Kobe Bryant: Why LA Lakers Fans Should Embrace Ian Mahinmi's 'Diss'

Kobe Bryant is the cockiest, most arrogant and hot-headed player in the entire NBA bar none.  He may just take that title for, not just the NBA, but the world of sports.

After LA Lakers fans asked who in the world Ian Mahinmi was, they began to bash the unknown bench player whose most notable moment in the league was getting posterized by LeBron James in the 2011 NBA Finals.

According to BasketUSA.com, Mahinmi mentioned in an interview, “Kobe is super arrogant but everybody loves him.  To me, Kobe is more arrogant (than LeBron James).”

Mahinmi is absolutely right about his assessment of Kobe’s arrogance though.  Kobe and LeBron are both arrogant, but in different ways. 

LeBron is egotistical, conceited but that doesn’t translate into having confidence on the basketball court come crunch time.  Kobe on the other hand is so over-confident that he’ll take a fadeaway three over two defenders at the buzzer instead of passing it to an open teammate, but that’s exactly what makes him so great.  He isn’t afraid of the moment, he embraces the closing seconds.

Arrogance isn’t a bad characteristic for a superstar to have.  Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player ever and he was the definition of arrogant.  His Hall of Fame speech was priceless comedy; for example, when talking about Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Krause he said:

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“Jerry’s not here.  I don’t know who’d invite him.  I didn’t.  I hope he understands it goes a long way.  He’s a very competitive person.  I was a very competitive person.  He said organizations win championships.  I said, ‘I didn’t see organizations playing with the flu in Utah.  I didn’t see it playing with a bad ankle.’”

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No humble person says that, but that’s what made Jordan the killer that he was.  Overconfidence doesn’t hurt your game when you can actually back it up.  Larry Bird was the exact same way.

Late in a game against the Indiana Pacers, Bird was at the free throw line and Reggie Miller was trying to break his concentration.  Bird turned to him after draining the first shot and said, "You got to be kidding me.  Rook, I'm the best shooter in the league right now.  In the league.  Understand?  And you're up here trying to say something?"  Then he hit the second attempt.

In another game that happened to be tied late, Bird told his defender going into the timeout, “I’m going to get [the ball] right here and I am going to bury it in your face.”  Following the timeout, he posted up and as you can imagine, drained the shot and responded saying, “I didn’t mean to leave two seconds on the clock.”

Lakers fans, embrace the label “arrogant”.  Getting called that is far better than being a choke-artist or a narcissist.

Right LeBron?

David Daniels is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report and a Syndicated Writer. Follow him on Twitter.