Kobe Bryant and His Coat of Many Colors

As Kobe hones in on title number four, his supporters are applying the tanning oil in preparation to bask in his glory. It has been seven long years since title number three, and the non-stop chatter about his failure to win a championship without a big brother can finally come to an end.

The rest can go the argument that his supposed me-first attitude should preclude his teams from winning the ultimate prize. To them (or us, depending on how you see it), Kobe's greatness will finally be undeniable even to the harshest of critics.


Kobe's naysayers, meanwhile, are plotting their angle of attack, brainstorming the ways to undermine his accomplishments and deny his greatness. In actuality, denying his greatness has never been an approach of the naysayers.

The chosen approach has generally been to attack Kobe by claiming others are, or were, greater. Even as an outspoken pro-Kobe enthusiast, I have never been bothered by this form of "criticism." To me, attacking a player because he falls just short of being the greatest player ever (M.J.) isn't criticism at all.

It is actually a cleverly disguised praise. To even include Kobe in that conversation with the Jordan’s and Magic is to concede that he is one of the greatest players to ever play this game.


To reuse the most overused descriptor of Kobe's blossoming legacy, Kobe is downright polarizing. The most polarizing player in all of professional sports, in fact. Ever! In my tenure as a fan, which has included tedious study of the game's forefathers, I have never witnessed or heard of a player who elicited such extreme reactions from fans, who commanded such love and respect while also giving rise to such ill will and hate.

He is the individualized New York Yankees.


Since the day Jerry West took that prophetic leap of faith in bringing the young Kobe Bryant to L.A., I have watched closely. As I have studied Kobe Bryant the man, Kobe Bryant the player, and Kobe Bryant the public figure, I have witnessed the most primitive yet remarkable transformations.

His career thus far can be broken down into four chapters, each of which I feel compelled to expand upon below.

When Kobe entered the league as a confused, young kid with a crater-sized chip on his shoulder, I found him to be immature (even for his age). He was at one moment an innocent prototype and the next a conceded egoist.

Young Kobe fumbled over words in interviews, but had the confidence to seize the moment before his game was polished enough to do so. The commingling of his confidence and his insecurity was perhaps summarized best by his three airball performance in the waning moments against Utah in the 1997 playoffs.

A bench player at the time, Kobe stepped into these shots like he was a go-to-guy and singlehandedly wrecked the Lakers' season.

In these early years, Kobe's childlike charm was often overshadowed by an unwarranted arrogance. This was the formula for his polarizing effect on fans. This set the stage for the two camps we are familiar with today: the Kobe-lovers and the Kobe-haters.

What made him endearing to many made him despicable to many more. The lovers voted him in as an all-star starter when he was the sixth man for his own team. The haters provided boos and mockery at each opposing arena he set foot in. Nearly thirteen years later, most people haven't wavered from their initial loyalties to these camps.


As Bryant's game developed in seasons two and three, we were exposed to the monster that lived within him. His unquenchable thirst for perfection and unhealthy need for acceptance, isolated him from teammates and fan base.

Kobe was not misunderstood by the fans so much as he was misunderstood by himself. He tried so desperately to win the favor and respect of the basketball world that he failed to understand what it would take to be embraced. The failure to make ends with humanity meet did not come without effort.

Kobe was beyond impressionable, to the point that he released a rap song when he heard he had no street credibility, praised M.J. when he heard he was a two-three imposter, and fed Shaq when he heard he was a “ballhog”. Sometimes too much is not enough -- Kobe dug his own public relations grave through these futile attempts.

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