The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Raging against the dying of the light: The sunset of Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant finished his career in a manner befitting the Lakers great: lots of shots, lots of points. He died in 2020. (AP Photo/Alex Gallardo)
Expert
6th December, 2015
19

IN David Remnick’s The September Song of Mr October, his 1987 masterpiece on baseballer Reggie Jackson, the future New Yorker editor writes of the late-career struggles of the man who once famously hit three consecutive pitches for World Series home runs.

“His swing still had the old ferocious look. But something was wrong. The eyes, the concentration, the reflexes, something. Jackson was not past heroics – he could still send the ball screaming into the outer dark – but he was past the expectation of heroics. His home runs now had the quality only of nostalgia and accident.”

It was both an homage and a gentle salvo that time waits for no-one and even less so for a professional athlete, where even the faintest slip leads to the ever-louder drumbeat from the sidelines that it might be time for last drinks to be called.

Almost three decades since that story was written and the same – sadly – can now be said about Kobe Bean Bryant.

The Los Angeles Lakers guard, in the sunset of a remarkable, polarising 20-season career, will provide the occasional glimpse, a final, fleeting look at the kind of play we all took for granted over the course of five championships, a Most Valuable Player award and countless highlights.

That there is still an echo of that expectation of heroics speaks much to the esteem Bryant is largely held in, even allowing for his, ahem, poetic announcement last week that this would be his final NBA season.

And much like Jackson, who once famously claimed he was the ‘straw that stirs the drink’ of the New York Yankees, Bryant still has the cocksure swagger that he can still get the job done. There can be no other way.

But make no mistake, the numbers are brutal, matching – and then some – what our eyes are almost disbelievingly telling us.

Advertisement

In 16 games, the 37-year-old is shooting just 37 per cent from inside the arc and has missed a staggering 99 of the 127 shots he has taken from international waters.

Never an efficient scorer, even at his offensive apex, Bryant has entered unfamiliar and decidedly unfriendly territory; the Lakers are more than 11 points worse per 100 possessions when he’s on-court.

It is a drop-off of almost unprecedented steepness, even allowing for the past three injury-ravaged years.

And yet and yet.

There will still be the occasional flashes, witness his vintage 31-point performance on the road against Washington this week.

But these are the welcome exception to the rule now, intermittent sightings of his former greatness.

Advertisement

If anything, it is the long stretches of offensive futility that humanise Bryant, marking his decline with a series of blood-red shot charts that resemble the foyer of the Overlook Hotel once the elevator doors open.

The easy comparison for this late chapter of Bryant’s career is Washington-era Michael Jordan, who looked exceedingly mortal for long stretches of his two-season comeback, and was no less hindered by injuries – in particular a chronic knee tendinitis that eventually became a torn cartilage that ended his first year back – that were as much due to the ravages of age as anything else.

And while Jordan was more efficient (and accurate), if there’s one thing that does look very similar, it’s the struggle that both players have faced in gaining some much-needed separation from their defender, just to get a shot off.

For players who for years found scoring as natural as breathing, it must indeed be a chastening experience. For what was originally just a minor breach of their armour to now be a yawning chasm that requires all their effort to contain.

Embattled Lakers coach Byron Scott says Bryant can shoot as many times as he likes, which, if Scott was being realistic, amounts to camouflaged tanking.

Not only does it mean a majority of Lakers games will end in defeat, it also inhibits the development of talented young players like Julius Randle, Jordan Clarkson and rookie guard D’Angelo Russell.

To those, including Scott, who would say that Bryant has earned that right, it smacks of putting the cart before the horse, that a franchise is willing to put an entire season ahead of what is best for the team over the long run.

Advertisement

That, or the powers-that-be have decided the best way to keep their top-three protected lottery pick is to give the Kobe fans (distinctly different from Lakers fans, remember) what they want and potentially give themselves a shot at Ben Simmons next June.

And then of course, one wonders, what will Bryant do in retirement?

You can certainly rule out the Magic Johnson-style business career, Bryant saying over the weekend, “We don’t have the same personality. I can’t go around talking and smiling at people all day.” No surprises there then.

Surely there’s a post-NBA playing career in either China or Europe, especially the former, where his popularity borders on the hagiographic.

And then, Bryant once famously said earlier this year, “friends come and go, banners are forever.”

It speaks of an utter commitment to winning above all else, an ethos few could ever match.

So what happens when his very raison d’etre has come to an end?

Advertisement

Even in the twilight he remains an utterly fascinating player and person.

Regardless, Bryant appears to have realised this season will be for him, the lesson learned by all, even the greats, the final humbling tutorial that no-one has immunity from.

Tempo padre rimane imbattuto – Father Time stays undefeated.

close