Lest I look like I’m turning my brog into something of a sports brog, running two straight posts with Kobe Bryant, it’s all part of my loose rules of brogging that anything goes as long as the thoughts and words are my own. But bear with me, this’ll probably be the last post about basketball for a while, since the thoughts aren’t necessarily about basketball, but more about personalities, and rare ones at that.
But anyway, supposedly within the next 1-2 games that Kobe Bryant plays in, he’s going to pass Michael Jordan for 3rdplace of all-time points scored. It’s debatable on whether or not he’s going to be able to catch and pass Karl Malone for #2, but I think it’s a safe bet that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 38,387 points is going to be safe for yet another challenger.
When I was younger, my then, also-basketball loving friends and I would often talk about who “the Next Jordan” was going to be. And believe you me, it was a debate that occurred everywhere, where there was basketball to be discussed. Michael Jordan was nearing the end of his (official, pre-Wizards) career, and it was a rhetorical question that popped up every few years when the reality sunk in that MJ wasn’t going to play forever.
And were there ever a laundry list of potential Next Jordans (NJs). As far back as I could remember, it was guys like Grant Hill and Anfernee Hardaway that were thought to be NJs, because of their generally good scoring capabilities as well as all-around play styles. And it was a foregone conclusion that any guards that came out of North Carolina were always labeled as NJs, like Jerry Stackhouse and Vince Carter, because clearly, they were two steps ahead of every other NJ, having played at the same school that MJ himself had christened. And naturally, when the mythos of LeBron James emerged, it took zero seconds at all, before he was prematurely labeled as an NJ as well.
It’s funny, because I’m guessing that it was the timing in which Kobe Bryant entered the league that made me never really think of him as an NJ, or maybe it was because by then, my interest in the NBA was waning, as they were basically a year or two away from one of the two league-wide lockouts that occurred that essentially murdered any remaining interest I had in it. But Kobe Bryant entered the NBA when MJ was still actively playing, and there were even instances where they faced off against each other. Perhaps it was the fact that they were simultaneously active that made me never think of the parallels between the two.
But obviously now, as MJ’s career is long over, and with Kobe Bryant’s career definitely winding down itself, it’s pretty much obvious that if there ever was one true heir to Michael Jordan, it was undoubtedly, without argument, Kobe Bryant. Aside from the fact that their career paths had evolved and gone in similar directions, and the fact that their accolades are fairly comparable, personally I think what really made Kobe the true NJ was all personality related, and not just the fact that they were both extraordinarily good at basketball.
The bottom line is that throughout history, excellent scorers have come and gone (Karl Malones), as have there been plenty of players that have won a lot of championships (Robert Horrys). But none of them will really be historically remembered or revered like guys like Abdul-Jabbar, like Jordan, and yes, I’m putting Kobe Bryant in this same breath.
And actually, I’m kicking Kareem out of this argument too, because when the day is over, I can’t honestly compare him to Jordan and Kobe, because he played in a completely different era, and I highly doubt that he had the killer instinct that Jordan and Kobe ever did, and was more a benefactor of being on truly great teams with guys like Magic Johnson and Pat Riley at the helm.
But that’s really the one thing that separates Jordan and Kobe from pretty much everyone else in the history of basketball, and why it will be a very long time before we actually see another one: killer instinct. There hasn’t been anyone in the NBA that has had the same overzealous tryhard killer instinct and drive to simply win, like Kobe Bryant has, which MJ had before him.
Let’s be honest here, to the casual person, the name Kobe Bryant is often associated with things like “basketball player” or “rapist” or “adulterer” and other unflattering things. Kobe’s public persona isn’t exactly squeaky clean. And throughout the better part of the last decade of after-Jordan, things about MJ have surfaced that have tarnished his legacy, like the fact that he’s a degenerate gambler, adulterer, kind of a bitter, aging man who is having difficulty coping with the fact that he can’t play the sport that he was simply known for.
But the thing is that throughout their active careers, none of the ugly things that happened off the court really mattered to them. I honestly can’t believe that anything off the court mattered much to guys like Jordan and Kobe. Sure, they weren’t necessarily the best people off the court, but I can’t believe they really cared. Without question, the most important thing that went through these guys’ heads was the overwhelming desire to be the best.
Nothing else mattered to them – wives, money, or even the law. Both of them had marriages crumble, neither of them ever entertained the thought of potentially moving to other teams for more money, and both of them have had their names dragged through tabloids with their involvement in gambling or sexual misconduct. But none of those things ever really mattered to guys like this, because winning and the ensuing greatness was all that they really cared about in the end.
I like to imagine that Michael Jordan absolutely abhors the fact that he could never catch and surpass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the all-time scoring record. He probably hates him, and especially hates the skyhook for being such an OP maneuver that could only work in his era of flat-footed white guys that were all a foot shorter than him and couldn’t jump regardless. I like to imagine that MJ hated Karl Malone, when he caught and surpassed his own scoring mark, and took sole possession of #2 on the all-time scoring list. He probably resents the fact that Malone never won any titles, and basically had a personal gofer in John Stockton throughout his whole career to basically feed him 95% of his 36,000 points.
And he’s probably going to hate the shit out of Kobe Bryant when he inevitably passes him for #3 on the all-time scoring list too.
But the thing is, Kobe Bryant probably hates MJ too; in competitive spirit, that is. It’s no secret that when he was younger, Kobe idolized MJ, as just about anyone who ever decided they loved basketball did at some points in their lives. But Kobe the competitor probably sees MJ’s accolades as something not only to live up to, but to surpass, crush, and make his own. Make people want to say instead of “who’s going to be the next Jordan,” “who’s going to be the next Kobe?”
I never really understood why Kobe started wearing #24 when he wore #8 when he broke into the league. It literally took me this long, and seeing a picture of Kobe now superimposed of a picture of MJ then, to realize why he did it – 24 is higher than 23. And that’s ultimately Kobe’s ambition.
Kobe may not get the sixth championship ring to equal MJ, but by taking his place in the record books for all-time points is definitely going to be a pretty notable accolade for his own illustrious career. And a part of me hopes that he sticks it out for another year or two, to surpass Karl Malone on that list too, because the Mailman is kind of a loser, and his place in the record books is kind of unfitting.
