2.24.20

Kobe’s gone.

And there’s nothing we can do but talk about it. Out loud or on paper. To friends or ourselves or the people we see wearing his jersey. It hurts every time, but we have to hope that saying what we’re thinking or putting words down on a page can keep the thoughts from bouncing around in our heads. They gain some silent, powerful momentum as long as we ignore them. So we have to give them somewhere to exist besides the places we’ve tried to hide them away. It sucks, but talking about it is all we can really do.

I figured there’s no better time than today - 2.24.20, the day of Kobe and Gigi’s public memorial service - to let go of the things I’ve been thinking about. What he meant to me. I’d love to be able to reminisce on all those Saturday afternoons on the couch with my Dad, watching him battle against the Celtics or Suns or Spurs, eyes stitched to the TV while I wiped my sweaty palms off on a Lakers jersey with the stitching frayed and color faded from hundreds of hours of driveway games. To talk about how sports were never just sports to me, because of him. How I collected all those intricately detailed Kobe Bryant McFarlane figurines you’d see in stores and not understand if they’re for austere children to stare at in silent, reverent introspection or old men to display on their desk next to an ash tray and letter opener. And which was weirder. Or how my Dad would make a post-season trip to the NBA Store in NYC every year and come back home with a huge heap of Lakers gear - and how June always felt like Christmas to me because of it. It would be great to talk about all the All Star jerseys and his confusing rap albums, all the posters and commemorative championship DVD’s, and how collecting these things was always just a way to make him feel closer to me, to quantify how much he meant and make that feeling tangible for a minute. I’d love to talk about how a kid from Philly who grew up in Italy taught a kid from Memphis to fall in love with a sport that never felt like just a game.  

I’d love to talk about all that. And for that to be my experience.

But I can’t.

Because I hated Kobe. 

Honestly, there was no one on earth I hated more than him. I’d watch his games only to root against him. My figurines were of Dwyane Wade, and my jerseys Lebron. I almost cried when the Heat won in 2006 and the Cavs won in 2016 (or anytime I watched Hasheem Thabeet try to play), and did whatever the opposite of that is when I watched Kobe win his titles with Pau. The only reason my Dad and I would turn on his games was to momentarily morph into an ardent fan of whatever team he was playing against, and the only time I – or anyone – ever got near his rap albums is when I was writing this and remembered he really swindled his way into a verse on a Destiny’s Child remix. He was the bane of my basketball existence, and the first person who taught me how to hate. 

Probably sounds pretty rough for a tribute piece. But hey, everyone deals with grief differently. And it’ll get better - somewhere in here.

* * *

I still remember being 10 years old, tuned into ABC for the Game 4 of the 2006 NBA Playoffs, trying to transfer all my adolescent rage through the TV at Kobe as he battled Steve Nash, Shawn Marion, and a genuinely exciting Phoenix Suns team who’d somehow overcome losing Amar’e Stoudemire. I was watching that game like I watched every game when I was 10 - like a degenerate, compulsive gambler, so emotionally tied to every basket and little moment that they lost all sense of context. I was the inspiration for Sandler in Uncut Gems, a heaping sweaty mass of white flesh neurotically watching meaningless basketball like my life depended on it. When in reality, I didn’t even really have any particular connection to either of these teams. I couldn’t explain it, it was just some primal rage I got from watching Kobe. Like before I learned why I loved things or felt so strongly about them – I just knew how to hate him. It was instinctual, programmed in me like hunger or anger (or an inability to be concise).

Many people remember that game for the big Kobe plays down the stretch, the ones we’ve been seeing replays and retweets of since his passing a month ago. He’s got a million of these moments – nasty elbow threes and pullup daggers, wildly inappropriate trash-talk and post-game disrespect. His game was made for the Twitter era, and all these clips are like little hits of dopamine for Kobe fans, and “Yeah but he was actually 6-24 in this game!” opportunities for fans of anyone else. And that’s what makes them so great.

In this game, there were two such retweetable moments. First – the buzzer-beating lay-up Kobe hit in regulation, the one that arched up like a water-fountain with the mouth guard removed, a perfect upward spiral that seemed to linger in the air for minutes (like a fart from Dwight Howard). And second, that bullet-like elbow dagger that won the game at the buzzer in overtime, directly off the jump ball. Two shots with as opposite of a trajectory as you can have that both ended in devastation for Suns fans. But those shots – the ones that seem to exist in a vacuum now, that everyone talks about and remembers the moment for - have been clipped out and cut from their context, as if what happened around them doesn’t matter. When in retrospect, the moments surrounding them are far more interesting. And it’s not even particularly close. 

To me, the most important part of that game came after Kobe’s shot. And had to do with Smush Parker.

