Beginning Of The End For Kobe Bryant? By Ken Berger

therealdeal · Oct 26, 2014

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/feature/24766588/beginning-of-the-end

The moon still glows in the sky over the Pacific Ocean when Tim DiFrancesco pulls into the parking lot of the Equinox gym in Irvine, Calif. It is not yet 6:30 a.m.

The Lakers' strength and conditioning coach informs the front desk attendant that he is here to work with Kobe Bryant, who will be arriving soon. He is waved inside without delay.

Bryant arrives a short time later. There are no pleasantries, no small talk, no explanation of his lengthy hiatus from training -- a long period of pain and reflection during which Bryant withdrew completely from the game. There is just a look in his eyes -- a cold, almost psychotic look that signals one thing and one thing only.

Time to go.

These, in fact, were the precise words of a text message that DiFrancesco had received from Bryant a day earlier. It was mid July, and the NBA world (other than Bryant) was consumed with the free-agent decisions of LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. It had been weeks, even months, since DiFrancesco had consistently worked with his star client. He'd been worried, but had been assured by those who'd been at Bryant's beck and call for years that this was normal.

With Bryant, it's all or nothing. When he's ready to go all-in again, he'll let you know.

"Once he walks through the door," DiFrancesco recalls, "it's right to work."

Right to work on the final chapter, the last stand for Kobe Bryant -- a complex figure and five-time champion who may find himself doomed to an inglorious ending.

The Achilles injury had required round-the-clock attention from an army of doctors, surgeons, therapists and strength coaches. The repaired tendon had to be endlessly measured and manipulated to ensure proper healing and elasticity. There was no withdrawing from the process. Bryant had to be present and accounted for, every day.

The fractured kneecap that ended his comeback after only six games last December had sent Bryant spiraling into despair. The greatest basketball competitor of our generation had gone off the grid.

Bryant had gone rogue.

The bone that fractured in his knee when he hyperextended it making a move he'd made tens of thousands of times needed only two things, neither of which Bryant had the patience to be physically or mentally invested in: time and rest. Sure, his body was there on the Lakers' bench during games as he stared blankly through the corrupted lens of a 27-55 season that would unfold without him. But his mind, and his basketball soul, were elsewhere.

When Bryant wasn't accounted for on the bench, nobody knew where he was or what he was doing most of the time. He was -- and always will be -- on Kobe time. Some within the organization speculated that he'd gone back to his longtime personal trainer, Tim Grover, but that wasn't the case; Grover was out of the loop, too, pushed away like a hapless defender at the elbow.

Bryant's circle of trust, always impossibly small, was shrinking even more.

If there was going to be anything left for another comeback, any fumes in his seemingly bottomless reservoir of S.O.B., Bryant needed a break, dammit. He needed time to rebel against his faltering body, which was cruelly waging war on him -- payback for all those years of relentless a**-kickings. Now, in the pre-dawn hours of a July morning in a Southern California everyman gym, it was time.

"I'm really driven by seeing what I can do," Bryant said in a recent interview with CBSSports.com. "Seeing what I can do and what I can't do. I think that's exciting, to do all the work and try to build something anew, you know?"

Whether you view Bryant's latest comeback as the end or a new beginning, as triumphant or tragic, it is a transcendent moment. As Bryant, 36, prepares to take the floor for his 19th opening night, he has accepted that this is the final chapter.

"I've done the work, man. God knows, I've done the work," he said. "If Father Time gets the best, he gets the best. But it's not for a lack of effort."

To understand why Bryant withdrew and how he then went about the meticulous process of rebuilding himself, you have to understand something about how he thinks. He has been miscast as a robot programmed only for the kill, obsessed with final outcomes, capable of experiencing winning or losing and nothing else. Not so. It is what he calls "the process" that has always driven him -- the small steps methodically taken every day, and the reasons for those specific steps and not others.

Maybe it comes from his childhood in Italy, where he says he read the Iliad at age nine. He learned about Hector (the compassionate warrior) and Achilles (the unforgiving one) and craved to understand how each became that way. Asked is he's Hector or Achilles, Bryant shot back in an email: "Kobe."

He didn't care as much about the final outcome of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony or Michelangelo's David as he wanted to learn how they were made -- what small steps and habits over the years conspired to make a masterpiece possible.

