Let me preface this by saying that I am biased when it comes to the Lakers. JA Adande of ESPN is supposed to be an unbiased reporter, but he clearly favors the Lakers and just wrote an article on how Kobe is the best crunch time scorer of all time (I hate MJ but even I have to admit that MJ may be better than Kobe) http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/11256/kobe-bryant-making-the-best-of-bad-situations. I love JA's work, but he needs to be like Bill Simmons and admit he is a Lakers fan (as Simmons does with the Celtics) and his opinion is not objective. That being said, take my opinion with a grain of salt as it is hard for me to think objectively about anything Lakers related.
Last night's shot embodied how Kobe Bryant has changed. I finally believe that his teammates truly like him. 5 and a half years ago, this happened:
Although those shots went in, his teammates seem like they are happy they won, but wish someone else mad the shots who was not Kobe. This was the last year Kobe and Shaq played together and was probably the lowest point of Kobe's popularity (flying back and forth between rape trials in Colorado, fighting publicly with Shaq). None of us know the real story: did he rape the girl, did he force the Shaq trade or was Shaq a big baby (Shaq has been traded 3 more times since leaving teams in bad situations) and did he alienate himself from his teammates.
I can't think of another athlete who has reinvented his image with the public and his peers. Its always one or the other, but not both. Watching his shot last night, you could tell that his teammates legitimately liked him (take that Bill Simmons!):
Just look at Bynum jumping around or Artest's quote: “They were trying to deny him [Kobe], and I knew it was impossible, This is the Black Mamba, you know what I mean?” You would never hear or see that."
Here are my most vivid Kobe Bryant memories (in chronological order):
-Seeing Kobe at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles at A Tribe Called Quest/Fugees concert two weeks after he was drafted in the summer of 1996. Few people noticed him and he spoke for 5 min with my friend Sheldon and I. He told us how much he loved LA and was getting excited for summer league
-The 1997 slam dunk contest, when no contestant did anything impressive, but Kobe won because he was the young darling of the NBA
-The Kobe-MJ faceoff, where the Lakers lost by 20 but both players put up over 30.
-Kobe waving of a Karl Malone pick during the 1998 all-star game. Kobe was voted a starter by the fans although he was not a starter on his own team
-The Eddie Jones trade: much more about making room for Kobe than actually bringing in Glen Rice
-Game 4 of the 2000 NBA finals when Shaq fouled out and Kobe beat the Pacers on a gimpy ankle by himself
-The summer of 2004. I will never forget where I was when Kobe had been accused of rape. I watched the press conference from my hotel room after my first week of training in investment banking. 2 days prior, the Lakers had signed Payton and Malone. I had the same dreadful feeling when Magic announced he had HIV
-81 points.
-Bill Simmons admitting that Kobe should be MVP. For some reason this seemed more validating than him actually winning the MVP because of how much I respect Simmons and how much he hates the lakers: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060414
-The Lakers losing to the Celtics in the 2008 finals and Kobe doing nothing in the entire series. I was really mad then because people close to me and around me had all jumped on the Celtics bandwagon (even though they could not even name the Celtics starters from the year before). One new "Celtics Fan" particularly pissed me off. I will leave it at that. My close friends know exactly what I am talking about.
-Kobe redeeming himself in 2009
-December 4th, 2009-the night that Kobe's teammates showed to the world that they genuinely liked him. The turnaround was complete in every aspect.
TIGER WOODS! IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU TOO. THE PUBLIC IS FORGIVING.
