Remember when Kobe was here?

Somebody recently asked about my favorite Kobe Bryant moment of all time. I couldn’t come up with one. The thousands of games and tens of thousands of plays within all those games have somehow formed into composites—an athlete performing mind-boggling feats under washes of light and accompanied by a screaming sound chorus, moments that become isolated on sports shows and augmented by camera pans and time-altered effects until they simply become part of an ever-changing narrative. 

Glory, defeat, shame, redemption, injury, recovery, debate, the bloom of youth to the inevitability of age, from his rookie year to this—hours before his final game with the Los Angeles Lakers.

I haven’t written much about Bryant this season. I can’t begin to explain why, except that it is some form of avoidance. And a rationale that if everyone else is doing it, there is no need for me to. What could I possibly add to that vast lexicon?

During training camp I contemplated a story that would take place in the present while imagining the future—one without the man. The idea that he has touched so many people in so many different ways, and a vacuum that could have a more lasting impact than some might imagine.

But I couldn’t really wrap my head around it all. Instead, I simply looked at box scores and read the commentary. I winced at the truly awful games and took small pleasures in those rare moments when a guy who should be in a wheelchair managed some approximation of the greatness he once was.

And a season slipped by.

He has outlasted several generations of players when you consider the professional lifespan of an average NBA hoopster is 4.8 years. Bryant’s two decades have not only put him into the fringes of uncharted territory, but have also resulted in a shifting and evolving attitude toward him, from those who played with him and those who chronicled his career. He has earned the well-deserved reputation of a difficult person to be around.

Fierce, uncompromising, competitive beyond what is acceptable even in the cutthroat world of sports.

In a Nike commercial in which athletes were asked to sum Bryant up in a single word, Kevin Durant said quietly, “asshole.”

There was an implicit respect in the curse. 

Or as his onetime Lakers teammate Steve Nash mused on a different occasion, “a fucking asshole.”

But generational fluxes also play into these dynamics, the take-no-prisoners attitude exhibited toward peers becomes folklore observed by younger athletes growing up, who then become participants themselves.

What always struck me, above anything else, was the degree of difficulty.

Bryant set the bar impossibly high, Icarus flying too close to the sun but tinkering with the mechanics or “the process” as he always called it, in order to somehow avoid melting the wax and feathers. And when his plummet to earth inevitably happened, he took the road back as a Sisyphean challenge—a self-aggrandizing overachiever who pushed a too-large boulder up the hill over and over again, pausing only for ice baths or Orthokine knee treatments in Germany.

The impossible shot selections, the tendency to take over games, the tunnel vision that his way was not only the best but the only way, wasn’t the work of a guitar hero shredding without form or structure. Because his relentless film study, his analytical destruction and reconstruction of all known aspects of the game, recalibrated after each injury and the passing years, seemed to coalesce into airtight arguments, statements of fact and accomplishments so detailed and immense that it just became easier for others to simply give up in the end.

Until the end.

The last time I wrote at any length about Bryant was last summer, acknowledging the futility of adding to a story that has been so thoroughly covered for two decades by imagining what might lie ahead through a fictional construct:

Ask the average person how many articles have been written about Kobe Bryant and you’ll get a blank stare in return. Nobody knows but it is certainly a very high number. It would be like counting the mosaic tiles in the Basilica of San Vitale. 

There are no new angles to explore, there is no new information to report. Past glories have been repeated to death and there are only so many ways to spin predictions for his probably-but-not-absolutely final season of basketball. There can be no criticisms that have not yet been voiced, no chronicling of hero shots that have been launched or death glares cast toward teammates. Or teammates who worship him or those who hate him, or new ones he hasn’t yet met due to a top secret gyrocopter excursion to a mountaintop retreat where he’ll undergo molecular cartilage transfusions in an attempt to grow a new finger in place of that hideous turnip currently attached to his right hand… or left hand.

Twenty years of witnessing a particular player, on television, in person, listening left-to-right on the radio dial while stuck in rush hour traffic on the way home from some job or another. Chick Hearn’s words eye view gave the kind of accompaniment that transformed to actual visual memories years later. Because these are all snippets, brush strokes that form a collective over time. Watching pirate feeds on a shaky dialup connection, commenting with bloggers on long ago threads that no longer exist, bantering on social media with friends from another place in time.

