![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/kobeMJ.jpg\")
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Lest I look like I\u2019m turning my brog into something of a sports brog, running two straight posts with Kobe Bryant, it\u2019s all part of my loose rules of brogging that anything goes as long as the thoughts and words are my own.\u00a0 But bear with me, this\u2019ll probably be the last post about basketball for a while, since the thoughts aren\u2019t necessarily about basketball, but more about personalities, and rare ones at that.<\/span><\/p>\n But anyway, supposedly within the next 1-2 games that Kobe Bryant plays in, he\u2019s going to pass Michael Jordan for 3rd<\/sup>place of all-time points scored.\u00a0 It\u2019s debatable on whether or not he\u2019s going to be able to catch and pass Karl Malone for #2, but I think it\u2019s a safe bet that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar\u2019s 38,387 points is going to be safe for yet another challenger.<\/span><\/p>\n When I was younger, my then, also-basketball loving friends and I would often talk about who \u201cthe Next Jordan\u201d was going to be.\u00a0 And believe you me, it was a debate that occurred everywhere, where there was basketball to be discussed.\u00a0 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\u2019t going to play forever.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And were there ever a laundry list of potential Next Jordans (NJs).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s funny, because I\u2019m 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.\u00a0 But Kobe Bryant entered the NBA when MJ was still actively playing, and there were even instances where they faced off against each other.\u00a0 Perhaps it was the fact that they were simultaneously active that made me never think of the parallels between the two.<\/span><\/p>\n But obviously now, as MJ\u2019s career is long over, and with Kobe Bryant\u2019s career definitely winding down itself, it\u2019s pretty much obvious that if there ever was one true heir to Michael Jordan, it was undoubtedly, without argument, Kobe Bryant.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n 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).\u00a0 But none of them will really be historically remembered or revered like guys like Abdul-Jabbar, like Jordan, and yes, I\u2019m putting Kobe Bryant in this same breath.<\/span><\/p>\n And actually, I\u2019m kicking Kareem out of this argument too, because when the day is over, I can\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p>\n But that\u2019s 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.\u00a0 There hasn\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p>\n Let\u2019s be honest here, to the casual person, the name Kobe Bryant is often associated with things like \u201cbasketball player\u201d or \u201crapist\u201d or \u201cadulterer\u201d and other unflattering things.\u00a0 Kobe\u2019s public persona isn\u2019t exactly squeaky clean.\u00a0 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\u2019s a degenerate gambler, adulterer, kind of a bitter, aging man who is having difficulty coping with the fact that he can\u2019t play the sport that he was simply known for.<\/span><\/p>\n But the thing is that throughout their active careers, none of the ugly things that happened off the court really mattered to them.\u00a0 I honestly can\u2019t believe that anything off the court mattered much to guys like Jordan and Kobe.\u00a0 Sure, they weren\u2019t necessarily the best people off the court, but I can\u2019t believe they really cared.\u00a0 Without question, the most important thing that went through these guys\u2019 heads was the overwhelming desire to be the best.<\/span><\/p>\n Nothing else mattered to them \u2013 wives, money, or even the law.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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\u2019t jump regardless.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n And he\u2019s probably going to hate the shit out of Kobe Bryant when he inevitably passes him for #3 on the all-time scoring list too.<\/span><\/p>\n But the thing is, Kobe Bryant probably hates MJ too; in competitive spirit, that is.\u00a0 It\u2019s 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.\u00a0 But Kobe the competitor probably sees MJ\u2019s accolades as something not only to live up to, but to surpass, crush, and make his own.\u00a0 Make people want to say instead of \u201cwho\u2019s going to be the next Jordan,\u201d \u201cwho\u2019s going to be the next Kobe?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I never really understood why Kobe started wearing #24 when he wore #8 when he broke into the league.\u00a0 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 \u2013 24 is higher than 23.\u00a0 And that\u2019s ultimately Kobe\u2019s ambition.<\/span><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lest I look like I\u2019m turning my brog into something of a sports brog, running two straight posts with Kobe Bryant, it\u2019s all part of my loose rules of brogging that anything goes as long as the thoughts and words are my own.\u00a0 But bear with me, this\u2019ll probably be the last post about basketball … Continue reading When winning is all that matters<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59,15,58],"class_list":["post-40041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-basketball","tag-og","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40043,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40041\/revisions\/40043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}