The Hated

Kobe. Muhfuckin. Bryant.

Did you read our Finals wishlist? While I said I wanted the Magic to win in 7, the "What more can I say" reference was backed up by Bethlehem Shoals as the Kobe Bryant theme song.

Kobe is one of the strangest enigmas in all of sports today. As a personality, he is very much akin to Wilt Chamberlain. Promiscuous introverts, forever the antagonists, beef with lovable Boston teams, and alone as the one-man band of their respective Laker teams. This stigma galvanizes the haters and lovers alike, and only served to perpetuate the legends and myths that only made the Los Angeles smog grow thicker around their personas, endlessly obscuring the truth behind the men.

Kobe as a brand is a single name individual. As went Pele and Madonna, so goes Kobe. There is no need for a surname. There never will be.

Kobe arrived with the sort of celebration and fanfare as when a waiter delivers your plate of, well, Kobe steak. The genealogy is there, being the offspring of Jellybean Bryant (an asshole in his own right, and lucky enough to play on what is one the shortlist of my favorite teams of all time) and the sister of another NBA player. His sense of entitlement rang true even as an 18-year-old. You couldn't pay Kobe to play on a small market team such as Charlotte. It was not befitting of the mini-fro'd prince of ball. Sorry, North Carolina, there's a higher class of basketball in the universe, which lies far away from tobacco road.

While the team was certainly important, and the contributions of Pau, Fisher, Ariza and Odom cannot be marginalized, the Lakers started and ended with one man. The saga of the man whom the Chinese call the "Little Flying Warrior" truly started when he was second banana to Shaq's King Kong. In the early parts of this decade, there was absolutely no question that Shaq was the be all end all of dominance. 40 and 20 games were common for him. There was no way that those championships were not his. However, Kobe was integral, and totally earned the famous shots of him standing on the scorer's table, swaggering the mini-fro back and forth as the confetti rained down.

Now behold Kobe, embattled from court cases and haters galore. Does he give up on his team sometimes? Yes. But see him as an artist, forever devoted to his craft. The list of tortured artists who hated their fame and fanbase are as long as history itself. From Beethoven to Cobain, with Emily Dickinson to Ernest Hemingway in between, there will always be artists who were placed on this earth for one reason and one reason alone.

Kobe is that to basketball. We as Americans love the underdog story of the lovable band of ragamuffins that band together to overcome enormous odds. I see Kobe as another piece of American lore, the one lone soldier that will fight constantly to achieve his lone and selfish goal of survival. He is Clint Eastwood's Josie Wells, Doc Holliday, Boba Fett and the Roach from Apocalypse Now. He is only called upon by others when all other avenues are exhausted. With ice water in his veins, he reluctantly rejoins society for the plain and simple purpose of murder.

He isn't here for you or in spite of you. He's here for himself. All the emotions and humanizing instances are absurdly staged. Spike Lee's fanboy puff piece, his wife and daughters' appearances, and even the comical underjaw jutting are nothing more than acting jobs. In another life, Kobe was the type of person that made sure his enemies were looking him in the eyes when he put the knife swiftly into their heart.

In recent basketball, there has been a sort of hegemony in which 8 teams have shared the last 30 NBA titles (with singular appearances from the Heat and 76ers). The names of the Finals MVPs are forever etched into definitive hall-of-fame performances. Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, Shaquille O'Neal, Larry Bird, etc. They have all earned their place in history, and embraced the love that came with it. Kobe stands alone in that this championship belongs to he alone, and will sit atop it, miserlike, until the end of days.

The NBA is reality to the NCAA's dreaminess of Cinderella stories and bracket busters. There are no moral victories in the world's greatest basketball organization. You either win or you don't. Sometimes the villains win, because sometimes the villains are that much fucking better than the rest of the field. Life's a bitch, deal with it.

For me, though, game recognizes game. Kobe's on top of his. Step yours up.