At the end of his storied career, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar didn’t always play hard before the playoffs. Actually, he didn’t often play hard before the playoffs, not to mention being notoriously forbidding to Laker teammates.
Michael Jordan was a force unto himself, often in direct opposition to the front office. One of Mike’s favorite tricks was destroying GM Jerry Krause's prize acquisitions in practice like guard Dennis Hopson, a former No. 3 overall pick who barely had enough confidence left to suit up for the Bulls' games. Suggesting the level of dysfunction, at least between upstairs and downstairs, MJ and Scottie Pippen wouldn't even talk to Toni Kukoc on the phone when Krause was trying to get him to come over from Europe.
Great stars are often as high maintenance. Their trajectories are similar, too, launched into the heavens in a magnificent arc, falling back into the atmosphere with flames enveloping the heat shield.
It doesn't get more incendiary than Henry Abbott’s attention-grabbing ESPN Magazine piece, “Kobe,” which notes in the subtitle that “the greatest player in the history of the Lakers' franchise... is also destroying it from within.”
Hey, it's true, sort of. In the sense that MJ destroyed the Bulls from within, after winning six titles, Kobe is polishing off the Lakers, after five.
Just because Abott is tough, it’s not a hit piece. ESPN has nothing against Bryant; it would just as happily deify him—the World Wide Leader prefers its people to think in absolutes to maximize hits--if his career and the Lakers were ascending. Unfortunately for Kobe and the Lakers, he’s 36 and they’re in free fall.
Abbott’s piece is more like a speech in a political campaign, one-sided and timed for maximum impact.
The NBA is at a crossroads. LeBron James, who went from golden child to object of ridicule, keeping the press busy for four years of deconstruction and reconstruction, just went back to Cleveland in a heartwarming story and, unforfunately, fell off the grid, narratively speaking.
Kevin Durant... Hasn’t won anything it’s true, but is injured. No picking on him.
Tim Duncan... Totally admirable but without sparks of any kind.
Derrick Rose... Hurt for years and when he was healthy, without major accomplishments or sparks.
Carmelo Anthony... Nice, colorful guy but without major or even mid-sized accomplishments. Forget titles, he has only been past the first round of the playoffs twice.
Dwight Howard... Certainly fun, or goofy enough, but has been beyond the first round three times.
Then there’s Bryant, five-time champion, veteran of 100,000 controversies and more coming, like the one surrounding the dumb $48.5 million two-year deal the Lakers gave him that all but rendered them a non-player in free agency last summer.
Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal feuded for years, obliging the team to break up the most devastating two-man tandem the game had ever seen. In mid-career circa 2004-2007, Kobe was the most alienated superstar the NBA had ever seen. Controversial as Wilt Chamberlain was, his peers loved him. Arrogant, aloof and intimidating, Bryant was shunned by his peers, who took the popular Shaq’s side.
In 2007 with the Lakers going down the chute, Bryant went on a public rampage trying to force a trade, excoriating the organization from owner Jerry Buss (“liar”) down.
In a mark of foibled greatness, what only Kobe could get himself into, only he could get himself out of. That season, Bryant won his only MVP and led the Lakers to the Finals. In 2009 and 2010, he led them to titles, his fourth and fifth.
Long prickly with the local press, he turned so gracious that he even came out and talked on that night in April, 2013, when he tore his Achilles tendon, the injury he’s still trying to return from.
Five years ago, Bryant would have copped an attitude with whatever press was handy after a rip like Abbott's. Tuesday Kobe shrugged this one off effortlessly, noting, “The one thing I’ve come to understand over the years is that you’ll have a bad story that comes out on a Monday and it seems like it’s the end of the world. It seems like everybody is taking shots at you. But time goes by and then you look back and it’s just a Monday. Right? Then have another great story that comes out maybe a month later or something like that and it’s a fantastic story."
Unfortunately for the Lakers, their days of bouncing right back are over for the moment. So, how could this have happened to such a great organization?
