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from today's Toronto Star:
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NBA jumps on Kobe's 81 bandwagon
Jan. 25, 2006. 05:52 AM
DAVE FESCHUK
Perusing the fallout of an unforgettable Sunday night, when Kobe Bryant outscored the Raptors' starting lineup in a squeaker, 81-80, former Raptor Vince Carter voiced altruistic concern for the future purity of Naismith's sacred game.
"The only bad thing about it is younger kids, whose minds are easily warped, are going to think, `Ohh! I am going to go out there and do it' instead of the team concept first," Carter told reporters.
"That is what is missing, guys understanding how to play as a team."
The man who personally ensured future generations will understand how to quit as individuals isn't exactly a credible analyst of such matters — call him a hypocritic.
But Carter wasn't the only NBAer to spit a sour grape in Bryant's direction. Antoine Walker, the Miami Heat forward, suggested it was the Raptors' collective gutlessness that was to blame: "If someone gets 81 on me," Walker told the media, "I'm going to clothesline him."
As Jerry West, the Lakers great and Memphis general manager, told the Washington Post: "Players are jealous of greatness."
Coaches, too, Mr. West.
"Anybody who's got the kind of energy to try to hoist up 70 shots is going to score a lot of points," Pat Riley, the Heat sideline walker, said for all to hear, inflating Bryant's 66 combined field-goal and free-throw attempts. "We've got a lot of guys in this league, if they took 70 shots, they'd score a lot of points."
Jealousy or not, there was some truth to all of it. But what will probably be forgotten in the game's legacy is that the Lakers, down by as many as 18 points in the third quarter, wouldn't have won if Bryant didn't shoot like he shot. You want passing? Maybe you would have seen some if Lamar Odom, the ever-promising but mostly disappointing forward, didn't go 1 for 7 from the field; if Kwame Brown, the bust of a centre, didn't go 1 for 5; if Devean George didn't go 0 for 4. Without Bryant's outburst — or at least 80 per cent of it — the Lakers don't win and the world doesn't get an evening of peerless entertainment.
What won't be forgotten is Sam Mitchell's classic post-game remark.
"I thought my guys were there," the Raptors coach said of his team's coverage of Bryant.
He thought they were "there." Just like the punching bag was "there" for Ali.
The NBA, of course, is hoping Bryant's big night — a scoring feat second only to Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point legend in 1962 — will remake the player's battered image. They're printing up Bryant 81 jerseys and a commemorative ball. They're talking about Bryant re-emerging as the sneaker-selling, hamburger-moving supermarketer.
Alas, there's probably no going back to the public image stratosphere occupied by Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. The public knows too much about Bryant. They know he was accused of rape and copped to adultery. And even if they don't care about the off-court stuff, they know that Phil Jackson dubbed him "uncoachable" and that the only thing that changed the Zen master's opinion was $10 million (U.S.) a season.
GQ magazine ranked Bryant the fifth most hated athlete in sports in its February edition. Doubtless, he's among the most loved, too.
He's polarizing. But it's a winning-is-everything world. And L.A. assistant coach Tex Winter pointed out the obvious while genuflecting at Bryant's awesomeness against the Raptors: "I don't think you can win a championship that way," Winter said.
The Pistons, who cut down the Lakers dynasty in a watershed 2004 championship series, don't win that way. Ditto the defending champion Spurs. Which is not to say you can market Tim Duncan in the way you market Woods or Jordan. But Bryant had the keys to that kingdom. And now that he's been where he's been, in a family-values society like the U.S., it's hard to imagine re-entry.
Folks know too much. They know Bryant often looked and acted miserable in his three-championship run alongside Shaquille O'Neal in L.A., a partnership most blame Bryant for breaking up. They know he never appeared happier than he did Sunday night, when the story was his alone, no sharing required. What they'll never know is why a guy so bent on going it alone didn't just take up golf. |
I love that line from Antoine and the reference to the Oakley days...Jalen considered it to.
I think Hoffa or Jalen should have smacked the shit out of Kobe at some point, lol.
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