"When I started out on this journey, I was just infinitely curious about the game of basketball," Bryant said. "So I digested everything I could about the game -- the rules, the history of it, the players. I was just fascinated by it. You start understanding really early that everything around you is an opportunity to learn."

During his time away, Bryant became obsessed with his own curiosity. He filled notebook after notebook with observations about how things work, how successful companies and entrepreneurs behave when no one's watching. Limited to a few spins every morning on an exercise bike while his fractured bone healed, Bryant had nothing but time on his hands. He used it to agonize over details, in search of some truth he could use to invent himself again.

"He's having to take a product that was one thing for the majority of his career and put it in a different package," DiFrancesco said. "The end game is the same, to win a title, but I think he is enjoying having to repackage that product and remarket it and reconfigure how it's going to look when it's on the shelves."

NOTABLE AGE-36 SEASONS
PLAYERTEAMYEARGPMPGFG%RPGAPGPPG
Steve NashPHX2010-117533.3.4923.511.414.7
Ray AllenBOS2011-124634.0.4583.12.414.2
Kevin GarnettBOS2012-136829.7.4967.82.314.8
Paul PierceBKN2013-147528.0.4514.62.413.5
Chauncey BillupsLAC2012-132219.0.4021.52.28.4
Kareem Abdul-JabbarLAL1983-848032.8.5787.32.621.5
Tim DuncanSAS2012-136930.1.5029.92.717.8
Karl MaloneUTA1999-008235.9.5099.53.725.5
John StocktonUTA1998-995028.2.4882.97.511.1
Charles BarkleyHOU1999-002031.0.47710.53.214.5
Scottie PippenPOR2001-026232.2.4115.25.910.6
In a losing battle with Father Time, Bryant wouldn't tolerate any wasted movement, any unnecessary steps. Ever controlling, he refused to blindly follow the strength program that DiFrancesco had designed for him, instead challenging him to "cut out all the fat," DiFrancesco said. It was a clever turn of phrase from Bryant, since DiFrancesco -- known as "Grass-Fed Tim" -- is the coach who coordinates the Lakers' nutrition program by which players are provided well-sourced food and instructed to fuel performance and recovery with healthy fats.

Bryant followed some aspects of the program for a while, but when he got hurt again, he shut out everything and everyone. Once back with DiFrancesco in July, Bryant wanted him to determine precisely how much strength and body mass he would need, and where he would need it, to become what he now calls "the best version of myself." It was DiFrancesco's job to devise a program that would give Bryant exactly that and not a drop more.

"Huge responsibility," DiFrancesco said.

Bryant, for example, wanted to incorporate Olympic lifts into his comeback routine, movements that he hadn't done consistently for about 10 years. DiFrancesco objected, saying that for a long-levered, aging athlete like Bryant, the technical, explosive movements like the clean-and-jerk and snatch didn't fit his criteria for a simple, low-risk, high-reward program.

Bryant wouldn't budge. He told DiFrancesco to write a report explaining his reasoning and deliver it to him the next day. DiFrancesco did; Olympic lifts were out.

Bryant won't reveal, and won't let anyone else reveal, his body composition results or what combination of exercises he did. The way he did them was much more telling, anyway.

On those summer mornings at Equinox or at the US Olympic volleyball training center in Anaheim, Bryant was a long way from Shanghai, where this summer he once again attracted thousands of weeping worshippers -- grown men dropping to their knees and teenage girls swooning at the mere glimpse of him. Having traveled with Bryant in China two summers ago, DiFrancesco will never forget the hundreds of people chasing the bus carrying them away from an appearance, waves of humanity undulating in the rearview mirror like the wake of a cruise ship.

In those crack-of-dawn sessions, Bryant bench-pressed alongside weekend warriors and middle-aged executives getting their pump on before a long day at the office. He waited like everyone else to work in on racks and equipment as they became available. There was no private Kobe room; no veil of secrecy.

In some ways, Bryant wanted -- perhaps needed -- that audience.

Some who trained with him noticed a peculiar habit; Bryant had taken to performing a few sets per workout with his eyes closed. A Zen thing? Nobody had the courage to ask, because this was Kobe Freaking Bryant doing weighted lunges with his eyes closed in their freaking gym.