Duh. It’s 18 years since the Lakers landed Shaq and Kobe within days of each other in the summer of 1996. From 2000-2010 they made seven Finals and won five titles.
Nobody lasts forever. The Celtics, who lost to the Lakers in the 2010 Finals, are little farther along the road back.
Also, the gods seem to be having a joke at the Lakers’ expense. After all the things that seemed to conspire in the team's favor for decades, everything has started going the other way.
David Stern, then wearing two hats as commissioner and de factor New Orleans owner, struck down their trade for 2011 Chris Paul.
In 2012, they traded for Dwight Howard, a mistake anyone would have made but, as it turned out with Dwight even more skeptical of Kobe than Kobe of him, a blunder, nonetheless.
The Lakers traded for Steve Nash, another mistake anyone would have made. With Bryant, Howard and Nash, 21 of 25 ESPN pundits picked them to win the West, although that’s not how it turned out. Nash is in his third and last season, having played so little, it’s like he never arrived.
At ESPN, selectivity proceeds along familiar self-promoting lines. Abbott’s best quotes are from unnamed agents (who, I can tell you from personal experience, know little more, but are as outrageous storytellers as sports writers) and ESPN people (the boss will like this!)
Abbott's piece de resistance is a rarely-attempted defense of Jim Buss, suggesting that he gave Bryant that $48.5 million last winter—before Kobe played, after which he came back and lasted six games—to avoid a public squabble over a new contract.
Actually, Jeanie Buss made that call, not her brother. After losing Howard, they were terrified of losing Kobe, although at his pay scale, he had nowhere to go. The real key for the Buss kids was it was what their father did, as in 1991 when he gave Magic Johnson a one-year $14.6 million extension, bigger than half the NBA payrolls at the time.
Like Jordan, Bryant is certainly a force behind the scenes... or would be if the Lakers listened to him. Unfortunately, the Lakers go two ways: If Kobe’s unsigned, he’s in the loop. If he’s signed but things aren’t going well, they don’t ask or care what he thinks.
In 2005, they hired Phil Jackson back, knowing Kobe hated him (although they soon became staunch allies forever after).
Last spring they were about to bring back Coach Mike D’Antoni, hated by Lakers fans, with Bryant’s people having pointedly signaled to the press that Kobe wanted someone new.
D’Antoni’s problem was being in the wrong place at the wrong time but by then, bringing him back would have been another terrible blunder. If D’Antoni hadn’t made picking up his 2015-16 option a precondition for returning, he would be coaching today.
As high-maintenance superstars go, Kobe is sadder but wise. Among peers, he’s now almost one of the guys. James, leery of him before they began playing together on Olympic teams, is now a friend.
"I love Kobe, I love his competitive nature," James said recently. "I love competing against him and I talked to him before the season and just said how it's great to have him back. Like I said about [Kevin] Durant and a couple guys our league doesn't seem right with certain guys not in uniform."
Unfortunately for the Lakers, who hadn’t thought it through, giving Bryant all that money meant that they had a full slot for a superstar but not enough to otherwise improve their flimsy roster.
Oops. That meant little or no chance of landing a superstar.
A year ago, Bron insiders listed the Lakers with the Cavaliers as possible destinations if James were to leave Miami. By last summer with Bryant off for so long and nothing else on the Laker roster, the Lakers were off James’ list, leaving only the Cavaliers, whom Bron returned to.
Still, because of Bryant’s close relationship with Anthony, they came down to the wire with Melo, even if he would have had to take $25 million less than the $124 million he took to stay in New York.
Unfortunately for the Lakers, things figure to get worse, or at least, not markedly better soon. Tanking isn't much of an option with this year's draft ranked way below last year's, which hasn't lived up to its hype. The Lakers are considered hopeless wretches after having gone 27-55. Imagine if they go 17-65.
Otherwise, if Bryant really wanted to destroy the Lakers from within, he could just retire. High maintenance though he may be, he’s all they have.
