A tear and a cheer for Kobe Bryant’s last meaningful game

There will be many more fond farewells for Kobe Bryant on his goodbye tour as he visits cities for the last time in his last season in the NBA.

His final home game in Los Angeles will be quite the spectacle, and deservingly so.

However, with his beloved Lakers battling it out with the Philadelphia 76ers for the worst record in the league – and therefore zero chance of making the playoffs – the 2016 All-Star Game was the last meaningful match in the superstar’s glittering career.

Much has been written about Kobe Bean Bryant over his 20 seasons in the NBA, and even more since he announced this would be his last year. In that time, to say Kobe has been a polarising player with fans and the media would be an understatement.

Yet there is one demographic for which Kobe has never been polarising, and it’s arguably the most important one: fellow NBA players. They almost universally revere him.

Even though Kobe has slipped in his standards so dramatically that his selection in the All-Star Game was undeserved on playing merit alone, it didn’t stop the game’s current elite players from essentially dedicating the weekend to Bryant. They love and respect ‘The Mamba’.

A few years ago, NBA legend Larry Bird was asked which player he’d like to play a season with. His answer was as surprising as it was without hesitation: Kobe.

Amongst Kobe’s contemporaries, the popular narrative is that Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki may have been more fun to play with. Yet here was one of the greatest players of all time picking the Laker as his dream teammate.

It was surprising because Bird was the epitome of unselfish play during his career. Along with his lifelong measuring stick, Magic Johnson, Bird was credited with making passing and teamwork sexy again.

To put it mildly, Bryant wasn’t exactly known for his unselfishness.

I suspect Bird nominated Kobe because he saw something of himself in the Lakers shooting guard, and that suspicion is confirmed from Bird’s revelation that Kobe’s desire to win, his dedication, and his toughness were attributes he admired immensely.

It’s worth pointing out that while Bird may have been unselfish, he had a killer instinct and a shooter’s mentality. You don’t put up 60 points – as Bird once did against the Atlanta Hawks – without having a shooter’s conscious, along with a thirst for demoralising your opponents.

Bird and Kobe certainly shared those qualities, and as they say, ‘game recognise game’.

Even though I bleed the purple and gold of the Lakers, Kobe was never my favourite. I cheered him and loved the fact he delivered championships to Los Angeles, yet he was never my preferred style of player.

As the son of a professional basketball coach, playing the ‘right way’, moving the ball, relying on teamwork and running the offence, were drilled into me from a young age. These are not the qualities Kobe will be remembered for.

I (for the most part) got a buzz out of the assist way more than scoring. It’s fair to say Kobe is not wired the same way.

However, there is something truly intoxicating and mesmerising about watching a pure scorer go crazy. And for this, Kobe was renowned.

His 81-point explosion against the Toronto Raptors, and his 63 points (in just three quarters) against the Dallas Mavericks remain breathtaking vision, even as YouTube highlights some ten years later.

They were hardly isolated events either. Kobe scored 50 or more points on 25 occasions.

Like Michael Jordan and Allen Iverson before him, watching a single player take over a game with dazzling one-on-one play may not have been appealing to the purists, but it sure was fun to watch.

The adrenalin rushed when Kobe got that look in his eye, and his bottom jaw protruded in signature style. Something special was about to happen, and praying was about to be a defender’s only recourse.

Even if you hated Kobe, you weren’t going to miss him erupt offensively.

That hatred towards Kobe was always a significant part of his legacy. Few NBA players have embraced the role of villain more willingly than Kobe. He seemed to actually enjoy being hated. He fed off the animosity from opposing crowds. It made him.

Kobe was not perfect, and no one can argue the case he was.

He openly feuded with teammate Shaquille O’Neal, and their bickering abruptly ended a Laker dynasty that felt far from finished.

He annoyed Phil Jackson to the point of forcing him into early retirement – albeit temporarily – and the mastermind coach ripped Kobe in one of his books, calling him “un-coachable”.

He took bad shots, and sometimes seemed to forget that basketball is a team game.

Though Kobe is often credited for his intense desire to win (who could forget his “banners versus friends” quote?), it would be remiss not to mention the games in which he refused to shoot – as if to prove a point that he wasn’t selfish – and those performances actually hurt his team’s chances to win.

Yes, Kobe wanted to win, but he wanted to do it on his terms. Tim Duncan wanted to win, and would make personal sacrifices to achieve the W. Conversely, Kobe wanted to be the reason his team won. He wanted to be the one who beat you. It sounds like a subtle difference, but it’s actually a marked one.

Yet none of that should hurt Kobe’s standing in the game. If anything, it adds an intriguing layer of complexity to his overall story.

While athletic two-guards who like to shoot are about as rare as an idiotic comment from Byron Scott, it will be a long time before we ever see a personality such as Kobe’s again.

You may not have liked him, but you had an opinion on him. You may not have liked the way he played, but you still watched him.

You couldn’t help but feel something when he played. How many athletes can you truly say that about?

Whatever your thoughts on one of the greatest players in basketball history, the NBA won’t be as interesting in Kobe Bryant’s absence.

Farewell, Bean.