This happened three days a week; the other days were for basketball. Bryant invited one of his prized pupils to his Newport Beach home for some one-on-one, and the sessions quickly turned into a PhD in footwork and efficiency of movement for Lakers guard Wesley Johnson.

"With him, when he gets in the gym," Johnson said, "there's not any playing around."

Bryant was his old ruthless self in those sessions as he explored what was left of the various fakes, shimmies and fadeaways -- lethal tools that have chiseled a controversial work of basketball art. Yet while Johnson knew he was brought in to serve as fresh prey for the Black Mamba, there also were teaching moments, subtle signs that perhaps Bryant was letting some of his defenses down with age.

Gotham Chopra (left) is directing a Showtime documentary, Kobe Bryant's Muse, to premiere in December. (Eric Charbonneau)
Soon, Bryant wasn't just coaching Johnson on the court; he was texting him at all hours with suggestions of old footage to watch and modern moves to emulate. Jokes, too. It was a glimpse of Bryant at his most isolated, a lone wolf in the pack culture of the modern NBA. In a world where James has been busy winning championships with Dwyane Wade, where modern stars move mountains to join forces, only Bryant the loner could get a charge out of inviting a 27-year-old journeyman over for playdates.

"Everybody said he was hard to play with, but I just think he expects a high level of play," Johnson said. "He expects people to go to war with him and have his back. How hard he works, he expects everybody else to do the same. I don't think it's something to be afraid of or shy away from."

It's one thing for the taciturn Bryant to open up through the one-way window of an iPhone, a means of conversation that allows him to maintain control. But there are other signs of Bryant's selective softening. This fall, Showtime will air a documentary on Bryant, "Kobe Bryant's Muse." Cynics and enemies will decry it as just another Nike infomercial to lionize the shoe company's most effective global ambassador since Michael Jordan. But it's also a window into Bryant's search for ways to exude strength once he's no longer playing the game.

"It's always been very clear to me from the beginning that this is not a movie on Kobe; it's a movie with Kobe," director Gotham Chopra said.

To Chopra's surprise, Bryant willingly opened up about the most controversial aspects of his off-court life -- his marriage and the Colorado rape case. But first, Bryant insisted on understanding every detail about how the film would be made and why it would be made that way.

"I would say daily he is talking to the editors directly, talking to the producers and executive producers," Chopra said. "Not like in a super-controlling way, but more, 'I want to understand, how do the director and EP frame a shot? Why do they make the decisions that they do?'"

At one point, Bryant watched every movie directed by dystopian filmmaker Darren Aronofsky over a two-day period and reported back to Chopra, "OK, I get it."

"The hardest part," Bryant said, "is to not be selfish with your journey, but to share it."

By late summer, the pain and doubts that lingered from his Achilles and knee injuries were gone. In Bryant's twisted mind, they no longer existed. He is able to turn that switch off and just go.

"Most people, when you ask them how they're feeling, they talk in terms of pain," said Dr. Judy Seto, the Lakers' physical therapist who has worked with Bryant since 2000. "He doesn't go there. He puts the pain aside."

The enduring public image of Bryant over the past 18 months remains him sitting on the floor at Staples Center trying to reattach his own severed Achilles' tendon -- then, shuffling to the bench and back to sink his two free throws. Seto recalls another one: a 2009 game against Cleveland during which Bryant grotesquely dislocated a finger on his shooting hand and had it snapped back into place on the bench by head trainer Gary Vitti before hopping up and going back into the game.

"He didn't go to the back; he didn't want to be taken to the back," Seto said. "Most people cannot do that."

On this frontier of physical limitations, nobody knows quite what to expect from this new version of Bryant. Less ballhandling, no doubt. Shorter curls to his favorite spots on the floor, perhaps. Without question, plenty of shooting.

"The precision is what I've noticed," DiFrancesco said. "There's no wasted movement, no wasted energy. The true basketball fan will really appreciate what they're going to see in terms of the precision and accuracy of his skill. It's just at a level that I think even he is impressed with."

But along with the evolving arsenal, Bryant's famously frigid exterior returned. Once training camp opened and Bryant was making the daily trips from Newport to El Segundo again, he would walk into the weight room to find teammates lifting, shadow boxing and cracking jokes.

