The other night I went to my first Lakers game in a long time. I was extremely excited, as I hadn’t seen Kobe play on anything but a television since he was with Shaq and I was about 10 or 11.That night, I saw something from Kobe that enlightened my perception of him. He played fantastically, scoring 28 points while making more than half of his shots. Still, I couldn’t help but focus on was what he had failed to do. The Hornets had been leading almost the whole game, with Chris Paul going to the future and dishing out 21 assists and Peja Stojakovic going to the past and dropping 10-13 from three point land. With around seven minutes left in the fourth and the Lakers down by only a half-dozen, Kobe returned to the game. For much of it, he had mixed distributing the ball with flurries of scoring. Now it was his time to tear out the other team’s heart.
To my surprise, that’s not what happened. Kobe was passive for a few possessions, fired off a few off-balance jumpers, and then watched as the Hornets ran off with the game. I think he may have driven to the basket once. On the way home, I thought about what I’d just seen, as well as everything else that had happened to Kobe since Shaq left- the low win totals, the failure to get out of the first round, the meltdown in Game 7 of the ’06 playoffs against the Suns- and had myself a revelation.
While Kobe may be human basketball perfection, he was never given a divine mandate for greatness.
Kobe is basketball’s answer to Jay Gatsby.
Gatsby was once Jim Gatz, a successful man who nobody ever said would be great, a soldier in World War I, part of the ultimate team victory. But then he met Daisy Buchanon, and in his romance with her saw that no normal man, however successful, would ever have her all to himself. Daisy could only be wooed by greatness. So Gatz, singularly driven to claim his holy grail, reinvented himself through hard work and sheer force of will into Jay Gatsby, the ultra-wealthy and mysterious baron of West Egg, armed now with everything he needed to obtain that which haunted him. But Daisy never became his. Gatsby was left to look into the window while Daisy shared cold fried chicken with Tom Buchanon, the racist, cheating, unpleasant man who was destined to have her for reasons that Gatsby did not understand, and never could.
Men who end up with girls like Daisy are not made, but ordained.
So it is with Kobe.
Like Gatsby, Kobe was highly successful as a mortal, getting three rings in Shaq’s shadow and gaining a reputation as one of the NBA’s best players. A hyper-athletic slasher who played great defense and was a crucial part of a championship team. Like Gatsby, Kobe was unsatisfied by the trappings of mortality. As Gatsby was seduced by Daisy, Kobe was seduced by the glory of being the next Jordan, a man whose mere presence on the court meant championships. And so Kobe devoted himself completely to joining the NBA’s Valhalla of Champions, pushing Shaq out to make the team his own and working tirelessly to turn himself from a fantastic if incomplete slasher to the perfect basketball machine, then waited for the world to bend to his will.
To his chagrin, that’s not the way it happened at all.
Kobe’s team, and by proxy him, has never broken through to greatness, and he was forced to watch from his couch while Shaq- fat, lazy, arrogant Shaq- ate cold fried chicken with the Jim O’ Brien Trophy. Just as Gatsby felt that Tom never deserved Daisy, Kobe will go to his grave believing that Shaq never earned his success. But just as Gatsby failed to understand that Tom’s knowledge of Daisy’s world could never be acquired artificially, Kobe will never understand what it is that makes Shaq, Jordan, Duncan and the rest so great.
It’s an understanding of how and when to make your teammates better and when to take the game over yourself, a sense of the game’s flow that cannot be taught, even by Phil Jackson, that Kobe has over and over again proven to lack in his doomed quest for immortality. Just as Gatsby felt his money meant nothing if it did not bring him Daisy, Kobe feels he will never be complete without a ring tainted by Shaq.
Kobe’s personality even seems to mirror Gatsby’s. For all of their outward charisma, something inside them makes them impossible to connect with, and both have ended up alone in their worlds despite their apparent friendliness. (Can’t you just see Kobe calling Andrew Bynum “Old Sport?”) And just as Gatsby was nagged by rumors that he made his money in unseemly ways, Kobe will always be haunted by the rumor that it was his own hubris that chased Shaq out of town, as well as the happenings at Eagle, Colorado.
Love or hate Kobe, he remains one of the NBA’s most interesting characters, and the doomed hero of the Lakers continues to put up 50-point games against the current while being back borne ceaselessly into the past.
Men who end up with girls like Daisy are not made, but ordained.
So it is with Kobe.
Like Gatsby, Kobe was highly successful as a mortal, getting three rings in Shaq’s shadow and gaining a reputation as one of the NBA’s best players. A hyper-athletic slasher who played great defense and was a crucial part of a championship team. Like Gatsby, Kobe was unsatisfied by the trappings of mortality. As Gatsby was seduced by Daisy, Kobe was seduced by the glory of being the next Jordan, a man whose mere presence on the court meant championships. And so Kobe devoted himself completely to joining the NBA’s Valhalla of Champions, pushing Shaq out to make the team his own and working tirelessly to turn himself from a fantastic if incomplete slasher to the perfect basketball machine, then waited for the world to bend to his will.
To his chagrin, that’s not the way it happened at all.
Kobe’s team, and by proxy him, has never broken through to greatness, and he was forced to watch from his couch while Shaq- fat, lazy, arrogant Shaq- ate cold fried chicken with the Jim O’ Brien Trophy. Just as Gatsby felt that Tom never deserved Daisy, Kobe will go to his grave believing that Shaq never earned his success. But just as Gatsby failed to understand that Tom’s knowledge of Daisy’s world could never be acquired artificially, Kobe will never understand what it is that makes Shaq, Jordan, Duncan and the rest so great.
It’s an understanding of how and when to make your teammates better and when to take the game over yourself, a sense of the game’s flow that cannot be taught, even by Phil Jackson, that Kobe has over and over again proven to lack in his doomed quest for immortality. Just as Gatsby felt his money meant nothing if it did not bring him Daisy, Kobe feels he will never be complete without a ring tainted by Shaq.
Kobe’s personality even seems to mirror Gatsby’s. For all of their outward charisma, something inside them makes them impossible to connect with, and both have ended up alone in their worlds despite their apparent friendliness. (Can’t you just see Kobe calling Andrew Bynum “Old Sport?”) And just as Gatsby was nagged by rumors that he made his money in unseemly ways, Kobe will always be haunted by the rumor that it was his own hubris that chased Shaq out of town, as well as the happenings at Eagle, Colorado.
Love or hate Kobe, he remains one of the NBA’s most interesting characters, and the doomed hero of the Lakers continues to put up 50-point games against the current while being back borne ceaselessly into the past.
by John Krolik
SportsHubLA
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