The Book of Basketball (88 page)

January 2005.
Houston reader J. McMurray: “We need, at a bare minimum, a 5,000-word column on Kobe Bryant. Can you believe the drama that surrounds this guy? He is absolutely crazy, but in a Michael Corleone kind of way. Can’t you just see Kobe sitting alone in the boathouse at his mansion on Lake Tahoe, just staring into the darkness?”

April 2005.
House believes that, other than Ron Artest, Kobe was our 2005 LVP (Least Valuable Player)
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because he prematurely destroyed a Lakers dynasty. I countered that Kobe was our 2005 Worst GM (by stupidly forcing Shaq out) and can’t be blamed for his actual play, just as Eddie Murphy screwed up his career by deciding to direct
Harlem Nights.
You can’t penalize Kobe the Player for being screwed over by Kobe the GM.

November 2005.
Here’s Kobe explaining his new nickname: “The black mamba can strike with 99 percent accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession. That’s the kind of basketball precision I want to have. Not being able to train the last two summers, I was in a gunfight with a rusty butter knife. I did my share of killing, but I was just fighting to survive.” It’s funny when wrestlers change gimmicks, it’s funny when Diddy changes nicknames, and it’s downright hysterical when an NBA star once
accused of sexual assault decides it would be a fantastic idea to embrace the identity of a thirteen-foot serpent. But when they explain the choice of their self-given nickname with a beauty like “The mamba can strike with 99% accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession” and refuse to credit
Kill Bill
, it reminds me why I still love writing this column. Long live the Mamba.

November 2005.
Next time you watch
Scarface
, look for the disturbing parallels between Tony Montana’s career and Kobe’s career: The meteoric rise, an embarrassing trial, heavy levels of egomania and paranoia, soul-selling turns for the worse (Manny’s death and the Shaq trade), and the crazy symmetry of Tony’s taking on an entire army of Sosa’s soldiers by himself and Mamba’s taking 40–45 shots a game for the 2005–6 Lakers with the league’s worst supporting cast. Is it too late to build a giant water fountain at the Staples Center for Kobe to fall into headfirst?

February 2006.
For a perimeter player to score 81 points, you have to hog the ball to a degree that’s disarming to watch. My father and I were fascinated by Kobe’s icy demeanor, the lack of excitement by L.A.’s bench guys, even the dysfunctional way that his teammates were killing themselves going for rebounds and steals to get him more shots.
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When an exhausted Kobe reached 81 and appeared barely able to stay on his feet, the Lakers removed him to a standing ovation, as well as halfhearted hugs and high-fives from his teammates. The best reaction belonged to Jackson, who seemed amused, supportive and somewhat horrified, like how Halle Berry’s husband probably looked after sitting through his first screening of
Monster’s Ball.
Only later would we appreciate the significance of the second-highest scoring outburst in NBA history. For me, the moment
happened long after Dad went to bed, when ESPN’s ticket flashed the Lakers final score, followed by, “BRYANT: 81 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists.” And I remember thinking two things: (a) “Holy crap! 81 freaking points! Wait, that’s a lot of points!” and (b) “Two assists … now that’s comedy.” Maybe this was Mamba’s ultimate destiny: one-man scoring machine, gunner for the ages, the real-life Teen Wolf.
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April 2006.
Kobe ended up getting what he always wanted: the Lakers completely revolve around him. He gets to shoot 25–30 times per game and take every big shot. He gets all the credit. And because he lucked out with the only possible coach who could make this cockamamie situation work, his supporting cast kills itself to make him look good. Basically, he’s Elvis and everyone else is Joe Esposito. And it’s working! That’s the crazy thing.

Late April 2006.
Kobe passed up so many scoring chances to set up teammates in Game 4 [of the Suns series], it nearly cost the Lakers a winnable game. Where did Bizarro Kobe come from? The answer lies with [then-
L.A. Times
columnist] J. A. Adande, who ran an eye-opening Kobe-related quote from Phil Jackson: “Sometimes his needs overwhelm the rest of the ballclub’s necessity … as we get into the playoffs, that’ll dissipate, because he knows that he’s got to put his ego aside and conform to what we have to do if we’re going to go anywhere in the playoffs. Any player that takes it on himself to do that [play for himself] knows that he’s going against the basic principles of basketball. That’s a selfish approach to the game. You know when you’re breaking down the team or you’re breaking down and doing things individualistic, you’re going to have, you know, some unhappy teammates … and he knows these things … intuitively, I have to trust the fact that he’s going to come back to that spot and know that the
timing’s right. The season’s over, things have been accomplished, records have been stuck in the books, statistics are all jelled in, now let’s go ahead and play basketball as we’re supposed to play it.”