"Timmy," he'd say to DiFrancesco, driving a knife through the room with his baritone voice. "Let's go."

Joyful banter gave way to whispers and awkward silence; this was the cold, self-absorbed Bryant whose sullen exterior has alienated teammates and free agents alike. And unless Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak can pull off a transactional miracle, the result is going to be more losing as the Lakers awkwardly try to rebuild around their aging star. A lot more losing …

People forget, Jordan was a prick, too. He fought everybody. Nobody wanted to be around him, either. You look at the history of great players, that's probably why they were great.

Long gone are the vestiges of the Lakers' most recent championship era from 2008-10. Pau Gasol fled this past summer to the Chicago Bulls. The former Ron Artest is wearing white panda pom-poms on his shoes in China. Two key figures, Phil Jackson and Derek Fisher, have moved to New York in an effort to install the triangle offense and instill Jackson's Zen teachings with the Knicks.

Left in their wake to toil with the aging Bryant -- now that 40-year-old Steve Nash has been ruled out for the season with his back injury -- are Jeremy Lin, who has twice been cast off since the wondrous, if fleeting, days of Linsanity in New York; Carlos Boozer, plucked off the amnesty scrap heap; and a collection of journeymen and youngsters, most of whom would've barely warranted a training camp invite (much less private tutoring) in any of Bryant's previous 18 seasons.

Indeed, if the Lakers' preseason accomplishments are any indication -- specifically, they've suffered humiliating losses of 41 and 33 points -- this could very well be the worst Lakers team of the Bryant era. (With all due respect to, um, last season's team.)

Bryant's stubborn pursuit of greatness has consequences. The glorious Lakers -- with their 16 championships, including five with Bryant -- have been rendered temporarily hopeless in large part due to their very commitment to Bryant.

Only weeks before his comeback from the Achilles injury ended so abruptly, Bryant signed a two-year, $48.5 million contract that will pay him $25 million next season at age 37. While the arrangement virtually assured that Bryant will retire as a Laker, it also hindered the team's quest for a free-agent star around whom it could forge a new path once he's gone. Though Bryant viewed Dwight Howard's free-agent departure in 2013 as "a positive," according to a person close to him, the Lakers barely got this past summer's prime free agents, James and Anthony, to give the franchise a passing thought. Why is that?

This week, after fanning Bryant's competitive flame by ranking him 40th among the league's 450 players, ESPN published a scathing takedown of him in which agents anonymously tattled that their clients have left the Lakers due to Bryant and that other high-profile free agents are avoiding him like the plague. Among the examples cited were Howard, whose clownish antics have been on display virtually his entire career; Andrew Bynum, whose physical and emotional frailty have his career on the ropes; and Ramon Sessions, who left as a free agent for more money in Charlotte in 2012. (Sessions has since been traded to Milwaukee and signed by the Kings to a deal worth less than half what the then-Bobcats paid him only two years ago.)

"Kobe is a polarizing figure, for sure," said Chopra, who has spent the past 14 months working with Bryant on the Showtime film.

Polarizing, yes. But solely to blame for the Lakers' demise during this two-year transition until the next big free-agent class in 2016 (which includes Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant)?

"They're the ones that gave him a $48 million extension knowing that nobody wanted to play with him," one rival executive said. "And they were also the ones that gave away multiple first-round picks for an over-the-hill Steve Nash. Not to mention firing every coach that Magic [Johnson] decided he didn't like."

The Lakers also have as much to gain as Bryant in the deal, if not more. Their 20-year, $3 billion broadcast agreement with Time Warner is tied to ratings, which certainly will be better with Bryant than without him.

As for Bryant's feeble supporting cast, you have to go back to the middle of the last decade to find a player the Lakers have drafted in the first round who has made an impact for them on a playoff team, much less a championship team: Jordan Farmar (2006), Bynum (2005) and Sasha Vujacic (2004).

"Why is that Kobe's issue?" another front office executive said. "Not putting much emphasis in the front-office staff has put the Lakers in the direction that they're in."

The notion that Bryant should've been more of a team player by taking less money during this final act of a brilliant career has put him on the defensive and caused him to lash out at a convenient group of very rich straw men, otherwise known as NBA owners. With franchise values skyrocketing and a $24 billion broadcast rights deal commencing in 2016, Bryant asks, "Why do we have to take less? Because the owners locked us out and imposed a hard cap so we 'have to' take less in order for them to generate more revenue?"

