Scoring 40
By Neal Pollack
I have a question for Laker fans, because I honestly don’t understand and I need a rational answer. It’s vexed me for the better part of a decade and I still can’t think of a reason. If anything, evidence to the contrary continues to pile on and make me even more confused. So help me, please, people.
How can you root for Kobe Bryant?
Along with the rest of you, I acknowledge that Bryant is the best player in the NBA, and probably one of the 10 best players of all time. I watched the game where he dropped 80-plus points. He ran figure eights around my beloved Phoenix Suns all season, and like the rest of the ever-disappointed Suns fan base, I sighed and said, “Goddammit. The Lakers are better than we are. Again.” All this I know, and I see. But, still, how can you root for him?
The question isn’t: How can you root for the Lakers? Your team is your team. Of course you support a franchise that consistently delivers you a champion, never making you wait half a lifetime between titles like so many other franchises do to their fans. But think of the smooth class acts for whom you’ve rooted in the past. Jerry West. Magic. Kareem. Michael Cooper. Byron Scott. The Shaq-Kobe era may have been a high-octane carnival of egomania, but no one expresses ego quite like Shaquille O’Neal. He may be a gas-guzzling drug-busting deputy sheriff, but at least he has an original personality.
Kobe, on the other hand, is nothing but bland cliché and self-regard. Did you see the press conference where he accepted his MVP trophy? I’ve never seen anyone talk so much about “being a good teammate”; he treats it as though it were a revolutionary concept, just discovered by him after a decade of meditation. He said, “I couldn’t have won this without my teammates. If I could have won it alone, I would have won it when I was scoring 40.”
Kobe always mentions that there was a time when he was “scoring 40.” He never lets you forget, as though that were possible. Of course he won the MVP this year. He was the league’s best player. No one who watches basketball, even casually, could deny the fact. But can any of you really say that you were pulling for him to do so? Is this really who you want to claim as your guy?
You’re supposed to root for the underdog. Kobe is the ultimate overdog, the spoiled übermensch who gets away with everything. He wins every battle, every court case, and, eventually, every award that professional sports has to offer. The only other modern NBA player like that, ever, is Michael Jordan. Soon, LeBron James will join the category. Those two are hardly figures of charity and humility. But you can at least say that they were good corporate tools. Their images, while presented as godlike, are unabashedly used to sell products. Kobe, on the other hand, is his own best product, the ultimate manifestation of ego on earth. How can you root for that?
This is a question I’ve asked before, about other sports figures. How can Yankees fans honestly say they root for that smug playboy Derek Jeter? How can anyone root for Terrell Owens? Don’t you, in your heart of hearts, think that Tiger Woods is just a little bit boring? It’s OK to admit your darkest thoughts.
I’ve certainly been pushed into some uncomfortable rooting positions myself by my two favorite sports teams. The Dodgers have forced me into applauding for Kevin Brown and Jeff Kent. The Suns tried to sell me on the concept of Stephon Marbury. Still, no one ever hailed Kent and Brown, however good their career numbers, as the key to the Dodgers’ World Series hopes. No one’s ever claimed that Marbury stands anywhere higher than fifth on the Suns’ career list of all-time point guards. Kobe, on the other hand, expects us to revere him as a benevolent god.
I don’t want to asperse their surprising march to the NBA Finals. The Lakers were playing embarrassingly good ball even before they stole Gasol from Memphis, and they’re playing even better now. Like Athena leaping from the head of Zeus, they emerged this season fully ready, completely mature, totally triangled-out. They worked Utah and San Antonio thoroughly. After last year’s title, stolen from the Suns, it was nice to hear the Spurs whine about bad officiating for once.
Above it all looms Kobe the great, Kobe the clutch, Kobe the evolved, Kobe the ultimate team player, who’s determined to show the world that he can be a true champion. But if the Lakers don’t beat the Celtics – and that’s looking quite likely at press time – I’m guessing, somehow, that it’ll be his teammates’ fault.
Published: 06/11/2008
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In defense of Derek Jeter...are you mad because of his list of A-list girlfriends, the fact he isn't married, or his money or fame. I never hear of this guy dogging his girlfriends, getting into fights, crazy parties with drugs and drinking. No sleazy pictures, innvolvement in shootings, curse filled rants...heck he doesn't even throw his teammates under the bus. People can't find much to knock him on, so they knock him over his girlfriends, his defensive play, his cooled off relationship with A-rod, oh yeah, they tried to make him into a tax cheat. The guy has a foundation that he started with his dad in 1996 for the prevention of drugs and alcohol/fitness for kids. He donates his time and money to his foundation and others. He doles out compliments to family, friends and teammates crediting them for his success. He's articulate and seems genuinely kind. Yeah I root for Derek, always will. It's not a hard thing for me to do.