Envisioning the Perfect, Uncompromising End to Kobe Bryant's Career
Despite Kobe Bryant's controlling, detail-obsessed perfectionism, he doesn't get to decide if the end of his spectacular NBA career is here.
The end comes for everyone, and the signs—the air balls, the self-deprecation, the poignant photos—all suggest it has come for Bryant. His recent comments suggest it, too, which means even more since Bryant has always been less willing to accept his own basketball mortality than anyone else.
ESPN.com's Baxter Holmes has been on the ground in L.A. this year chronicling Bryant's head-on collision with age. He relayed a telling exchange between the legend and his coach, Byron Scott:
Chris Herring of the Wall Street Journal captured Carmelo Anthony contemplating the end of his contemporary's career:
So, yes, despite decades spent in defiance, Bryant's NBA career looks like it's nearing its coda. And if the comments and on-court product don't convince you, consider the financial realities: Bryant's contract is up after this season, and the Lakers would be insane to forestall their rebuilding project another year.
Bryant won't play for anyone else:
Do the math. The end is here.
And though Kobe couldn't control the when, he still has power over the how.
Don't Go Quietly
Bryant must dispense with the illusion of dignity. Resist the allure of false humility. Everyone wants him to take on a smaller role, to quietly recede into some kind of Kevin Garnett-esque mentorship gig.
That's not Kobe, and that's not how any of us should want him to wrap this thing up.
Bryant, a pathological competitor, has always attacked basketball problems—age, injury and interpersonal relationships, just to name three—as though they were blocks of granite he could reduce to dust through hard work and force of will.
Could anything be more disappointing than seeing that guy give in? Even when he clearly should?
Who wants to watch a soft retreat by someone whose career has been defined by aggressive, often ill-advised marches forward?
Nobody.
Kobe should go down fighting, shooting 4-of-17 and struggling to move on defense for as long as his body lets him. That's the right way for him to finish this thing.
There's already concession enough in Bryant's comparatively modest goal of playing in every game this season. Past versions of Bryant would have wanted to dominate (not just play) the contests he had left. That's as self-aware and realistic as any of us should want Bryant to be. Go too far down that road, and you'd be asking for Bryant to admit defeat.
Don't ask for that.
Give Us One More
We've already established that Bryant may not linger after this season, so of course nobody's asking for a 21st NBA campaign. Instead, let's hope for just one more vintage Kobe game—one where he essentially plays the same way he's been playing—but instead of air balls, the impossible shots go in.
Let's enjoy one last huge number, complete with hero shots and go-ahead buckets down the stretch of a 15-point fourth quarter.
One more of these that actually works out:
Bryant hasn't scored 40 or more in a Los Angeles Lakers win since April 10, 2013. That's more than two years since we've gotten the kind of Bryant game we once expected three times a week. The Achilles, the knee, the shoulder: They've all conspired with age in sapping Bryant's ability to take over games like he used to.
We need a final commemoration of what Bryant was and what made him great. He can give us that game in December and spend the next four months shooting 30 percent and looking old. That's fine. That's to be expected.
But let's have just one more glimpse of what we're losing before it's gone, if only because it would serve as a reminder of the results Bryant's uncompromising process used to yield.
Surprise Us
The ideal farewell tour for Bryant should be about a refusal to compromise. He should be true to himself. He should go out like he came in. There's a narrative consistency there that appeals, especially if you view Bryant as some kind of surreal tragic hero.
But there's one change that would make his final season better, and he kind of hinted at making it in his final visit to Madison Square Garden on Nov. 8, when he offered some encouragement to New York Knicks rookie Kristaps Porzingis: "He just told me to 'Keep working, young fella,'" Porzingis told Holmes. "Kobe is my idol, and to have him say that shows that he sees potential in me, and that I just have to keep working and hopefully I can have a long successful career."
Now, maybe this feels like an inconsistent hope, wishing for Bryant to break his career-long streak of crushing younger opponents and teammates mentally as much as physically. The list of Kobe's tough-luck victims is long, with names like Smush Parker, Jeremy Lin, Kwame Brown, Andrew Bynum and even Pau Gasol jumping off the page in bold.
In many ways, Bryant's brutal treatment of his peers is inseparable from his entire basketball being. He drives himself impossibly hard, and he lashes out at anyone (which turns out to be everyone) who can't push up to that same brink.
Still, it'd be nice if Bryant, who seemed so assured during his 20-year career that there'd be no NBA future without him, could actually impart a little of his essence to players (maybe young, impressionable teammates like Jordan Clarkson, Julius Randle or D'Angelo Russell?) who'll be around long after he's gone.
Because that's what we'll be losing when Bryant's end in the NBA officially arrives: the wild, unquenchable drive; the cut-your-throat competitiveness; the grueling, bone-grinding work it takes to become what Bryant was.
Bryant explained on The Big Podcast with Shaq last August:
"You have certain players that have that aggressiveness and that mentality. It’s tough to tell. It’s a different generation. I grew up playing against Michael and [Gary Payton] and all these stone-cold assassins. John Stockton and all these guys. So I had that mentality. You don’t really see that kind of mentality around the league nowadays. Everybody is buddy-buddy and don’t want to hurt each other’s [feelings].
"
Even if Bryant doesn't believe there's a "next Kobe" out there, even if he can't ever nurture in others the kind of fire that burned within him by nature, it's worth trying.
If he can leave any piece of himself for the next generation over these final months, the league will be better for it when he's gone.
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