One interesting wrinkle about that quote: Jackson made it two years ago, right before the 2004 playoffs. Hmmmmmmm.
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November 2007.
For the previous three weeks, Kobe was on businesslike cruise control (for him), only he’s so damned good, you couldn’t even tell unless you were watching closely. For instance, they played a guaranteed loss in San Antonio last week in which Kobe attempted zero free throws. Translation:
I don’t want to get tripped by Bruce Bowen and screw up a potential trade, so I’m just shooting 20-footers tonight.
In retrospect, this was Vince Carter’s biggest mistake—
not
being good enough to mail it in. Kobe doesn’t have the same problem. And if I’m the Lakers, I’m not even thinking about a trade until January. See what happens over these next few weeks and see if Kobe becomes sufficiently engaged. He’s too competitive to remain on cruise control as long as they’re winning.

June 2008.
I hate comparing anyone to Jordan, but what Kobe has shown over the past four months has been Jordanesque—not just his ability to raise his game in big moments (which he always had), but the way he picks his spots, keeps teammates involved and then arbitrarily takes over games and puts them away. If being an NBA superstar was like playing Grand Theft Auto, then that would be the final mission, right? The way Kobe single-handedly assassinated the Spurs in Games 1 and 5 was something we’ve only seen from a handful of players in NBA history. You can’t say enough about it. He has become the player we always wanted him to be.

June 2008.
Phil from Burlington writes, “In the second quarter [of Game 4 of the Finals], did you see how Turiaf fell, got called for a charge and none of his teammates helped him up? They all walked away. That would never happen to the Celts, and that is why they are going to win. That is the best example of the difference between the two teams.” That and this: no Celtic would bitch out a teammate like Bryant bitched out Gasol after the big Spaniard failed to catch his 130 mph no-look pass in the first half of Game 5. How can Lakers fans continue to defend such petulant behavior? You got me. But hey, he must be a good guy because he can do news conferences while holding both of his kids.
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August 2008.
For most of the Olympic Games, Team USA had an alpha dog issue. Was this Kobe’s team or LeBron’s? Fast-forward to 8:13 left (of the gold medal game): Rudy Fernández’s three cuts the lead to two; the crowd goes bonkers; Spain’s bench reacts like a euphoric fifteenth seed during a March Madness upset; and the United States calls timeout. All along, my biggest fear had been a tight game and multiple U.S. guys saying, “I got it!” Instead, everyone deferred to Kobe and he made some monster plays to clinch it. Know that in the history of the NBA we have never had the best-player-alive argument resolved so organically. Kobe, you have the Lord of the Flies conch. Use it wisely.

February 2009.
You have to admire a future Hall of Famer with more than 1,000 NBA games on his odometer for playing 103 straight games and nearly 4,100 minutes last season, killing himself on the Redeem Team last summer, then playing another 51 straight games (and counting) this season … then somehow
adding
two moves over the summer (MJ’s late-career
fall-away and that funky pivot move after he fakes the foul line jumper). He’s one of the few who delivers the goods every time you see him in person.
Every
time. I headed to Staples on Tuesday knowing Kobe would show up for four quarters. How many current guys can you say that about? Three? Five? He has more to gain historically than anyone over these next four months: if the Lakers win the title, he becomes one of the top eight players ever and that’s that.

Okay, back to this book. That Jackson quote from April ’06 explained Kobe the best. He knew the right way to play as evidenced by his playoff performances
… but playing that way wasn’t his first choice.
That’s what makes Kobe so polarizing: he’s the only great player who knew The Secret and didn’t take care of it. Watching him play, at least for me, was like having a friend purchase a beautiful $10 million mansion—like one of those ones in New Orleans where they film bad Brad Pitt movies—then paint it a weird color, refuse to hire a housekeeper, decorate it with goofy modern furniture and basically ruin the house.
Buddy, what the fuck are you doing? Don’t you realize what you have here?
Kobe never did. He played basketball with a singular mentality, trusting his own exploits would lift his teammates but only intermittently bothering to make them better in a conventional way. I see him evolving historically as the next Oscar Robertson, with his numbers looking better and better as in-the-moment discretions and disappointments fade away almost entirely. The ceiling of that evaluation hinges on these next few years: if Kobe wins one more championship and/or embraces The Secret late in his career (think ’72 Wilt), he quickly jumps Oscar and West to become the third-best guard of all time. I would be fine with this. But if it happens, I just hope he remembers to plant a big smooch on Boof. (June ’09 Addition: That’s what happened. We will cover the details in the Epilogue—hold tight.)