The passing generations were not only the players Bryant encountered and outlasted along the way, they were also the observers and the very methods of observation. The snake is long, 20 miles long.

ESPN’s Baxter Holmes recently wrote a stunningly good piece about the last true days of Bryant. Seven brutal games in which the gift and curse of obsession was on full display, the refusal to rest, the chain reaction of a freeway pileup in order to achieve a cause, leading ultimately to a blown-out Achilles tendon:

It's possible, in retrospect, to see what happened three years ago as something foreshadowed by ominous portents. The last game of Kobe Bryant -- the gladiator Kobe Bryant, the bulletproof, monomaniacal Kobe Bryant -- was full of such moments. But that's how history works. After the fact, everything is clear.

That should have been the final chapter, the ultimate body betrayal and self-destruction after so many wars.

Of course, that wasn’t how it ended. There would be a surgery to reattach the tendon after so many previous surgeries on other body parts, and months of rehabilitation followed rapturously by the media, followed by another season in which he broke his left knee after just six games, with another torturously long recovery period made even longer by all the previous damage done to his body. And that was followed by the Lakers signing Kobe to a new $48.5 million two-year contract. And then he was trotted out once more, only to tear his shoulder, requiring yet another operation.

They shoot horses, don't they?

And finally, one last farewell tour, one that could only have been imagined by the spirits of the underworld. Bryant, his body completely broken, soldiering through the worst season in his team’s entire history. 

But somewhere along the line he finally came to peace with it all. The jaw-jutting anger from years past has been replaced by something we are far less familiar with. He smiles more easily now, laughs off questions he once would have bristled at, talks about gratitude and acceptance. Bryant has managed to hold his body together until the very end, the team leader in points per game, putting up 35 the other night against the Houston Rockets.

And the inescapable fact that he has been a pure joy to watch over these many years. We could still squint our eyes a little and see that guy.

How do you identify a favorite moment? It is elusive and subjective, with only one remaining sliver to grasp at. It is just hours before the final curtain. One more ice bath, the last drive to Staples Center and a gimpy stroll through a tunnel accompanied by cameras and shouted questions.

And then the wash of lights and the swelling sound.

Remember when Kobe was here?

Kobe Bryant: The Things We Know but Do Not Say

Ask the average person how many articles have been written about Kobe Bryant and you’ll get a blank stare in return. Nobody knows but it is certainly a very high number. It would be like counting the mosaic tiles in the Basilica of San Vitale.

There are no new angles to explore, there is no new information to report. Past glories have been repeated to death and there are only so many ways to spin predictions for his probably-but-not-absolutely final season of basketball. There can be no criticisms that have not yet been voiced, no chronicling of hero shots that have been launched or death glares cast toward teammates. Or teammates who worship him or those who hate him, or new ones he hasn’t yet met due to a top secret gyrocopter excursion to a mountaintop retreat where he’ll undergo molecular cartilage transfusions in an attempt to grow a new finger in place of that hideous turnip currently attached to his right hand… or left hand.

Kobe was last seen somewhere east of Eden. He has been busy creating a new monetary system for Greece. He has a soft spot for small yappy dogs. He only sleeps in five-minute increments. He is still a member of the Los Angeles Lakers and will begin his 20th season in the NBA in the fall.

He has five body doubles, three of which are robots. He does not consume salt or sugar or flour. He has a world-class chef who has learned how to extract protein from tree roots, which is then served on top of poached salmon with toasted watercress.

But the man who would be Sisyphus is far more than a complex superstar.

He is a teacher, a husband, a father and a friend. He is a soothsayer.

Bryant is known for summoning select teammates to early morning workouts at a clandestine location that is actually his home basketball court. The reality of the domestic whereabouts is never actually specified in the media, out of fear and respect. Instead, it remains mysterious and unobtainable.

Recently, the man with five—“count ‘em”—championship rings (apart from those received in an alternate universe that have not yet been revealed) invited a new rookie teammate who shall remain nameless to the above-mentioned undisclosed location which is between five and 50 miles from the team’s official workout facilities in El Segundo, California. There, the rookie was instructed to make 300 shots in a row from half-court, blindfolded and without the use of his hands or feet.

At some point, one would imagine that there should be more than just backstory and aimless narrative. But one could also simply select another of the countless mosaic tiles if one needs insight into whether Kobe’s going to shift over to the wing this season for 12 games before his femoral artery spontaneously detaches, requiring an adjustment in minutes played on odd/even days.

