Kobe Bryant Discussion: Mamba Out!

So about this ASG tribute to Kobe.... couldn't they just rename the ASG MVP or something?

 

I haven't been able to catch our games (super busy), so I'm sure the game tonight would have probably taken everything out of me with the tribute and high emotions that will be there...

But I hope we win tonight, and put some joy in the air for everyone, after such sad times.

 

True, though maybe he's more partial to 8 than 24? Just a guess. I know I am. Nothing wrong with 24 at all, but 8 was my formative decade from draft through the threepeat as probably was PG's.

 

All the tributes are great, but none seem big enough. I really want him to be the new Logo.

 

Let's just rename California Kobe

All I know is I'm never riding in a Kobecopter in foggy conditions. Hell to the no.

 

First time poster here, started lurking last summer during the free agent bonanza, specifically with the Kawhi debacle. I’ve been impressed in the time I’ve spent here in the level of courtesy and genuineness consistently on display. Seems like people actually care about each other (even when they disagree), which is not the norm on many message boards.

I turned 30 last summer, so my earliest Laker memories are with Van Exel, Divacs, and Eddie Jones, but my love for the organization crystallized with the Kobe/Shaq three-peat. I have such visceral memories of those playoff runs. (Oddly enough, one of the things that stands out most sharply is the sound of the TNT Playoff Basketball intro. To this day I hear it and think we’re about to tune up the Kings or the Blazers.) Watching that team in particular was when I learned just how real pro sports can be, the depth of emotion they can create. I think Sunday I found out just how deep those emotions went, and it shocked me.

The death of a guy I never met (though I did see him at my church a few times in the early 2000s) legitimately hit me harder than some of the deaths I have experienced in my own extended family. I still don’t quite know how to make sense of that. All I know is that I’m really freaking sad.

But as I have been trying to process the death of Kobe and Gianna and the other seven innocent lives lost, there is a question that I have been struggling with mightily, one that I have not heard or seen addressed to satisfaction. It is a question that I imagine many of you are not going to like me asking, but for me personally I cannot process his death without asking it:

How do we reckon with 2003?

It seems there are two extremes in the media. On the one end are the people like that idiot from the Washington Post who see the immediate aftermath of a man tragically dying with his daughter as the appropriate time to bring up his worst moment. On the other end are those who basically ignore it, or dismiss it entirely. Neither one is satisfying to me personally, especially in light of the real grief that I know I and millions of others are feeling.

A lot of the media has fallen in the middle of those extremes, at least mentioning the sexual assault case but doing little to try to reconcile it with the life lived after that point. And I think that’s what I’ve been struggling with. At the very best, Kobe was an adulterer. At worst, someone who committed a crime that should have seen him behind bars for a long, long time. The media treatment seems intent on either hanging his entire life on his worst mistake, or largely ignoring it to focus on his outsize impact through his talents on the basketball court.

For whatever reason my brain can’t reckon with either of those options, and as I’ve been thinking over the past week I think I’m beginning to be able to articulate why:

The things that Kobe was able to do on the basketball court, and the devotion that ability created, does not erase what happened in Colorado, certainly not for that young woman, and certainly not for his wife. It would be better if it had never happened, first for those two women, and second for our ability to celebrate his life.

But the other side of that is that what happened in Colorado does not erase what he did on the basketball court (before or after), and the way it impacted people around the world, myself included. Some might credibly argue that he should have been behind bars, but I think what you can’t argue is that Kobe accomplished legitimate good with his freedom.

Our mistakes do not nullify the good things we accomplish in our lives. One of the heroes of the Bible, David, infamously seduced a married woman and ordered her husband to be killed. And yet every morning I read the Psalms, many of them penned by his hand. The atrocity of his worst moment does not lessen the beauty of his best, and the same is true of Kobe.

I think that is where I’m coming to a point of acceptance in my head. Those in the media who cannot get past 2003, or those who trivialize the severity of it, do a disservice to the full legacy of Kobe’s life. As Sirius Black tells Harry, the world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters. There exists light and dark in all of us. If we either reduce Kobe’s life to its worst moment or ignore that moment altogether, we miss the opportunity to see the redemptive potential in not only his life, but in every life.

I still don’t know if I’ve properly conveyed what I’m feeling. I guess what it comes down to is this:

Kobe Bryant died taking his daughter to a basketball game at a facility that he built to further youth athletics, particularly womens’. He attended church that morning. People who knew him best speak of his devotion to his friends and family. The story of his life is both more hopeful and more tragic if we accept the growth his life displayed, which means being able to look at the worst moments without flinching.

I hope some of that made sense, and I truly hope not to have offended anyone by broaching the topic.

 

I've been better the past two days, been able to distract myself but damn... I don't think I'm ready for tonight.

 

I wish I could go to this game.But damn tickets on StubHub is close to 700 $

 

I'm wondering if I'll feel it's appropriate to use any of the many Kobe gifs we do in a light hearted and humorous way again. It'll be awhile for me, at the least I think.

 

Welcome to the site

:Carusoshaka:

we look forward to your future contributions. I’m glad that you get the sense that this place is family because it is.

 

Thanks NBA

 

Using animated GIFs of Kobe doesn’t bother me a bit, but I’m actually not sure if I ever care to watch basketball again.

Basketball was already not the same after losing Kobe and watching his entire career, but after we shipped out all of our young kids and any hope of the next Kobe(Home grown from day 1), this is just the icing on the cake that makes it hard to engage with the current roster

most of the games we play very ugly basketball - I usually experience more irritation than joy, and we have a freaking great winning record! I’m mostly here every day because this place is family

it’s gonna be a long time before I’m ready to re-read this thread, but I look forward to the day when I can watch all of these tributes and celebrate one of the all-time greats

It’s really hard to imagine another athlete captivating Los Angeles ever again like Kobe did

 

i share your sentiment, i still hope we win it all for Kobe but no longer having these "home grown" stars on the team hasnt appeal to me as much it would normally

 

For so many guys, the court is their therapy. When you lose that, they must feel very broken.