Kobe Bryant: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Kobe Bryant may very well be the most polarizing figure in sports. Few NBA fans have no opinion on him and for the majority that do, the opinions are accompanied with considerable passion. Few have fit the idiom "love him or hate him" better than the Black Mamba. 

As a result there's a kind of mentality which surrounds him. Whether in attacking or defending him, passion trumps reason and most perceptions of him end up being skewed. Here's the true portrait of Kobe Bryant, the man, the myth and the legend. Since I won't be agreeing wholesale with either side, I imagine I'll end up offending everyone. 

The Man: The Good

Before addressing anything, allow me a moment of pontification. In the 43+ years I've spent on this earth, I've found two things to be empirically true about humanity. First, no one is without flaws, and second, no one is without virtue. Whether it's Bush or Obama, Bryant or James, all have both. When evaluating Kobe, we shouldn't separate the man from the humanity.

Being short of having actually spent time with every NBA player and personally monitoring their workouts during the season, I have trouble laying the title of hardest working man in the NBA to Kobe. From what I hear though, he's very diligent. I've also heard that Billups is the hardest working, and the same of Durant and Ginobli. I've read how Derrick Rose practices threes at 11pm. Whether he really is  the most intense I can't tell you. Garnett and Nash have seemed intense to me as well. Until "intensity" is a measurable commodity though, I think I'll stave off dubbing anyone the "most" intense. Whether Kobe really wants it "more" than anyone else is impossible to say, unless you have the trait of omniscience. However, there's no denying that he "wants it."  

My point here is there are a lot of virtues that go into making the heart of  a champion and it seems Kobe has them in spades. I think there are other players who have tremendous heart, but about 30 percent of the talent that Kobe does. Just as an example, Eduardo Najera really brings the effort, but if they weren't actually both literally in the same league, I'd say he's not in the same league talent-wise. Kobe has a tremendous amount of heart, and a tremendous amount of talent so it's easy for us to conflate the two but they an't really the same.

It's a credit to Kobe that players like LeBron James and Carmello Anthony come away from their experience in the Olympics  talking about how much they learned about leadership from Kobe. Viewing that, it's also evident that not only does Kobe have heart, he also has the ability to convey that ethic, that intensity and that will power to those who surround him on the court.

Whether he does it better than anyone else in the NBA is impossible to say, and it's moot. He does it. As a man there are two things about Kobe which are hard to deny, he is a champion and he is a leader.

The Man: The Bad

Kobe has his good side, but he has his ugly side too. From the much ballyhooed feud with Shaq to spats with Odom, Gasol, Jackson and others, there's no question that Kobe has at times, let his ego get in the way.  Don't get me wrong, if I had everyone in the world telling me I was the best in the world on a near daily basis, my ego might get a tad out of control as well. Kobe's historical problem is that his ego isn't splashed with a hint of humility. When the greatest coach in the history of the NBA has a different opinion than you, you have to stop and ponder at least the possibility that he's right and your wrong, even if you're Kobe Bryant. 

Then there's the matter of loyalty. While he says he would never do what LeBron did, he threatened the Lakers with leaving if they rehired Jackson at the end of his first contract. It also seems he had at least something  to do with Shaq's  leaving. I'm not putting all the blame for the feud on Kobe, but I'm not going to say it was all on Shaq either.

Kobe did many things, including opening negotiations with the Clippers to try and influence the future of the Lakers. I've seen Kobe apologists defend him on every count during that fiasco, but a lot of blame is on Kobe. A lot is on Shaq too, but Kobe is not innocent. Furthermore, after he tired of the team that he forced the Lakers to create around him, and saw it wasn't working, he asked for a trade if the Lakers didn't get anyone to help him. 

If you can't accept that he's not been loyal to his team or teammates, you sure can't question, that in the very best case scenario he's been disloyal to his wife. If you accept Kobe's own version of events, he had very rough intercourse with a teenage girl within moments of meeting her while he was married. That's not indicative of a one time thing, nor is it an act of loyalty. There are enough rumors which have circulated since then that should at least give pause to the idea that this was a one time thing.

As a man, Kobe has his virtues, but he also has his flaws. Neither of those things should be denied. 

The Myths

There are three prevailing concepts about Kobe. I say they are myths because people believe them to be true, but they are not. Understand that I know the conventional thinking on these things is the opposite of what I'm going to say. That's what makes them myths. 

MYTH 1: WHO ELSE DO YOU WANT TO SHOOT IT?

The prevailing myth is that when the game is on the line, Kobe is the man you want to shoot it. Not so. Last year 82games.com went back and researched "last possession" shots, keeping track of who took them, and who made them. Including the regular season and post season from '03-'08 and the '09 regular season they found that the player who had made the most game winning shots was not Kobe Bryant. In fact, it was LeBron James, who had made 17 such shots in 50 attempts.

By comparison, Kobe had made 14 in 56 attempts. Additionally, James had 6 assists in those situations, and Kobe had only 1. Finally LeBron had 4 turnovers to Kobe's 5. The best percentage of anyone who had made over 10 shots was Carmello, who had hit on 13 of 27 shots.

No one in the NBA over that time had missed more game winning shots than Kobe. When people ask me who I would want take the shot, I say, Carmello or LeBron, no questions asked.  Having said that, over that time Kobe was tied with LeBron for 1st in post season game winning shots. Bother were 4 for 8. Of course this year Kobe made some in the regular season, but missed some in the post season. I guess it's OK to miss them though if you've got Pau or Artest there for the put back.

THE DEFENSE MYTH 

The myth is that Kobe Bryant is one of the most dominant defensive players in the NBA. That's just not true. In his book, Basketball on Paper, Dean Oliver unveils a stat used at basketball-reference.com called "defensive rating." It is a measure of how many points a player surrenders on the defensive end of the court. Not at all surprisingly, among active players with over 400 games played, Duncan leads with a rating of 95.

Lest you think that this is one of those stats that puts too much weight on team defense I offer two counters. First, the defensive rating is per 100 possessions, meaning it's pace adjusted. Also, last year Kobe was 4th on his own team, behind Odom, Gasol and Bynum. The issue with Kobe's defense is that while he can play absolutely chilling defense when he applies himself to it, he doesn't normally do so. If one defines defense as actually stopping the other guys from scoring then Kobe Bryant is greatly overrated as a defensive player, and belongs nowhere near an all defense team.

Kobe has never led the league in steals, and only finished in the top 5 twice. He's only finished in the top 10 in Defensive Win Shares once. He's only averaged more than a block a game once in his career. Not only does he not stop the other guy from scoring, he doesn't generate a lot of big plays himself either. I understand the illusion exists that he's a great defensive player, so please don't come telling me how many All Defensive teams he's been on. He doesn't belong on them. 

The Ball Hog Myth

There was a time when this myth was true, but Kobe has come a long way in the last few years. The Lakers winning the championship this year wasn't just about the rest of the team stepping up, it was about Kobe letting the team step up a lot. Over the last four years Kobe has led the team in assists each and every year, and his field goal percentage has benefited as a result. Kobe is just not the ball hog he used to be. 

The Legend

Whatever your views are, Kobe has five rings. On both sides of the argument people make too many issues out of his teammates. No one can win a championship alone, but many have failed to win with other great players around them. Kobe has been an integral part of two separate dynasties with the same team. His "legend" status is unquestioned. He presently ranks 9th all time in the HOF standards at basketball-reference.com, which is about where he should be. He's not in the realm of Jordan, but he's earned the right to be called one  of the ten greatest of all time at this point in his career. 

Right now he's the 12th all time leading scorer, and has the opportunity to move up the ladder a number of spots next year. Depending on how many years are left on his knees he could eventually pass Jordan in three seasons. He could climb up the list for  greatest ever too, but I don't know that he'll ever be called that or deserves to be. To me that's a very narrow conversation involving only two or three players. If he gets another two rings, I'll entertain it, but for right now I'm slotting him somewhere between 5-9, depending on how the rest  of his career goes. Regardless, top 10 of all time is legendary status.