Last Tuesday, I was invited by Mr. Bryant to a sushi restaurant in (location redacted) for an exclusive interview. There were no limits on subject matter except that the spoken word could not involve a language known to modern man. I wish I could begin to convey the joy and enlightenment that ensued during our telepathic conversation, augmented by birdsongs and clog dancing. I have not yet found a means of translation and it may not really matter. I find myself humbled, contemplative. I have begun reading all known works pertaining to Helen Keller.

He’s a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm.

On January 23, 2006, Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a basketball game against the Toronto Raptors. The absurdity of that statement is made all the more poignant by knowing it can never happen again. Analytics won’t let it happen. In fact, the science of advanced basketball analysis was invented solely to prevent such occurrences.

Do you actually doubt the veracity of this statement?

In April of 2006, a series of emails encrypted through MIT’s Cray supercomputer were exchanged between Daryl Morey who had just become general manager of the Houston Rockets, Henry Abbott of ESPN and David Stern who was then the commissioner of the NBA. The purpose was to invent a new way of examining basketball logic; to prevent an 81-point atrocity from ever happening again and to install a set of curbs that would reduce Bryant’s point average on a yearly basis.

It has worked on an incremental level but Bryant’s shot attempts and usage have remained stubbornly high and fiercely self-justified.

These are the things we know but do not say. Instead, articles are written about fading glory, a difficult personality, a litany of unimaginable injuries and money.

Offered $48.5 million as an octogenarian hoops star, Bryant simply said, “Okay.”

During an interview with GQ’s Chuck Klosterman earlier in the year, the 36-year-old was asked about any negative effect that advanced metrics have had upon his career, and about the perception by Abbott and others that he shoots too much. Bryant responded by comparing himself to an 18th century Austrian composer.

“Some people thought Mozart had too many notes in his compositions,” Bryant said. “Let me put it this way: I entertain people who say I shoot too much.”

Basketball as an on-court professional enterprise will end for the longtime Lakers cornerstone at 9:31pm on February 19, 2016 just seconds after nailing a contested fall-away jumper from the top of the key. At that point, his left leg which will have swollen to twice its normal size from the diverted femoral artery, will cease to support his weight properly.

He will answer questions from the media for approximately 22 minutes before going to the hospital for emergency surgery.

It’s four in the morning, the end of July. I have managed to translate a small passage from my telepathic conversation with Mr. Bryant. During the course of our discussion he predicted many things, some of which he wishes to share with you… (unintelligible bird sounds).

The start of Lakers training camp is still more than two months away. During that time there will be countless new articles to add to the Bryant lexicon, most of which will in some way center on his age and predictions of failure. Each piece will also contain no less than three sentences of obligatory homage to the Mamba’s greatness.

But his job is a job, after all. And he’ll probably transition to the next stage of his life without the painful soul-searching that causes actual humans to resort to the toolbar for alternate synonym suggestions and information about the Basilica of San Vitale.

Somewhere, a gyrocopter sails through a glorious rose-colored sky. Daughters wake their father and ask what’s for breakfast. A basketball bounces softly, repetitively. Birds sing mysterious songs.

You say you know but you don’t know.

One more article about Kobe Bryant is now in the history books.

THE ART OF HATING KOBE

Hate has been defined in Websters as “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury.”

It’s a strong word, used easily and often - in childhood quarrels, between lovers, by parents, by friends. It can be used to demean and hurt, and simply in lighthearted jest. It is evidently, a wonderfully multi-purpose word. I’ve been watching the Kobe Richter-scale for the past week, a series of low grade seismic bumps but you get the feeling that it wouldn't take much to send the digital villagers scampering for their creosote and torches. Bryant’s the man they love to hate.

It was the first half of the quarter finals against Australia and Kobe went 0-3 with some decidedly ugly turnovers. The railbirds went swinging for the fences. He was over and done, a shell of his former self. He came out in the second half and buried six consecutive threes and the narrative skidded to a halt. The whiplash effect bothered absolutely nobody. A sampling of subsequent articles revealed that for Kobe, the Olympics had just begun. The casual epitaphs went into the day file, the Lakers plucked Dwight Howard out of self-immolation and USA won the gold. This confluence of off-setting information caused rampant overload and confusion which was only sated by Breaking Bad discussions.

