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To be fair, I have nothing but high praise for LeBron James. The guy is a physical specimen in the truest sense. I’ve sold myself on the idea that he spends evenings hooked up to all sorts of machinery while a slew of doctors run laboratory experiments on him to determine the source of his awesomeness.
I’ve always given LeBron the benefit of the doubt. When people knocked him for being too arrogant his rookie season, I pointed to the stats. When they said he couldn’t hit jumpers, he went to work on his skill set. When they said he wasn’t capable of carrying a team in a pressure situation, he went out and destroyed the Pre-Iverson Detroit Pistons. In truth, LeBron’s resume reads like an anything-you-can-do montage of doubt and resolution.
It’s not any of these things that bother me, however. I can look past his recent commitment to defense and how suddenly he is the best on-ball defender in the L. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he plays all 48 minutes. I’ll even let it slide that he’s opting to take 30% of his team’s shots in the first half, and a whopping 70% in the final 5 minutes of games. Marquee players are expected to dominate the rock and produce when it’s winning time. But how then is it that these same statistics are applied to Kobe Bryant, and he’s considered selfish?
I get it. LeBron is one of the guys. He’s young money and damn proud of it. He doesn’t have a high-priced agent, attorney, or any of the bells and whistles that come with fame. He’s friendly with Jay-Z, and has Warren Buffett in his BlackBerry. His commercial spots for Nike are some of the best since Mike was wagging his tounge with Spike. He’s a marketing maverick and has gone about his off-the-court business in a phenomenal fashion. More than anything, LeBron gives off a warm external presence that invokes the plaudits of many a sports pundit. He’s gregarious, always has a smile on his face, and likes to goof around and make people laugh. If he’s anything other than a basketball player, LeBron is an entertainer.
Where LeBron is more of a total package from a business perspective, Kobe is reticent and reclusive. He’s been labeled everything from a prima donna to selfish. He’s fine with that, but Laker apologists are not. Still, Mamba goes about his business with the cold-hearted ruthlessness of an executioner. His shoes don’t move as many units as Bron or MJ, and he’ll never be the guy in those Nike spots with Nicole Scherzinger. Again, he’s fine with that. He doesn’t need your approval to do what he does. LeBron, for all intents and purposes, craves the media spotlight.
Case in point. On Monday, Kobe went to Madison Square Garden and torched the New York Knicks for 61. It was the first game after the Lakers lost Andrew Bynum for the next 12 weeks, and he had a point to prove. We may be down, but we’re not going anywhere. As long as I’m on this team, we’re going to compete. Plain and simple, Kobe was sending a message to the rest of the L. Unlike his 81 point explosion a few years back, Kobe did all of this in the flow of the offense, allowing his teammates to get their own stats, and without disrupting the game plan. It was a marvelous performance that sits in the pantheon of legendary moments. I don’t buy for a second that he wasn’t aware of the record that he broke, and that’s fine. Transcendent players are able to elevate themselves to such plateaus when the moment arises. This was a truly necessary performance not for himself but for his teammates, who were clearly reeling from the loss of Bynum. It was an adrenaline shot for the club and a warning shot for the L.
The following night, LeBron hung a 52 point near triple-double on said Knickerbockers. From the outset, he was gunning for El Bryant’s 48-hour record. He came close, but fell short. Chris Sheridan over at the evil-four-letter wrote a great article about the differences in the two performances, notably James’ disgust that he failed to best the scoring record in the final seconds, and his aggressive pursuit of his “10th” rebound with 1.7 seconds remaining in the game, knocking two of his teammates out of the way in the process. So let’s go back to the selfish debate then, shall we?
I’ve never bought into the belief that LeBron and Kobe are good friends. They spent a summer in Beijing together bringing back the Gold to Team USA, but otherwise, they’re polar opposites. Kobe has always lead by example, through his ridiculous work-ethic. He’s a student of the game, and brings that aggression and energy to every practice. LeBron, for whatever reason, annointed himself as the leader of Team USA last summer. You know Kobe wasn’t going for it. But look back at the games for the answer. In pressure situations, when Team USA was floundering, who took the big shots? Kobe Bryant. Time and time again, they would isolate Kobe on a wing and let him get to work.
People close to the team last summer claim LeBron was visibly upset that Kobe was getting rock-star treatment everywhere they went. It makes sense that King James was frustrated- he’s used to being the center of attention. Going back to an earlier point about the media, Scoop Jackson once said it best:
Kobe could give a damn what you think about him. As long as there’s a hardwood court, a rock, and 48 minutes, he’ll go out there and do whatever necessary to win, on both sides of the ball. But LeBron want’s to know what you think about him. He needs it, to validate his growing perception of his status among the best players. He feeds off the crowd, and plays to your expectations.
