Comments on Bryant and Nash

Here is an excerpt from a great column by The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, over at ESPN.com. Amusing points are bolded - for those who just want to skim.

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Everyone has been discussing Kobe for two straight days -- every Web site, every TV show, every radio show, everybody. Heck, he even knocked the NFL championship games off the front page of ESPN.com. Nobody cared that the last 12 points of the game came during garbage time, or that Kobe took a jaw-dropping 45 shots and 20 free throw attempts in 42 minutes. They only cared about the number: 81. On his 666th regular season game (seriously), Kobe scored 66 percent of his team's points. For the first time in the post-Shaq Era, Kobe has an identity beyond "Selfish gunner who destroyed a potential dynasty." He's the most exciting player in any professional sport.

Here's what kills me: When I checked right before our video store trip, the Lakers were getting killed and Kobe only had about 14 points. So I crossed the game off for the night. Big mistake. Like many NBA junkies, I monitor Laker games since Kobe reached "you always need to make sure Kobe isn't feeling it" status about two months ago, when it became apparent that his team stunk and Phil Jackson was fine with Kobe gunning 35 to 40 times a game. I don't like the Lakers, and I definitely don't like Kobe that much (except for the "Black Mamba" gimmick, which delights me to no end). But I enjoy the nightly potential of an ESPN Classic-caliber scoring explosion. It's a form of basketball that's never been seen at this level -- as I wrote two weeks ago, it's like "Teen Wolf" sprung to life. Not only is Mamba hogging the ball to a historic degree, just about everyone else on the Lakers seems OK with it.

(One player seems to be resisting: Poor Lamar Odom, who's going to bludgeon himself to death with Phil Jackson's blank clipboard soon. When they're running the offense in which Odom sets up Kobe from the top of the key and then stands in place like a third base coach, I keep waiting for Odom to rear back and fire line drive baseball passes at Kobe to try to knock him unconscious. Frankly, there's still time.)

So this has evolved into a unique situation: A Hall of Fame scorer in his absolute prime, stuck with teammates best described as deferential, playing with a chip on his shoulder after his last two seasons were marred by fallout from the Shaq trade and ongoing legal troubles, working with a permanently green light to hoist an ungodly amount of shots (nearly 28 a game). Again, everyone's OK with it. Which means it's impossible to determine a ceiling for Kobe Games right now. After the 62-point game against Dallas, when I bemoaned Kobe's lost chance to make history, hundreds of Lakers fans disagreed. The common theme of the e-mails: "Dude, are you crazy? He's shooting the ball 40 times a game! There will be plenty of chances for him to go for 80!"

You know what? Good point.

More important, Kobe learned a valuable lesson from the Dallas game, mainly that his decision to stay out of the fourth never made anyone say, "Wow, maybe he's not selfish!" If anything, many basketball fans were disappointed. Including me. It was like watching a famous bank robber nail his 10th bank in two months, then leave an extra bag of cash behind in some misguided attempt to prove that he wasn't just about the money. Is there anyone left on this planet who still believes that he's a team player, that he's good at getting his teammates involved, that he doesn't want to dominate at all times? What would be shocking about an inherently selfish player accomplishing an inherently selfish act? In a weird way, wasn't this his destiny?

For two guys watching history unfold, my father and I weren't exactly high-fiving in the living room or anything. The game made me feel the same way I felt while watching "March of the Penguins." I had always wondered what a penguin's life was like; once I knew how depressing it was, I wanted to sit in my garage with the car running. Sometimes it's almost better not to know these things. And Kobe's 81-point game was a little like that. For a perimeter player to score that many points, you have to hog the ball to a degree that's almost disarming to watch; it almost stops resembling a basketball game. More than Kobe's rising point total, Dad and I found ourselves fascinated by his icy demeanor, the lack of excitement by the guys on the Lakers bench, even the dysfunctional way that his teammates were killing themselves going for rebounds and steals to get him more shots.

"Can you imagine being on this team?" my father said, shrieking. "Can you imagine? Look at Odom! I think he's going to throw up!"

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 half-hearted hugs and high-fives from his teammates (all of whom will be disciplined this week from Mitch Kupchak for not celebrating joyously enough). 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." The second-best reaction belonged to my Dad, who listened to Kobe's postgame interview with Patrick O'Neal and excitedly said, "Wait, how can you score 81 points and not thank your teammates?" Not since Hilary Swank snubbed then-husband Chad Lowe at the 2000 Oscars have we seen something that blatantly egocentric. And look how they turned out.
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In other news, I just want to ask the following question. Yes, high flying scoring nights is wonderful. But I ask this - why are people not impressed when you are directly responsible for 80 points as a pg. Take, for example, Nash's 28 pt, 22 assist explosion. That is 80 fricking points (8 of the assists were 3 balls). Or in the win against the Clippers, he was responsible for 62 points. And against the SuperSonics, 69 points.

You see where I'm going with this.