When athletes, actors and rock stars are still young and vibrant, writers begin stocking provisions for the winter that will eventually come. And, it’s not only observers who feed the narrative, it’s the central figures themselves. The Who’s My Generation famously proclaimed, “Hope I die before I get old.” Mick Jagger once said, “I’d rather be dead than be singing Satisfaction when I’m 45." And Sir Paul McCartney asked, “Will you still need me, when I’m 64?” And there he was at the Olympics opening ceremony, warbling at age 70. The seeds are planted early, and they germinate nicely. Time the avenger waits and grows and feeds conversations.

We watch and read and express our opinions. We combine ideas and words and re-purpose them for the digital age. Webster defines meme as an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. Richard Dawkins coined the term in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, defining it as a unit of cultural transmission. George Orwell considered the re-purposing of words much earlier, in a 1946 essay entitled Politics and the English Language. And then came Newspeak, the art of making words convenient, and of lesser value.

I doubt that Kobe cares much about our memes or deep thoughts. And as years go by, he doesn’t jump as high, and the stretches between his moments of greatness become longer. This is something that he does know, and has acknowledged. The body is made of blood and bone and connective tissue after all. Whether he cares about words is another matter. The kid who used to ignore Phil Jackson’s summer reading list has more recently admitted to picking up a book or two. And while he doesn’t tweet himself, he certainly keeps track of trends and discussions. After the win against Australia, Kobe said that he simply found something to get mad at. Most of twitter-dom assumed he meant them.

There is of course, the possibility that y’all don’t really hate Kobe. That it’s just a funny haha, a joke, get it? Because words don’t have to be dissected. It doesn’t have to get this awkward. They’re just keystrokes is all. Little clicks and tiny buttons on our phones. All in the art of hating. A cultural transmission for our times, in 140 characters or less. And besides, that was last week.

The stories about his growing up have been told and told again. His father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, took the family to Italy after his NBA days were done. They lived there for seven years and Kobe has said that he may too end his playing days in Europe. Joe himself played as recently as 2005, in the ABA. This year found him coaching in Bangkok. He has lived a basketball life. Like father, like son.

There are those whose hate seems real and legitimate. They will defend it, applying the same standards to team rivalries, or other hated sports figures. Or people. Or whatever. Fair enough. I hate spinach, and cleaning the litter box. And not having enough to pay the bills. Some will say that it’s not actually hate, it’s more of a dislike. A really intense dislike. Kobe Bryant bothers them, whether through his arrogance, or the unending tendency to take over games to the detriment of some greater good. Apart from winning, that is.

For those who don’t find this at all amusing, I’d ask with sincere curiosity. If you had the power, would you wish him away? Would you take away his childhood, the years in Italy, the unquenchable thirst to dominate? Would you vanish 16 seasons, 13 All-Star appearances, five NBA championships and his two gold medals? Would you take away the head fakes and jab steps, the art of drawing fouls and the withering stares? How about the Jordan tongue-wag, or the 81 points against the Raptors? Would you take away the feud with Shaq, or the the arguments with Phil Jackson?

In his book The Last Season, Jackson wrote of a conversation he had with general manager Mitch Kupchack, of his extreme frustration with Bryant. He said he wouldn’t come back to coach for another year if Kobe was still in the picture. We all know how that turned out. A season passed and a new one began, with a reunited coach and player. It seems almost funny now, that Kobe actually defends the triangle offense. Phil Jackson knows a little about hate himself. For all his rings, he was a pariah in the league.

Would you take it all away? Because it is all or nothing. Kobe may have mellowed to some degree, but he’s still an intensely polarizing figure. And you do not get to shape somebody or conform them through opinion or words. There is no mix and match. There is only who he is, or nothing at all. Do you change the game itself, and consider it as if he had never existed? He says that he is aware of the ticking clock, that the end of his NBA career is coming to a close. That will happen when it happens.

With both Howard and Nash on board, the Kobe hate becomes more of a conspiracy theory. It’s somehow all interconnected yet shifting and elusive. Burn them for they have traded successfully. And regardless, the Lakers won’t win anyway because Kobe will essentially sabotage their success on the alter of his fading greatness. Unless they actually do manage to buy themselves another ring and then it doesn’t matter, considering that the cards were already stacked.

