It is not something that I am absolutely pressing for, but being part of the Olympics is such a beautiful experience. I grew up overseas, I grew up in Italy, so to be able to see how basketball became such an international sport first-hand, it would be a beautiful thing, personally, to finish my career on an international stage.” It is something that Bryant deserves, but whether he can contribute in the way he once did has to be questioned. He is not one of the 12 best players available going on current form, but experience and leadership he has in excess.
Judging by the All-Star game numbers so far, if fans could vote him into the Olympics he would be a dead cert. The event is being held in Toronto in February and after the first returns of All-Star voting, Bryant has 719,235 votes, ahead of the aforementioned Curry who has a mere 510,202. He has more than twice as many as that other guy named LeBron. With retirement on the horizon, the fans want to see Bryant one last time. This would be his 18th All-Star appearance, second behind the all-time leader, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had 19. Bryant is the leading scorer in NBA All-Star history with 280 points. And counting.
Before the release of these early balloting figures, he mentioned that he would be “completely fine with not being voted in because I’ve had an amazing run. You have to be OK with passing the game along and doing all you can to help the game continue to grow, continue to evolve.
“The shell of what I have been for the last 20 years is what I will leave behind. What I will carry on with me is the spirit that represents those physical manifestations; the understanding of perseverance, of how to deal with failure, how to handle success, understanding how to communicate with others, empathy, compassion and things like that. Those are things that I will carry forever.”
No24 knows that his reputation will live on forever, even if the game is as he says “skewing towards point guards”, and if anything else the respect he has garnered throughout the league is unprecedented. LeBron speaks about going home to watch Bryant after his east coast games with Cleveland and Miami. Magic Johnson believes the torrid Philadelphia 76ers, Kobe’s hometown team, should convince him to part-own the franchise. Following his father to Rieti, Italy at 6 years old and admitting he doesn’t need friends to get in the way of improving his game, he has certainly gone about it the hard way. He wouldn’t change a thing.
He added: “It’s not the healthiest of choices to make to be able to live this way and I am one of the people that actually enjoys it. A certain aspect, like when the summer time comes around for example, when you are not in that frame of mind you realise how peaceful and how relaxing life can be. But also, you are not comfortable because you are used to and like being in that feeling of constant pressure, training and your body always being sore and worrying about that next game. That will be a bit of an adjustment when I hang them up.”
Worrying about the post-career lives of a former professional is an occupational hazard for connected family members. Where will the journey go from here? Bryant’s former teammate, Shaquille O’Neal, has openly confessed that after retirement, if it weren’t for his good friend Charles Barkley calling him one day and asking him if he would like to work in television for NBA on TNT, he might have found himself mired in a serious depression. O’Neal missed basketball. O’Neal was also a fun-loving character who preferred the fame and success that basketball brought than the actual game. Bryant lives for the game. Always has, always will. But he can’t have it after this season, not in the form he has had for 20 years anyway. He will be able to travel around the world to places like China and Africa where he is worshipped, but that burning desire to win and improve, that obsessive drive to be the best, that is what he and the NBA community will miss. Will there ever be another like him?
“We are all different players, we are all different people”, Bryant remarked.
“There’s never another Magic, there’s never another Bird, never another Michael, never another me. The way I went about it is different, as will the next person, we all do our thing in a different way. To me, looking at my legacy as in where do I fit in the greatest of all-time, that is a moot point. It’s a shallow argument, personally. I think the most important thing is how does your legacy impact the generation of players to come, and the generation that are currently playing.”
Following a mid-November win against Detroit in which he played 36 minutes, Bryant declared that he “could barely stand up. My legs and feet are killing me.” In his first 17 games, he shot just 29.6% from the field on 17.9 field-goal attempts per game. Bryant filed his first 50% shooting night of the season on 7 December in Toronto, and the seven games after that he shot 48.2% with reduced minutes and shots per game. His performance has been much improved since then and he admits it was a matter of his legs catching up.
“I think it’s very easy for us to get caught up in the emotionality of it all and forget to look at the tactics and what my body has been through for the last three seasons. Physically, it has been through a lot. On top of that it’s very easy to forget that I haven’t played because of it. I haven’t had the chance to play that much in the NBA, so the timing is off, the rhythm is off, and I had to be patient. I continued to trust the training I’ve done all summer and into the season, and I had to believe that eventually the timing would come back. I think really that’s what happened.”
So he has sorted the self, along with the help of a dozen or so training staff and personal coaches. And the Lakers franchise? They have won five titles with him, 16 in total. Bryant has as many rings as the current squad has wins on the season. How will they move on?
“What the Lakers have to do going forward is make smart decisions, make smart choices, build the team, that’s what we have to do. Building a championship-caliber team means making smart decisions, making smart trades, smart acquisitions, things of that nature.”
He pauses for a moment, then repeats what he has said throughout the answer. “We just have to make smart choices.” Bowing out, after 20 years of difficult decisions, was the choice both Bryant and the Lakers needed.
