When Kobe Bryant announced his retirement at the end of November 2015, the world of basketball was not as shocked as it would have been had he done the same four or five years previously.
At 37 years of age and going into his nineteenth season, Kobe does not look like Kobe any more.
He is not as young, athletic or prepared as he once was. Playing 82 games a year, plus the playoffs, is not easy at all.
Add pre-game practices, post-game press conferences and constant travelling to the mix as well and you begin to understand the potential for exhaustion.
Finally, consider all the extras. Pre-season games, the All-Star Weekends, the Olympic Games, the Americas Championships and the Basketball World Cups – Kobe has done it all.
At 37, he is not the Kobe from ten or fifteen years ago – which is only natural – but the amount of respect, credibility, appreciation and integrity he has gained during that time is immeasurable.
That is why his retirement has an equally immeasurable impact on modern basketball and the world of sports in general.
The present
Suffering from numerous injuries and injured more times than we can count, Kobe Bryant is just a man trying to recover, but not getting a chance to do so.
Why?
Simply, he is the alpha and the omega of the LA Lakers. Moreover, ever since Pau Gasol left for the Chicago Bulls in July 2014, Kobe is the LA Lakers. Ever since the 2011-2012 season, the team has been full of rookie, unexperienced and underplayed individuals. There have been only a few reliable ones, like Lamar Odom, Steve Nash and Dwight Howard.
Moreover, none of the head coaches could do what Pat Riley and Phil Jackson did back in the 1980s and the 2000s. The franchise has been on such a losing streak that the team should change its name to the LA Ponds.
And yet, Kobe Bryant is still doing his job. He is the oldest player in the current roster and still the team’s best member. His stats are not the greatest – 15.9 PPG, 4.0 RPG and 3.5 APG with his free throw, field goal and three-pointer percentages at 0.788, 0.349 and 0.258, respectively.
However, he is managing to pull about 29 minutes of effective play in the fortyish games he has played this season. Moreover, he has scored 31 on two occasions – against the Washington Wizards on 2 December and against the Denver Nuggets three weeks later, on 22 December.
The past
There are two things crucial to Kobe’s career – the stats he has made and the impact he has had on the game.
Not factoring in the current season, has been scoring 25.4 points, 5.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game in about 1280 regular season games since his debut on 3 November 1996 against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
In total, he has scored over 32,000 points, which makes him the third best scoring player of all time, after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Karl Malone.
He is one of the best offensive players ever and his style has redefined the approach to modern basketball. He plays well at both ends and cannot be stopped easily, so you have to be extra careful when playing against him.
This was best felt by the Toronto Raptors on 22 January 2006, when he scored 81 points in 42 minutes. There was simply nothing they could do!
The future
Kobe Bryant will be leaving an enormous legacy in the NBA at the end of this season. He will walk away as a five-time league champion, a two-time finals MVP, a one-time MVP of the League and an 18-time All-Star player.
This year, he received the most votes, 1.9 million, while the runner-up Stephen Curry had 1.6 million. He was also voted All-Star Game MVP four times, a member of the All-NBA First Team eleven times and a Slam Dunk champion in 1997.
He is the LA Lakers’ all-time leading scorer and two-time Olympic gold medalist.
With Kobe’s departure, the NBA will lose a the player of a generation. He is the only player worth receiving a special tribute and a standing ovation before and after every game this season, in every arena in the country.
With him gone, other players will have a chance to be the best. But none of them will ever be quite like Kobe Bryant.
Build your own ultimate team! Pick your key players and take a shot at big cash prizes every day with Draftstars. For great odds on NBA games every day head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.
Nikola Jokic has scored 32 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to lead defending NBA champions Denver past LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers…
It’s that time of year when NBA diehards start firing up the trade machine and pondering which star can be plucked from another franchise…
LeBron James scored 30 points in less than three quarters as the Los Angeles Lakers steamrolled the New Orleans Pelicans 133-89 to reach the…
Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals gets underway on Wednesday (AEST) in Colorado as the Denver Nuggets look to topple the resurgent Los…
Anthony Davis lacks just one vital ingredient in his supreme make-up.
Russwell Westbrook's turbulent two seasons at the Lakers has come to an abrupt end.