The summer goes into its hibernation late this time, thanks to Olympic gold, thanks to free agency and trades that made some happy and some frown. And thanks to the fact that we’re not having to sweat late night pressers about basketball related income and the union wars. Fall will come soon enough and with it one more chapter of a generation of basketball that will be gone too soon. And if the loathing simply becomes too much to much to bear, remember that stirring, oft-quoted saying; “If you hate something, set it free; if it comes back it’s yours, if it doesn’t, it never was meant to be.”

BEWARE OF MAMBA

He has been sitting on his throne, watching and resting. He smiles sometimes, but not his eyes. He has taken notes and measurements. Kobe Bryant is the closest thing the league has to a cold-blooded, reptilian assassin. 

There are different narratives for different teams and fans, and for observers of the game who watch it incessantly - issuing opinions and pronouncements. Increasingly, there is the matter of numbers, charts, statistical truths. Because numbers don’t lie, they do not have that capability. There is a purity to them. As there is a purity to the clinically organized killer.

Tinker, tailor, solider, spy. Some love the journeymen, others are longshot players who'll bet their pockets on the outside rainbow, and some love the power game.  And then there’s those who like to infiltrate, to cast doubt, to argue the very validity of specialness or magic in your team, or your fandom.

These last are the darkest seeds. They long to be placed under your skin, to grow long tendrils. They want your arguments.

The anti-Lakers, anti-Kobe narrative is one of the league’s most consistently fascinating ones. You may argue this of course, because arguing is the endless tape loop of commentary. Why on earth didn’t they catch the killer? Because the movie would have been over in the first reel, dummy. And swaths of purple and gold in every arena. 

From J.R. Wilco at Pounding the Rock, in an ongoing series conversation with C.A. Clark at Silver Screen and Roll:

I hate being in the middle of a tense moment in the film and having the thought that the character who’s in trouble will certainly make it out of the situation, because he hasn’t yet said that line from the trailer that I liked so much.

Bryant has been sitting for the past seven games. During which, the Lakers have won five, lost two. By definition, this means that guys have stepped up. Two of the last seven games have been against the Spurs - the Lakers demolished them at the AT&T Center and the Spurs returned the favor at Staples. Game three of the series is at hand, back in San Antonio, and naturally, the script calls for the return of Kobe.

Here is where the torches burn brightest, where the cyber village becomes the most querulous and agitated. Is he going to try and take over? Will the team turn into wicker men, offered on the alter of his greatness? Whatever happens, Kobe can’t possibly be clutch because this has been proven to be statistically incorrect.

Of course, there could be the storyline that plays out best within a team's own fan base, the one that doesn't easily go viral. That a team continues to find its way, that a superstar in his 16th season returns after a much needed rest. That he faces a team he has faced so many times before.  And that Bynum and Gasol continue their front court dominance, MWP hits his outside shots, and new arrival Ramon Sessions continues to find the seams. And that Kobe will process and adjust, and do the most damage when it’s most needed. Because assassins don’t always kill in the first reel.

Watch out now, take care, beware, of soft shoe shufflers. Dancing down the sidewalks. As each unconscious sufferer, wanders aimlessly. Beware of Mamba.

In a wholly unrelated note, has anybody seen the Dark Shadows trailer? I don’t know, it’s a matter of remakes and cover songs – sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.

THE SEERSUCKER SEASON

The up and down season had coalesced in a dizzying drift of final games without the Lakers' superstar. A convincing win against the San Antonio Spurs, deep in enemy territory, followed by an equally satisfying home stand against the Dallas Mavericks – a regular season sweep against the world champions that didn’t nearly erase the stink of the previous year’s playoff ruination.

“Yada, yada, yada. What a wad of drek.” America's sideline reporter slammed his laptop shut. 

A man sitting across the aisle peered owlishly. “I hope we can trust you without a chaperone on this trip, Craig. No more androids or electric sheep?”

Sager looked sideways and grinned. “It’ll be fine, Ernie. We’ve gone too far for shenanigans. It’s home stretch time.” He called up the aisle. “Can I get some more peanuts back here?” A red-haired attendant with an hourglass figure sighed and looked in her cart. Craig closed his eyes and sat back. The lines in his chin seemed etched ever deeper these days. The 747 banked down over endless squares of earth tones and stucco.

The hospitality suite at Staples Center boasted a buffet table laden with shrimp, roast beef and cute little cups filled with gourmet candy. Craig was in heaven. Resplendent in seersucker, he alternately feasted and wrapped parcels of food in napkins, and stashed them for later.