Still, what if Bryant's last stand winds up being little more than a one-man exercise in defiance? What if his cap-killing contract has sent the Lakers spiraling helplessly into another season or two of dismal basketball – and doomed Bryant himself to a bitter outcome?

"I do what I've always been trained to do, which is focus on today," he said. "Look at the players that you have around you, try to learn them. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? How can we cover for each other? How can we reach our full potential?"

The context has changed. The surroundings have changed. His body has changed. But at his core, Bryant remains who he has always been. In an unforgiving sport with no guarantees except those in contracts, why would anyone think he'd change now?

Kobe Bryant has a real shot to pass Michael Jordan this season for fourth on the all-time scoring list. (US Presswire)
"People forget, Jordan was a prick, too," one of the front office execs said. "He fought everybody. Nobody wanted to be around him, either. You look at the history of great players, that's probably why they were great."

After the Lakers got Howard and Nash in 2012, Bryant seemed destined for his sixth championship, the elusive mark he needs to equal Jordan, his basketball muse. The brew, in the end, was rancid. Those constantly bickering Lakers labored to 45 wins and were bounced from the postseason in the first round, their earliest exit since 2007. It may well end up being Bryant's last trip to the playoffs, a 4-0 loss to the Spurs that he watched from the bench with his ruined Achilles.

A year earlier, when the lockout ended, the Lakers worked out a trade to acquire Chris Paul from New Orleans and pair him in the backcourt with a still thriving Bryant. The deal was nixed by then-commissioner David Stern, who was acting as the final decision-maker for the league-owned franchise then known as the Hornets. Paul wound up sharing Staples Center with Bryant anyway, getting traded to the Clippers and then signing a five-year, $107 million contract in 2013. As president of the National Basketball Players Association, Paul will be a key voice in the players' looming labor showdown with the owners once Bryant is gone. Also, he will be the leader of the undisputed best team in Los Angeles for the foreseeable future.

"Kob is one of those people that you just never count him out," Paul said. "I'm a huge fan of his. It's just funny; you hear people say he's on the downside. Kob is Kob. He's a different breed. He just feeds off of that. When you have that type of drive and desire, it's never over."

But to what end -- and by what means? Asked if it's the game itself or winning that fuels him, Bryant answered, tellingly, "It's neither."

"Even more than that, it's the process," he said. "That's really enjoyable; trying to build something. Winning comes, but I was never obsessed by it. I was obsessive about a process. And through the process, winning comes."

Through all the platitudes, a complicated figure finds himself hemmed in by his own reality. There, in a quiet corner of the practice court, I asked him, "How do you know that your body won't let you down again?"

"I don't," he said.

"How do you deal with that?"

"I accept it," he said. "It could happen at any moment, right?"

Finally, Bryant is fitted with a lapel microphone for the TV taping he's about to join. He greets his guests, participants in the show, with a booming voice and bro hugs all around. Here, as always, Bryant has flipped a switch. He's launched into Public Kobe -- inquisitive, inspiring, motivational. He has a talent for making it seem so real.

"Enjoy the process," Bryant says. "It's about the process; the process of building something."

After all these years, Bryant is still building, brick by brick, day by day. How strong the raw materials are, and how fulfilling the outcome will be, remain to be seen. Either way, when the end comes, he doesn't want an elaborate sendoff. He doesn't want the farewell tour that Derek Jeter bathed in as he so publicly walked away from his own Hall of Fame career.

"I'd rather have my last year be like any other year," Bryant said. "I sincerely and truly appreciate the boos and the heckling, because those are going to be memories that I'll take with me forever. Then, at the end, when it's all said and done and the Hall of Fame comes around, that'd be nice to have that appreciation then. But I'd much rather feel the realness of it."

If he could write the last scene of this movie, if the script were a blank sheet of paper and he could become another kind of genius, agonizing over every detail, how would it end?

"Hmmm, the last scene," he said, pausing for 17 seconds, nearly an entire shot clock, and exhaling deeply before finally answering.