A name that sounds more synonymous with a Chappelle Show character or Keebler Elf mascot than Kobe Bryant’s legacy. The same Smush Parker that literally wasn’t allowed to talk to Kobe about anything outside of games until he got “more accolades under [his] belt.’” The same Smush Parker that Kobe once bluntly described as “the worst. He shouldn't have been in the NBA, but we were too cheap to pay for a point guard. We let him walk on." The same Smush Parker that was shooting 1-10 up until that moment in the game – which is undoubtedly the purest, uncut version of a Smush Parker performance. A performance I can only image that Dion Waiters watched over and over again as a child and whispered to himself, staring up at the static of the TV screen like it was manna from the heavens, “One day - one day, that’s gonna be me. You’ll see.”

So with 10 seconds to go and the Lakers down by 5, that Smush Parker did something very un-Smush-Parker-like. First, he took advantage of Steve Nash with his hands down (which, to be fair to Nash, is the only canonically accepted way to guard Smush Parker) and hit a cold-blooded corner 3 to cut it to 2. And on the very next play, he ripped the ball out of Nash’s hands and tossed it up-court to Kobe, who floated it in to send the game to OT and an eventual victory.

But here’s the moment I’ll never forget.

After Kobe hit that shot, he didn’t celebrate or fist-pump. He didn’t tug at his own jersey or taunt the opposing crowd like Embiid after he hits his third shot of the game on 8 attempts after resting for a week down 9 on the road. Because you don’t celebrate what you’ve come to expect of yourself. He instead ran over to Smush Parker and put him in a headlock, with both hands fully clamped around his head like a proud Dad or Kawhi Leonard palming an oil barrel. And as teammates batted at Kobe, he ignored it and pulled Smush closer. You couldn’t hear what he was saying, but you didn’t need to. You could feel it from the intensity of the embrace. Kobe would shout your shortcomings, but when you proved him wrong he was the first to let you know - often privately, but with equal ferocity.

All year, Kobe had sunk his teeth into Smush, putting him through the ringer (please hire me) psychologically, physically, and emotionally. Because he expected greatness, and Smush wasn’t great. But Kobe’s best gift was that ability to break people down. Break them of what they thought they were and open up the part of them they didn’t know was attainable. The part that wasn’t nervous and didn’t feel pain, one free from fear or hesitation or human limits. That’s what he did, essentially. Break people of their own humanity. And allow them to momentarily operate on whatever alien plane Kobe himself did. He did it to handfuls of teammates throughout the years, turning role players into ruthless performers through fear and intimidation and pressure – from Metta World Peace and his clutch “Kobe passed me the ball!” Game 7 corner 3 to Sasha Vujacic calmly knocking down his only points of the game to clinch the title without batting an eye moments later. He turned Derek Fisher into Larry Bird and Robert Horry into Reggie Miller. He got Children-of-the-Corn-alum Adam Morrison a ring and single-handedly saved the US from collapsing to Spain in Beijing in 2008. When almost every single player on that roster had career years the next season, it wasn’t a surprise to anyone. It was just another byproduct of being infected with the Mamba Mentality:

“I liked challenging people and making them uncomfortable. That’s what leads to introspection and that’s what leads to improvement. You could say I dared people to be their best selves… I learned their histories and listened to what their goals were. I learned what made them feel secure and where their greatest doubts lay. Once I understood them, I could help bring the best out of them by touching the right nerve at the right time.”

        - Kobe Bryant, Mamba Mentality, 2018

That’s exactly what Kobe did to Smush. A full year of publicly bullying and psychologically tormenting him paid off, because for a moment he forgot he was Smush Parker. And played like he was Kobe. Without fear, without complacency, without trying to please or asking what to do. Just doing. Kobe broke him down, so he could play beyond himself and his own boundaries.

So was Kobe was either selflessly ruthless or ruthlessly selfish? Who knows which? And does it matter when the outcome of both is success? When it comes to his treatment of Smush, all I know is this: Kobe did a bad thing, and it led to an objectively good result.

And that’s why it’s so hard for me to reconcile my feelings on Kobe. Because what I hated and what I loved about him were one and the same.

* * *

I always hated Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Laker. His arrogance, bullying, the dismantling of opponents and even his own team.

I hated his ascetic attempt to recreate Jordan’s game - from the signature fadeaway and cut-throat competitiveness, to his identical embrace of the aerodynamic advantage of baldness. I hated the Donaghy-rigged 2002 WCF Kings series that deprived former and future “he played for the Grizzlies?” legends Mike Bibby and Bobby Jackson of a ring. I loved his Game 7 2010 Finals meltdown, and I hated that it didn’t matter - he won the game anyway, thanks to Pau Gasol (and Chris Wallace operating at peak Wallocity). I hated that we never got to see a Lebron - Kobe Finals, and I hated even more that it’s all because of Dwight “Collapsed Frontal Lobe” Howard. I hated the game winners and scoring streaks, his self-inflicted vilification and vendettas against everyone, the Clippers offseason ultimatum, the entitlement and titles and jersey ripping and teammate ripping. I hated his conceited attitude towards Phil and the Shaq, and his dogged refusal to make things work with them even when it was objectively the easiest path to success. I rooted against him every chance I got. 