“Your pockets are invitations for serpents and reprimand.” The speaker had white hair and used a cane.

“Gah!” Craig jumped back a foot. “Oh, hey there Phil... Mr. Jackson. You scared me. What are you doing here? And where’s that guy with the robe and funny incense pots from the last post?"

“Oh, you mean Zorad? He’s around somewhere.” Phil smiled disarmingly. “Right there behind you.”

Craig’s head swiveled. “Gah!!” He jumped back in a wholly different direction. The man in the white robe had milky eyes and held up his hand in some serene devil manner. Sager screwed his own eyes shut. When he opened them, everything had become normal-like again.

Zorad smiled pleasantly. He had a kind face and was wearing an organic cotton shirt with a Nehru collar. “I’m sorry if I alarmed you. That’s an interesting suit you’re wearing. In Hindustani we call it ‘shir o shekar’, meaning milk and sugar.”

Craig smiled tightly. “That’s fine.” He grabbed a handful of butter mints and shoved them in his pocket before edging away. He was about to leave when he noticed a thin black wire with a tiny bulb shape at the end, hidden beneath a platter of salmon.

“That’s a computer jack, Craig. We provide them as a courtesy for our friends in the media.” Jeanie Buss smiled sweetly, moving over to Phil and Zorad.

Craig put the wire back where he found it. “That doesn’t look like any computer jack I’ve ever seen. I wear mics, I know about this stuff.”

“Of course you do, Craig. Are you still with TNT?” Jeanie nestled hear head against Phil’s chest. Sager scowled and left the room.

The sideline seersucker found his way down to courtside. Kobe Bryant was sitting completely alone on the bench, wearing a nice Italian suit, watching a couple players in warmups, tossing up baskets.

“Hey Kobester, mind if I sit a spell?”

Kobe shrugged, gestured benignly. Sager settled in. Kobe was at least a head higher than him. “Is that Phil’s old throne you’re on?”

“Nope.”

“Heh. It makes you look like you’re taller than the coaches.”

“I am taller than the coaches.”

“Oh. I’m pretty tall.”

“You’re not that tall.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while. “So, big game. You’re not playing tonight?”

Kobe shrugged. “They're figuring it out upstairs. I don't  think so.”

Sager reached into his pocket and pulled out a napkin-wrapped parcel. He opened it up and held it toward Bryant. “Want some?”

Kobe peered over. “What is that thing? Part of a cheeseburger?”

“Yup, it’s from the hospitality suite.”

“I might have just a little piece.” Kobe tore off a chunk and chewed. “It’s pretty nasty.”

A very tall player in a Spurs uniform came of the tunnel and looked around. He approached the seated men. “You’re not really sitting out again, are you Bryant? Seriously?”

Kobe laughed shortly. “Like you don’t take nights off, Tim. Don't worry about it.”

Duncan continued to stare. “There’s no need to get huffy. We’re just having a conversation.”

Kobe waved him off. “How are those supermarket commercials working out for you?’

Tim Duncan turned is attention to Craig’s suit for a long moment, then stalked away. Sager looked over at Bryant. “Wow. That was kind of awkward.”

Kobe shrugged. “Not for me it wasn’t.”

The control room was filled with screens, computers, dials. Two technicians in white shirts choreographed the scene. One was middle-aged, sardonic with a receding hairline. The other was a bit older, glasses, craggy face. Graphics scrolled down one screen, test patterns on another. A camera zoomed in on Sager and Kobe. The younger technician frowned. “He’s supposed to play. It’s in the script.”

The older tech spun a dial. “Oh, he’ll play. Cue the testosterone.” A slight mist appeared under Kobe’s chair.

The blogger entered and cleared his throat. “Excuse me. This is still my basketball confessional. Thanks.” He walked over to a screen and twisted a large, retro-looking dial. A new image flickered to life – an old dog with thick black fur hobbling though a field, sniffing the ground and stopping to squat awkwardly.

The younger tech looked at his partner and grimaced. “Oh geez, are you kidding me?”

Pixilate to black.

From a season that might have been lost, to uncertain first steps and new faces, this didn’t look to be a championship team. Many doubted it would be a good team. Looking around, it’s hard to see a prohibitive favorite. Miami and Chicago have each had missteps – strong but not unbeatable. The champion Mavericks have had their tribulations. OKC just got stomped by the surging Clippers and then there's the Spurs, riding a streak of nine and two.

