In Defense of Hating on Kobe Bryant

On Thursday night I had the distinct pleasure of watching the Denver Nuggets demolish the Los Angeles Lakers in game six of their NBA playoff series.  The win means LA must host Denver tonight for a decisive game seven.  The next morning, having come to a realization about my motives for watching the game, my Facebook status read “The Prospect of Kobe Bryant being eliminated: why I watch the NBA playoffs”.  It may seem harsh and cruel to root solely for a single player’s demise, but in my case it’s very true.  If I may, some words in my defense.

Kobe Bryant is an arrogant bastard.  He may not technically be a bastard, but he is most certainly the most arrogant human being I can think of.  You can almost taste the self-righteousness dripping like the sweat from his brow; you can feel the presence of his massive ego.  His arrogance shows when he makes an important basket and sticks out his jaw in an “I’m bad” sort of way, or when he pretends to be amused when a ref doesn’t make the call his way.  A less arrogant player might react with pure excitement over a big shot, or surprise and dismay over a missed call.  But to Kobe, making a shot is thanks to his inferior teammates finally giving him the ball, and the missed call is the tragic result of a pathetically inept referee.

Kobe believes he’s better than everybody else, that he’s the most important player on the team and in the league.  In fact, he his a fantastic player, and has for years been the most skilled player in the league.  But that’s no excuse for arrogance.

Nor is it an excuse for malice.  Kobe is a notoriously dirty player.  There is such a thing as a good hard foul in basketball—when the defender goes for the ball and does their best to stop a basket from being made.  Elbows thrown at defenseless players, or knees to the head during a scrum are downright dirty.  This video has some good examples (check out the elbow on Mike Miller at minute 3:31, or the knee to Shane Battier’s eye at minute 4:55).

Questioned mid-season about the phenomenal Jeremy Lin, who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated for two weeks and incited basketball madness around the world, Kobe pretended to have no idea who Jeremy Lin was.  God forbid he should say something nice about an undrafted 2nd year asian-american ball player who came from complete obscurity to light up the NBA (and Kobe Bryant two days later).

Back to the Thursday night, where Kobe’s Lakers are getting demolished by the Nuggets.  Kobe is apparently sick, and is putting in a rather heroic effort—leading his team in scoring.  But the Lakers are being outplayed in every facet of the game and generally run out of the gym.  After the loss, Kobe predictably goes on the offensive, calling out teammates Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol for a lack of effort.  He, of course, played outstanding, and the fault of his team’s loss falls squarely on everybody’s shoulders but his own.  The rest of the Lakers, one imagines, were scared shitless of Kobe and what was probably a strong combination of verbal assaults and the silent treatment.  A miserable flight home, to be sure.

They say there are two human emotions: fear and love.  The Los Angeles Lakers are run on fear—the fear of Kobe Bryant.

It’s Kobe himself who has created this toxic environment, one that places a single player above blame, and destroys the very idea of team.  There’s Kobe, and then there’s the Lakers.  Kobe repeatedly takes significantly more shots than his teammates (often as many as the rest of Los Angeles combined), and yet this is the norm, and if the Lakers lose it’s because the rest of the team didn’t do enough—not because Kobe went 8 for 26.

Metta World Peace, née Ron Artest, has been suspended for a nasty elbow of his own, and is set to return for Game seven.  Kobe took the opportunity to motivate his teammates in his own special way: “He’s the one guy I can count on night in and night out to play hard and play with a sense of urgency”.  Take that, other teammates.

It hasn’t always been this way.  When Kobe came into the league as an 18-year-old high school phenom, he seemed humble and level-headed.  Confident, yes, but not yet arrogant.  He smiled easily and said things like “I’m grateful for this opportunity”.  Back then he had Shaquille O’neal as a teammate—the biggest and strongest man in basketball.  Shaq kept him in check, and Kobe appreciated his guidance: “He’s like my older brother”.

A few years later, tired of deferring to the big man, Kobe and Shaq’s relationship splintered, and the Big Diesel was traded away to Miami.  There were excuses about it being a mutual agreement, but everybody knew it was Kobe who forced his exit.  Left to run the team on his own, Kobe steadily became more self-centered, and the nastiness described above began to show.  LA endured some losing seasons, and Kobe threatened to leave if help wasn’t brought in.

There’s a fantastic little point guard named Steve Nash who plays for the Phoenix Suns.  Stevie is a 2-time NBA MVP, continues to lead the league in assists at the ripe old age of 38, and is an all-around fantastic human being.  The Phoenix Suns are in rebuilding mode, having missed out on the playoffs two years in a row, and offloading stars Amare Stoudemire and Jason Richardson.  With Nash in the twilight of his career, many have expected him to be traded to a contender—perhaps even the Los Angeles Lakers.  But no trade has come, because Nash is content where he is.

He loves his teammates, his town, and his family.  Should he ask for a trade, the Suns’ front office would make it happen in a heartbeat, but Nash has made no such requests.  He’s doing all he can to help his team, and with a squad of no-names under his leadership, they very nearly made the playoffs this season.

Kobe Bryant leads in a different way, one that encourages blame and instills fear. So I want Kobe Bryant to fail—at least at this particular endeavor.  I want Kobe to go down elbowing defenders, bricking long jumpers, and saying nasty things about his teammates.  I want the other Lakers to get fed up with the whole thing and look to get out.  I want to see what happens when Kobe can no longer get it done on his own, and nobody wants to come lend a hand.

You see, I’m not so much rooting for the demise of an individual, but for the failure of a way of being.  I believe that we all create our own realities, and Kobe is undoubtedly a powerful creator.  The NBA playoffs are reflecting back at him his own projections: his teammates can’t be trusted, the referees are out to get him, and when it comes down to it he’s got to do it by himself.  This is not, I hope, a recipe for success.