But I couldn’t help but love Kobe Bryant, the competitor. What he produced and drew out of people. What drove him and how he didn’t care about the perceptional cost of attaining his goals. 

I loved his ruthlessness, his anger, his emotion. The stuff that powered it all, what validated in his mind everything he did on the court and in the locker room. When he exterminated the Raptors and dropped 81 on Jalen Rose. Like listening to Kendrick rap battle Sammy Adams, it was like the Raptors weren’t even playing the same sport as Kobe. Or when he combined with Brian Cook to drop 64 in 3 quarters (Kobe: 62 PTS, 18-31 FG, 22-25 FT, +35; Brian: 2 PTS, 1-1, 0-0, +5) while up 34 and personally outscoring a Mavs team that would make (and should have won) the Finals that year. I loved Mamba Mentality and all the crazy antics and sociopathy that came with it: the 3AM American Psycho gym workouts in the dark, calling his 2014 Laker teammates “Charmin Soft” in practice (a team whose two leading contributors behind him were Kids-Bop-Ty-Dolla-$ign Jordan Hill and Nick Azalea-Young), verbally castrating and invalidating Smush Parker’s entire existence as a man, and tearing his ACL before placidly knock down 2 free-throws like his knee ligaments weren’t as shattered as Kyle Kuzma’s ego. You had to love that drive, that dangerousness, the abhorrent behavior and insatiable appetite for conflict and competition and not caring what anyone thought.

Everything that made up Kobe Bryant, the competitor – that’s what I loved. You could hate his game – and I did - but you couldn’t deny him. He was everything he thought he was. And he thought he was the greatest. 

* * *

And when you’re the greatest, you always leave on a high note.

Even if only briefly and amidst bitter loss and struggles, you never go out with a whimper. You can’t. And Kobe was no exception.

60 points in 50 shots in his final game - on a pair of borrowed knees and the burden of having to look at Roy Hibbert every day. That’s what Kobe left us with. And those numbers weren’t a selfish inefficiency, like the box score betrays. They were a final testament to that dumb, brash tenacity he always had. His stubbornness to prove you wrong. You didn’t tell Kobe when he was done. He’d leave when he wanted to. He didn’t need that last game. He had the rings and the MVP and the scoring records, the beautiful, talented daughters and the lifetime endorsement contracts. No, that last game was for us - a parting gift, one last impeccably rewatchable moment we could have forever - hat we could pull up on our phones and watch a clip from, or sit down and take in in its totality whenever we need to remember that time he felt immortal. It was a 48 minute distillation of who and what he was: a freight train, head down and determined, always striving for the best - never with the perfect trajectory, but always with the end result he wanted. 

That game, that moment - it felt like an ending. Even then. It was like a memorial, something he built so we could come back to pay our respects and say goodbye years later - not only to him, but to an entire era of basketball and an archetype he both invented and ended. We’ll never see another man play 20 seasons for the same team; we’ll never see another player in an age of abundant ego driven less by what other people thought about him; we’ll never see another man drop buckets for Phil Jackson and bars for Brian McKnight and 50 Cent; we’ll never see another athlete with the potential for mentoring, storytelling, and the championing of women’s sports that he gave away so graciously in his last 4 years with us. We’ll never see another Kobe Bean Bryant. 

And that’s the way he’d want it.

To be remarkable, but not replicable. After all, he left a legacy and not a blueprint. And that’s not saying we can’t learn from him - his trail of mistakes and misfires, and plenty to improve upon. We’ll just never have another exactly like him.

* * *

When he passed away on a Sunday morning a month ago, everyone debated cancelling games for the day. Declared that no one should ever wear 8 or 24 ever again. Decided that the Jordan-Kobe-Lebron debate should be put to rest forever, so we could respect these legends for their individual and unique greatness. That we should all come together without dissent.

But come on.

Kobe would’ve hated that.

“Stop playing games? Maaaan, you’re soft. Get out there and bust your ass for me,” he’d say before throwing an unnecessarily hard chest pass at you. “Retire my numbers? I worked my whole career to be a globally recognized brand – put those numbers on everything! Wear it more. Come on now, challenge yourself to earn it. That’s Mamba Mentality. That’s how you respect me.” And with an incredulous look on his face: “Stop fighting? Stop debating? No dissent?? Now when did you ever hear me say anything like that? You gotta fight, none of this hand-holding BS. I fought every day. You’re not gonna stop now, are you?” 

So I’m gonna keep fighting Kobe.

Every time I watch that Suns clip, I watch it wishing the shots would miss this time. I still yell at the screen like when I was 10. I still love how much I hate him, how heated I get when watching replays and highlights to this day. But I’ll always respect him, and what he did for the game. I’ll never pretend he was perfect, or try to candy-coat my feelings towards his game. But that’s what he would want - looking down on us with that signature smirk every time he infects our minds with a little memory or play we can’t forget. Looking down smiling, because his legacy is cemented and he can rest comfortably now. While we’re still fighting over him. And we’ll never stop.

I love how much I hate Kobe Bryant. And he probably does too.