Kobe: a Basketball Farewell

Excerpt

On January 26, I awoke from a late afternoon nap to learn that Kobe and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were killed in a helicopter crash that morning, along with several others. My thoughts immediately went to Kobe’s wife and other children, then to the players whose public admiration for him is well-documented, guys like Melo, LeBron, DWade and Kyrie, to name a few, and finally to his parents, especially former San Diego Clippers forward Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, whom I watched play when I was a young teenager. Kobe, the NBA’s second greatest 2 guard ever, behind, of course, Michael Jordan. No argument there. No guard was as great for as many years as Kobe, not even Jordan. Last summer, Coach Doc Rivers of the LA Clippers offered the most curious comment of the NBA off-season when he said that Kawhi Leonard was “the closest thing to Michael Jordan we’ve seen.” No, please, stop it, just stop it! To argue the point would be a gross misuse of my time, anybody’s time for that matter. Perhaps Rivers was seeking to ingratiate himself with Leonard who was a free agent and supposedly torn between signing with the LA Lakers and the LA Clippers. Maybe, in Rivers’ mind, a little brownnosing could not hurt, it could only help. Still, there is a universal understanding that Kobe is the closest thing to Jordan we have ever seen. Both were great offensive and defensive players. But, not even Jordan scored 81 points in a single game. Sixty-three was the highest Jordan ever scored. I saw that game, it was a sight to see and it was in the playoffs against Larry Bird’s Celtics. Kobe’s volcanic eruption against the Toronto Raptors 20 years later, I missed entirely, for no good reason, other than the fact that I had not been paying attention to the schedule. …