"It wouldn't be something that's a definitive ending," he said. "It would be something where there's room for the sequel. And not the sequel meaning coming back and playing, but an evolution of the person, evolving into doing something else. Taking what's been learned and evolving that into doing something else. So I don't think it's a matter of the book closing, so much as a chapter ending and now you start the next chapter."

His guests hang on his every word, awestruck and somehow outside their bodies in this moment with the great, complicated, polarizing, championship-winning, cap-killing Kobe Bryant.

"It goes both ways," Bryant tells them. "I'm not going to let you guys down and you're not going to let me down. We've got a journey to finish."
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abeer3 · Oct 26, 2014

oh, so that's what balanced journalism looks like.

I'm so glad a non-laker fan with a national audience said this:

This week, after fanning Bryant's competitive flame by ranking him 40th among the league's 450 players, ESPN published a scathing takedown of him in which agents anonymously tattled that their clients have left the Lakers due to Bryant and that other high-profile free agents are avoiding him like the plague. Among the examples cited were Howard, whose clownish antics have been on display virtually his entire career; Andrew Bynum, whose physical and emotional frailty have his career on the ropes; and Ramon Sessions, who left as a free agent for more money in Charlotte in 2012. (Sessions has since been traded to Milwaukee and signed by the Kings to a deal worth less than half what the then-Bobcats paid him only two years ago.)

In other words: Abbot, you're a clown.

therealdeal · Oct 26, 2014

Yeah when I saw this I had to post it here. A balanced piece! Crazy!

Not to mention Berger uses HIS sources to come up with some different quotes from executives around the League. Abbot is an absolute moron and I hope his name gets dragged through the mud for the hit piece he wrote.

LTLakerFan · Oct 26, 2014

Oh....but see ......"you guys keep reading the trash ESPN articles and giving them clicks........"

That sometimes gets tossed around here.

Fair and balanced....well OKAY.....going to now go and have me a good read. Thanks real.

lakerjones · Oct 26, 2014

Fair article for sure, although a little overdramatic at points. I don't think the team as currently constructed is anywhere near as bad as he paints it several times. This team looks great compared to Smush, Kwame, Luke, etc. Ed Davis plays D AND can actually pick and roll and pick and pop unlike Kwame who was a great man post defender but horrid on offense. Smush was a freaking joke. Lin is a solid starting PG with an upside that's even better than that. Booz is a legit, hard nosed starting 4 who can put up 15 and grab 8. Hill is a legit mobile center in this current league (though I like him better at 4 generally) who will play hard and grab offensive boards and has a little jump hook and the occasional mid-range. On the bench Swaggy P is a better player than anyone Kobe had on that Smush squad except for Odom. Randle has huge upside even though he's a rook. We actually have some depth on this squad. So no, this squad is not that bad and certainly better IMO than last year by quite a bit.

Interesting that nothing was written about Byron and his relationship to Scott and how much better a fit he is than who has been here the last few years and how much they've been on the same page since he was hired. But it didn't really fit the narrative of Kobe vs. the world, against all odds. So you can see why it's ignored. Still as noted, this was a pretty balanced article with a purpose.

LTLakerFan · Oct 26, 2014

Yes it was.... fair.....balanced.....good.....and I agree with lakerjones this team is not a crap team at all. Give us health....once everyone's back. The kind where no one going forward has to miss more than a week or two prior to the playoffs. And I say we are in the playoffs. Also agree Byron, as compared Mike Brown and Mike D'Antoni should have been mentioned, because he counts hugely on this "not crap" team.

ZenMaster · Oct 26, 2014

LTLakerFan said: ↑

Oh....but see ......"you guys keep reading the trash ESPN articles and giving them clicks........"

That sometimes gets tossed around here.

Fair and balanced....well OKAY.....going to now go and have me a good read. Thanks real.
Click to expand...

I am going to take this on my account. This was not ESPN, thought, LT, was it?

Gangsterbomb · Oct 26, 2014

Extremely well written piece. Marveling at the content and writing tbh.

LTLakerFan · Oct 26, 2014

Don't know where it came from actually, that wasn't my point. I don't know how as an educated fan of the game and loyal to my team to simply ignore crap articles when they have agenda's to tear down my team such as Abbot, or Dwyer on Jeanie or the clown nobody from Yahoo finance breathlessly agreeing with Broussard's quoting some gutless, anonymous assistant coach in the east. Of course reading them or even posting back in the comments with hundreds of others chiming in one way or another accomplishes nothing either. I get that. Just me, but I imagine a lot of others may feel the same. Good point of reference to know the entirety of what your team is up against.

raviator · Oct 26, 2014

A good brief look at Bryant during the latter stages of his career. You know Steven A. said it best when talking about that Abbott piece. Basically if you're going to hurl all these accusations of why players don't want to play with Bryant, fine, but explain why. The work that Bryant has put in throughout his career, and the work he has put in just to make it back from his injuries bespeaks the work ethic that and drive that this man has. And if anyone does not want to work for it, Bryant has no time for them. An that's just it. I love the part where he walks into the locker room and everyone basically shuts up. They know when Bryant enters the room, it's time to get serious. There's not time to goof around. That's why he's one of the greatest.

alam1108 · Oct 26, 2014

This was a great article, thanks for sharing real deal.

You won't find this kind of writing from BSPN

Perdurabo · Oct 26, 2014

Good article.

Even this article though reiterates the same vitriol about Kob's huge contract, which is such a stupid argument. Kobe makes 24 million this year, but weight it against what he contributes to the team. Nash makes 9 million and he's going to contribute nothing. THAT's the real cap killer, NOT Kobe's contract.

And Kobe's right about taking that money. Poor nice Timmy and Tony are being suckered by Pop and management into taking less so they can build a championship team. Did they ever ask how much the Spurs organization has been making these past two years? Management made them take less so the Spurs can make a windfall while winning titles. A winning team can afford to pay the luxury tax. A losing team in a small market loses money, no doubt. But a winning team in a small market makes a ton of money, since winning attracts a global market. They fill up seats, they sell merch everywhere, and they get lucrative endorsements. That's one reason I hate Pop, despite the popular opinion. He's tricking his stars into taking less. Cuban falls into that category too.

Weezy · Oct 26, 2014

Great read. Fair, unbiased, not slanted in favor of, or against Kobe, but an objective look at things. Kobe is looked at how he is, and that isn't a perfect guy, or someone always easy to play with.

I like how he makes the point many refuse to these days as well, that Jordan was also a "prick", and so what? It's a game and a job, not a popularity contest. I remember in Jordan's days many didn't like him for the same reasons as Kobe, he was a "ball hog" and a jerk. My father used to hate on him because he was "taking the game away from team ball, changing the game, ruining the game". Many people felt that way if I remember right, but thats ignored now, and I never saw it that way anyway, because he was winning, so who cares?

I wasn't a fan of Jordan, but I didn't care about how he went about winning, I saw a guy playing hard as he could do to so, seemed to earn it to me. I've felt the same about Kobe (minus the not a fan part), don't care much about the man off the court, on it he gives his all, he plays to win, and he's been entertaining me for years and years.

I also liked the stuff about Wes Johnson. Sure he hasn't improved, he may have reached his ceiling, but it's interesting that Kobe has taken him on like he has. You can't say he doesn't work hard at least. Also liked his quote, sounds like every other young guy Kobe has taken under his wing, Kobe just expects hard work, and dedication, demands a lot of teammates, at least Wes isn't afraid of that I guess.

Anyway, I think I'm rambling here, but again, good read. He might be right, Kobe might never make the playoffs again, and his body could give out at any time. That's part of the reason I don't get why so many are piling on the guy and not sitting back and enjoying his final years, because the NBA will miss him when he's gone. It's sad to me how an absolute legend of the game is treated so poorly and so underappreciated at the end of his career. I don't expect a Jeter-like farewell tour, but to seemingly want him to fail and to be gone so bad is lame. Berger usually seems to wrire good stuff, maybe not as good as Woj, but not far off I'd say.

DjBelvedere · Oct 26, 2014

Soooo many articles over the last few weeks about Kobe. I'm so done with all the stories etc. ... 2 days until Kobe can prove himself (again, as if he still has to) and the praise will be once again much less than it should be.

Kind of off-topic. But it doesn't get more exciting to me than haven Dwight back as the first test so to speak for Kobe !

trodgers · Oct 26, 2014

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Beginning Of The End For Kobe Bryant? By Ken Berger

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