And so they meet for the second of three games, all within an extraordinarily compressed period. The Lakers weren’t expected to win in San Antonio without Kobe but, they did – Andrew Bynum’s 30 rebound night was undeniably memorable. A team found itself and came together, and its superstar is enjoying a much needed respite. And even without him, we’re propelling through transcendent stretches once again, the celebration of basketball and visceral joy.

The page lurched and froze, and burned to white. The glare of the screen began to fill with saturated color - lush green fields undulated, and creatures of every kind jumped through painted portals. Pinwheels and beautiful cloud formations, a thousand guitars echoing in unison, as finger cymbals chimed. The soundtrack flanged like a jet engine, and flocks of shorebirds flew northward in a giant crescent shape, across the rainbow sky. And Sager, resplendent in top hat, tails and cane, went dancing down the sideboard. Kobe stood and watched, and clapped, filled with a child’s wonder that had so long eluded him.

The scene ended with a loud ugly scratch, the sound of a needle scratching across vinyl.

CUT TO control room. The older technician smiled smugly and keyed his mic, speaking in a mellifluous voice. “Mr. Bryant, it’s time to come back now. We’re clearing you to play.”

A lovely girl in a lab coat and clipboard, frowned. “Dave’s not going to like this.”

The younger tech leaned back in his swivel chair, locking his hands behind his head. “Dave goes along with whatever brings the traffic.”

The older tech nodded sagely.  And the girl looked as if she was about to cry. “That’s soooo sad, I love his writing.”

The psychedelic sounds bled through the speakers and a voice drew their attention to the screen, Craig Sager was grinning his biggest toothy grin, and soft shoe shuffling for all he was worth. “I’m ready for my closeup now!”

The red phone on the wall rang. The techs turned and stared. “Oh, shit.” The younger one trudged over and picked up the line. And listened. And the girl in the lab coat smiled and watched, as the tall basketball player stepped back through the portal, and joined the man in the top hat and tails.

You're 2000 light years from home.

ONCE IN A LIFETIME

A lot can happen in a week’s time. Last Sunday, Dwayne Wade broke Kobe Bryant’s nose in the All-Star game. In the three games since, Kobe scored 102 points. He also led his team to convincing wins in all three games, including a victory against Wade’s Miami Heat.

Second impact syndrome is the terminology for what can happen when an athlete receives a second concussion before fully recovering from an initial, even minor concussion. I won’t go into the details but it involves swelling of the brain and unrelieved pressure – not pleasant stuff. Kobe was diagnosed with a concussion on a Tuesday, as well as soft tissue damage in his neck to go along with his broken nose. He was allowed into action the following day. 

Kobe’s game against the Timberwolves was stunningly successful, a masked bandit pouring in 31 efficient points in 33 minutes. Why 33 minutes? Because the Laker lead dipped to a mere 19, late in the 4th quarter. Coach Brown in his infinite wisdom sent Kobe back out to protect this tenuous situation. Not to worry about the broken nose, the concussion and the damage to his neck.

Two nights later, the Lakers are up by 10 with only seconds left against he Sacramento Kings. Keith Smart sees a teaching opportunity and calls a time out. A natural segue for Kobe to take his place on the bench considering the considerable time he’s been logging this season, not to mention that whole concussion/neck injury thing. Nope, Brown sends him back – the Kings foul Kobe hard and he heads back to the line.

Sunday – the Miami Heat come to town, a major storyline considering that it was Wade who did the bloody deed a week earlier. The Heat are widely considered the favorites to take it all this year. The Lakers picked them apart – perhaps their most convincing win this season. Kobe was an assassin and the rest of the team stepped up as well. Andrew dominated inside and Metta World Peace was as dialed in as I’ve seen him in a long time. Pau played well, Steve Blake played well, they all played well - crisply, cohesively, with meaning.

And you may ask yourself, well, how did we get here?

The Lakers ended last season by cleaning house and hiring Mike Brown. An excerpt from a May 27, post entitled This Is Not My Beautiful House:

There are contingency plans of course, in the event that cooler heads prevail and a season is somehow salvaged. For the Lakers, this entailed finding a coach who could follow Phil Jackson, a coach who would bring a fractured team back together and lead them to the promised land. After careful consideration, they hired Mike Brown. