Kobe Bryant Launching Los Angeles Lakers Farewell Tour in Historical Fashion
The Los Angeles Lakers aren’t winning many games these days, but reigning superstar Kobe Bryant seems intent on going out in style—defying Father Time, breaking records and leaving it all on the floor every night.
The highest-paid baller in the NBA has two years left on his current contract—otherwise known as his farewell tour.
Will he in fact retire at the end of his 20th season? At his current barn-burning rate of 25.2 points in 35.4 hard minutes per game through 21 games played, it’s hard to imagine he’ll have anything left in the tank when his contract runs out.
Never say never with the Mamba, however. As Mark Medina for the Los Angeles Daily News recently reported, Lakers coach Byron Scott is hoping to persuade the winner of five NBA titles to keep it rolling: “If we put something together that excites him, we’ll have a real good chance of him saying he’ll play another year and give it another shot. That’s what we plan to do.”
Bryant’s response a day later, also per Medina, was noncommittal:
"If I want to play, I’ll play. I tend to make my own decisions. If I don’t want to play, I won’t play. It’s just a feeling on if I want to go through the process of being ready every single day and the amount of commitment that it takes. It's nuts.
"
For now, fans will simply have to watch and marvel as the 36-year-old puts a younger generation of players to shame.
So far this season, Bryant has already become the only player in history to surpass 30,000 career points and 6,000 assists. In addition, his scoring average is off the charts for an athlete with so much wear on the tires. Per ESPN Stats & Info, no other player has averaged more than 14.6 points per game in his 19th season or later.
Milestones seem to accrue with each passing game but soon, one of the most closely watched records will be broached—Bryant is just 63 points away from passing Michael Jordan for third on the all-time scoring list.
But despite incontrovertible evidence of greatness and accomplishments, there is still the inevitable media scrutiny of a sports figure who has been as polarizing as any in modern history.
Questions continue to be raised about the number of shots he hoists up, the salary he draws or a mercurial attitude that some link to the team’s perceived inability to attract high-caliber free agents.
In October, Henry Abbott wrote an article for ESPN The Magazine, penning the following:
"By the old points-per-game measure, he was not just a perennial All-Star but one of the best players ever. But the league has changed around Bryant, and swiftly. The movement of people and the ball, 3s, rim attacks, coordinated defensive effort and generating open shots for teammates are what's winning now. Subsuming ego and glorifying teammates is a winning NBA strategy, and it's what D'Antoni and Nash attempted to bring to the Lakers.
"
That would seem to presume D’Antoni’s era with the Purple and Gold was more effective and team-conscious than the years spent playing under Phil Jackson and his ball-moving triangle offense.
It also suggests that Bryant’s extraordinary career assists total is more a function of his past rather than present. The record would indicate otherwise—the shooting guard’s current rate of 4.8 dimes per game mirrors his career average of 4.8.
Coincidentally, his 25.2 points per game, 5.1 rebounds and 1.3 steals so far this season are also remarkably consistent with his career average of 25.5 points, 5.3 boards and 1.5 pockets picked.
And then there is the notion that a lengthy series of warm and fuzzy curtain calls is even vaguely interesting to one of the fiercest competitors to ever play the game.
In a Sports Illustrated long-form article, Chris Ballard wrote:
"Never the type for farewell tours, Bryant bristles at the idea of parading from arena to arena, receiving parting gifts and teary-eyed salutes. 'No, no, no, no, I’m good,' he says, waving his hands. 'If you booed me for 18, 19 years, boo me for the 20th. That’s the game, man.'
"
Still endlessly fascinated with the game, Bryant is doing what he has always done—walking onto a hardwood court and competing at an elite level. He has answered the questions of whether he could come back after Achilles surgery, or after fracturing his knee last season.
Being one of the league's leading scorers this season is not smoke and mirrors, nor is it fool’s gold on a bad team.
It is simply playing the game in real time, against real opponents.
He is the last Laker from the team’s halcyon days. Former championship teammates still playing in the NBA grow ever more rare—only Pau Gasol with the Chicago Bulls, Trevor Ariza with the Houston Rockets and Jordan Farmar with the Los Angeles Clippers remain active.
Bryant tries to marshal energy early in quarters, setting up teammates and acting as a decoy. He hobbles like an old Hollywood stuntman until it’s time to sprint. Those announcing the games incessantly question what he’ll have left in crunch time.
Yet, he continues playing a young man’s minutes, still sets nasty picks and wields sharp elbows. And he collects most of his points in a collision alley known as contested two-point land.
We don't know how much time a lion in winter has left.
But until the last fadeaway jumper arcs through a bank of blinding lights—either finding the net or clanking off the iron—Kobe Bryant will continue making basketball history.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
