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kobe's scorecard
December 15, 2004
OK, a basketball-related note. if you don't care about basketball, don't bother. if you do care, you probably shouldn't bother, becauce I'm just stating the obvious.
wow. you know, kobe bryant just can't help himself, can he? either that, or he's the most unlucky incredibly-talented athlete in the world. ever. let's see, first he claims the girl in colorado, with whom he admitted cheating on his wife with, lied about being raped. err... ok. sure, regardless of my own belief on the matter, and as much as admitting the possibility hurts, things like that do happen.
then, on a lighter note, he forces phil jackson, one of the winningest coaches ever, the guy that turned jordan into a champion, out of Los Angeles. well, clearly, jackson wouldn't let kobe play his way, right? a guy's got a career to think about. ok. well. whatever.
then he pushes the Lakers to trade one of the most dominant centers ever, without whom he would not have won three championships. um, OK, sure, well, shaq's a bit arrogant, and he wants the ball a lot in the stretch. he's getting older, and it should be kobe's team, right? rrright. now you've got chris mihm. whatever works for you, man.
in the preseason, he got into it with ray allen of the seattle supersonics, and mouthed off to the press that allen was essentially not in kobe's league. tuesday night, kobe did his selfish kobe thing to the tune of an impressive 37 points. problem is, his team (you know them, kobe - the other dudes out there dressed like you? it's not a coincidence) lost to the sonics. i'm sure ray-ray was happy with his 26 points and his moral victory.
but, wait, there's more! last week, kobe was sort of misinterpreted as saying he doesn't want karl malone, one of the 4 or 5 greatest power forwards of all time, whom i despise but whose abilities and experience i can't even begin to argue with, back on his team. he really was sort of misquoted, and it seemed people were just picking up on that, maybe beginning to feel kobe was getting unfairly slammed... until a few days ago, when kobe, through his agent, declared that malone had hit on his wife. malone, who had supported him through last season, who had forgotten and forgiven about a brash young kobe dissing the veteran by waving off his pick in the all-star game a few years ago. sure, maybe karl did it, maybe he thought kobe owed him one. maybe it was all a masterfully conceived plot, carried out over the course of years, to get back at kobe. yeah. maybe. wait. no.
you know, here where i work, we get licensees in trying to explain themselves. sometimes the explanations get pretty wacky, but we all live in the real world, and know how wacky things can get here. but pretty often, we get someone that expects us to believe a an extensive and intricate web of incredible and unfortunate events. it takes a very special sort of personality to think that'll work, and to be shocked and insulted when it doesn't. i think they're called "psychopaths".
a few years ago, kobe was roundly booed during the introductions at the all-star game in philly, where he had played in high school, i believe. i thought it was one of the ruder things i had ever seen, from a city with a nasty reputation for such things. increasingly, i'm thinking they were just smarter than the rest of us.
Posted by Rob at December 15, 2004 09:23 AM