14. ELGIN BAYLOR

Resume: 14 years, 10 quality, 11 All-Stars … ’63 MVP runner-up … ’59 Rookie of the Year … Top 5 (’59, ’60, ’61, ’62, ’63, ’64, ’65, ’67, ’68, ’69) … All-Star MVP (’59) … 3-year peak: 35–17–5 … best or 2nd-best player on 8 runner-ups (’60s Lakers) … 4-year Playoffs peak: 35–15–4, 46% FG (47 G) … Playoffs: 27–13–4 (134 G) … career: 27.4 PPG (4th), 13.5 RPG (10th) … 20K-10K Club

Jesse Owens. Jackie Robinson. Bill Russell. Jim Brown. Elgin Baylor. Oscar Robertson. Muhammad Ali.

Elgin doesn’t belong on the list. That’s what you’re thinking. Not the guy who wore goofy sweaters to the lottery every year. Not the unofficial caretaker for the worst franchise in professional sports. You might accept him on the Worst GM list, or even the Celebs Who Looked Most Like Nipsey Russell list. But not the list above. Not with Jesse and Jackie and Russell and Brown and Oscar and Ali. That’s a stretch. That’s what you’re thinking.

So come back with me to 1958, the year Elgin graduated from the University of Seattle and joined the Lakers. If you don’t think the city is teeming with black people now, you should have seen Minneapolis in 1958. America hadn’t started changing yet. Blacks were referred to as “Negroes” and “coloreds.” They drank from different water fountains, stood in their own lines for movies and were discriminated against in nearly every walk of life. When Elgin entered the NBA, the unwritten rule was that every team could only employ two black players. Nobody challenged it except the Celtics. Elgin strolled into a league where nobody played above the rim except Russell, nobody dunked and everyone played the same way: rebound, run the floor, get a quick shot. Quantity over quality. That’s what worked. Or so they thought. Because Elgin changed everything. He did things that nobody had ever seen. He defied gravity. Elgin would drive from the left side, take off with the basketball, elevate, hang in the air, hang in the air, then release the ball after everyone else was already back on the ground. You could call him the godfather of hang time. You could call him the godfather of the “wow” play. You could point to his entrance into the league as the precise moment when basketball changed for the better. Along with Russell, Elgin turned a horizontal game into a vertical one. He averaged a 25–15 and carried the Lakers to the Finals as a rookie. He scored 71 in New York in his second season.
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He averaged 34.8 points and
19.8 rebounds in his third season—as a six-foot-five forward, no less—and topped himself the following year by somehow averaging that incredible 38–19–5 on military leave. When he carried the ’62 Lakers to the cusp of a championship, he came within an errant Frank Selvy 10-footer of winning Game 7 in Boston.
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He would never come closer to a ring. Elgin wrecked his knee during the ’64 season and was never the same, although he still made ten first-team All-NBA’s and played in seven Finals. During the first two weeks of the ’72 season, Elgin believed he was holding back a potential champ and retired nine games into the season. The Lakers quickly rolled off a 33-game streak and cruised to a title. How many stars have the dignity to walk away when it’s time? How many would have walked away from a guaranteed ring? When does that ever happen?

Elgin lived through some things that we like to forget happened now. Lord knows how many racial slurs bounced off him, how many
N-
bombs were lobbed from the stands, how much daily prejudice he endured as the league’s signature black forward.
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Russell bottled everything up and used it as fuel for the next game: he wouldn’t suffer, but his opponents would suffer. Oscar morphed into the angriest dude in the league, a great player playing with an even greater chip on his shoulder. Elgin didn’t have the same mean streak. He loved to joke with teammates. He never stopped talking. He loved life and loved playing basketball. He couldn’t hide it. And so his body soaked up every ugly slight like a sponge. Only a few of those stories live on (like the West Virginia exhibition game). If you read about black stars from the fifties and sixties, everything comes back to the same point: the respect they earned from peers and fans was disproportionate to the way they were treated in their everyday lives. When Russell bought a house in a white Massachusetts suburb, his neighbors broke in, trashed the house and
defecated on his bed. When Elgin was serving our country in 1961 and potentially sacrificing his livelihood, there were dozens of towns and cities strewn across America who wouldn’t serve him a meal. Black stars felt like two people at once, revered in one circle and discriminated against in another. Just because America changed over the last four decades doesn’t mean those guys stopped remembering the way it used to be. Throw in today’s nine-figure contracts and the babying/deifying/celebritizing of today’s basketball stars and you can see why they might be bitter.