I have one New Year’s resolution – stop being a fan of Kobe Bryant. Despite everything, I have found myself continually checking his stats and just being generally amazed by him. But no longer – I have to let go. Before I shed this feeling forever (I’m trying not to think too much about what this all means about me), I would like to make one last stand.
Jack McCallum, one of my favorite NBA writers, recently wrote that “Bryant has three rings, but, in each of them, he played a secondary role to O'Neal.” People just assume Kobe was Shaq’s sidekick. It’s become accepted lore.
But I watched those games. In 2001, for example, if the MVP had been given out after the conference championship —what was then agreed to be the “real” NBA Finals — Kobe would’ve won it. In Game 1, in San Antonio, he had 45 points on 54+% shooting and 10 rebounds. In Game 2 he had 28 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists. In Game 3 he had 36 points, 9 rebounds, and 8 assists. He was the high scorer in each of the three first games. He finished up in Game 4 with 24 points and 11 assists.
Remember this quote from Derek Fisher after the Spurs series in 2001: “I can't believe how much better Kobe is, scoring, defensively, giving us open shots,” Fisher said. “We all feed off him.” He averaged 29.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.1 assists in the playoffs.
Sure, Shaq ran over the overmatched Nets. But it was Kobe who rendered Duncan and Robinson obsolete.
Now I’m off to root for Chris Paul and Steve Nash. Lamar Odom and Jordan Farmar too. I’m feeling better about myself already.
3 comments:
2 questions:
(1) Will we see your Kobe jersey on eBay?
(2) More importantly: will Kobe play long enough and have it in him to evolve into role player as the years wind down? Crazy to ask since he is still so young, but could he end up as a Reggie Miller type? Pull a Celtics Bill Walton in 10 years?
You're crazy, Shaq was the MVP on all those laker teams. I'm not saying that guys like Kobe are a dime a dozen, but if you replaced Kobe on those Laker teams with Iverson, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, McGrady, Billups, or Vince (and probably a half dozen guys i'm not thinking of), they still would have won 3 titles.
There's no one they could have replaced Shaq with.
I wonder if he'd ever play second fiddle, or if he'd just retire. But I think its clear now that in the NBA you can't win a title with just one super high scoring guard and not much else. You need to be able to please your big men so that they'll go in there and bang for you.
It would be funny if Kobe worked on his release for 5 years and tried to become the next Reggie.
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