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LakersFranchise
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Post subject: He’s Beethoven Bryant… Now Hear the Music!
 Posted: Feb 26, 2008 - 01:37 AM PST
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Big-Time Laker Fan
Joined: Nov 29, 2007
Posts: 789
Location: Los Angels
  
votes: 9
Status: Offline
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You wouldn’t think a man who seems to have everything would need anything.
You wouldn’t think a man loved by millions might need a friend.
Kobe Bryant has oodles of talent, tons of money, a pretty wife, beautiful young family and the respect, if not unconditional affection, of most of his peers. So what could a man with all that possibly need?
Oh, just understanding, appreciation and, finally, an end to the hating.
Understand what, you say?
That he is the best player in the NBA by eons and quite possibly more skilled than even Michael Jordan.
Appreciation? Yup, by finally naming him MVP of the league.
And hating? That’s right, it’s time to put a merciful end to the petty envy and ugly jealousies, time to stop holding Colorado over his head, time to stop penalizing him because he’s ridiculously gifted and kinda comes across like he knows it.
It seems crazy to me that for every Kobe jersey you see in arenas around the country, for the millions of Number 24’s that are worn in China, there seem to be an equal number or more who refuse to give this generational treasure his just due.
I’m not talking about naming him to All-Star teams or All-NBA first teams or even paying him the 20 mil or whatever it is he makes in salary each year. He’s earned all that.
I’m talking about recognizing how hard he plays, how hard he works to make his teammates better, how he leads by words and example.
The rap in the past that he didn’t make his teammates better? Bullfeathers. He passed to them. They missed. What was he supposed to do, shoot it in the basket for them?
Look at the Lakers now: If you don’t think Jordan Farmar, Sasha Vujacic and Ronny Turiaf are all light years better than a year ago, you’re just not paying attention. Heck, playing in the backcourt with Kobe, Derek Fisher at an age (33) when lots of guys are fading, is having a career year, with all-time bests in every shooting category. Coincidence? Not hardly.
I’m also talking about how when it comes to being The Closer, Kobe makes Kyra Sedgwick look like a helpless little girl. Look under “4th Quarter” and Kobe’s probably got a copyright in the government patent office.
Know what? Forget all that.
What I’m REALLY talking about is, for Kobe’s detractors, the haters, to drop the pretense and stop the posturing and just admit that as a shooter, driver, finisher and defender, as the ultimate basketball Jedi master as we speak here in the late winter of 2008, Lebron James with all his Nike marketing power and funny/cutesy Old Man commercials, can’t hold Kobe’s jock. Or gym bag.
Oh, he can hold it, all right, but only if he asks real nicely.
By having the b*lls to light a fire under Laker management and calling them out last summer when they were derelict in their promise to put a team around him; and then, by putting those unkind words and bad blood behind him as if it never happened once he hit the court in November, never shortchanging his employers with his herculean efforts; by maturing into the kind of leader who pushes and encourages his teammates instead of scolding and demeaning them (see Andrew Bynum); by scoring points as if they’re bunches of grapes; by making more highlight plays in any given game than most other so-called superstars make in a month; by hitting hundreds of shots that make you shake your head and wonder if he’s even human; by leading the Lakers to the top of the Pacific Division and third best record in the NBA when many experts had them as an eight seed or worse; and dammit, by still playing like a genius virtuoso with a pinky finger that is so broken and mangled, a top hand specialist recommended immediate surgery; for dropping 41 on the Suns in Phoenix with a freaking half-broken shooting hand!; for all those reasons and probably 100 more I haven’t thought of, Kobe Bean Bryant has finally earned the unconditional respect and admiration he has never quite received from a public that has never embraced him with the same affection they showed for MJ and now the new darling of Hip Hop Hype, Bron Bron.
I’ve got your Bron Bron right here.
It is absolutely incomprehensible to me, but yet fully expected given the history of Kobe Bryant, that not one major national NBA writer, far as I know, has been smart enough, fair enough or honest enough to come out right now and say what is now startlingly obvious:
That if Bryant isn’t the MVP this year, that award needs to be put on the shelf forever, never to be dusted off again.
Know who the other candidates are this season?
KG? Nope, been hurt. Lebron? With 24 losses in a conference that is dreck? Sure, whatever you say.
In other words, there are no other candidates, not in the no-spin universe free of East Coast bias that I live in.
In the real, un-spun NBA, it’s Kobe’s world and everybody else is just living in it. And if you don’t believe me, ask the players. Trust me, they’ll tell you.
Now I’ll be the first to admit: I’ve always respected Kobe, appreciated him, understood his athletic genius, but I never quite embraced him, either. There is, inarguably, something cold, clinical and a little too detached about his public persona, and his postgame sound bites. There is something, the hard edge, that slight chip on the shoulder people perceive, that does stop many fans from feeling warmth for him. But that’s Kobe’s vibe.
It must be how the real assassins roll.
Turns out that off the court, Kobe is giving, outward reaching, socially aware and generous with his time; he’s warm with kids, busy with lots of community and charity work that never makes the papers. In fact, he wants it that way.
But from this point forward, let me suggest to the haters that it isn’t Kobe’s fault some clever Nike marketer never had him be the one to dive into the pool or play four different characters including a grumpy old man.
MJ, he gambled, caroused, bitchslapped teammates, smiled at all the right times, became Nike’s Jumpman, hit the very last shot of his Bulls career to win his sixth and last title (I can still see it in my dreams in slo-mo, the pushoff on Bryon Russell, as if it happened five minutes ago)…and now Michael, his Airness, lives in our hearts forever.
Let me be the one to suggest to the haters that if you don’t begin realizing that a true basketball Beethoven is passing your way again, Kobe Bryant is going to be gone before you had a chance to genuinely enjoy and embrace the show.
Ted Green is Senior Sports Producer for KTLA Prime News and a former sportswriter for the L.A. Times and National Sports Daily. He does not vote anymore for NBA MVP but wishes he could. |
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priceutd
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Post subject: RE: He�s Beethoven Bryant� Now Hear the Music!
Posted: Feb 26, 2008 - 02:06 AM PST
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Topbuzz Newbie
Joined: Feb 12, 2008
Posts: 26
votes: 1
Status: Offline
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| What an admirable article. Green's absolutely spot on with this comment that if Kobe doesn't win it this year, the award "needs to be put on the shelf forever, never to be dusted off again." He's worked too hard and proved too much to be robbed of his well deserved slice of career history. As I see it, the NBA is just under too much pressure and scrutiny to blow it and give it another under achieving performer. The only way for Kobe to lose his seemingly strong lead in contention for the MVP is if the Lakers uncharacteristically fall off the map, or Kobe has a mid-season crisis, dumps his sneakers, pops his ball, and takes up baseball within the next couple of weeks. |
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Lakers4Kobe
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Post subject: RE: He�s Beethoven Bryant� Now H
Posted: Feb 26, 2008 - 03:38 AM PST
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Laker GM
Joined: Aug 01, 2007 Age: 16
Posts: 2767
Location: Sydney, Australia
votes: 25
Status: Offline
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| Already been posted, and put a link at the end of every article you post. |
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Many teams try and fail to amount to what the Los Angeles Lakers have accomplished in their 60 years in the NBA. They truly are the greatest franchise in the history of professional sports.
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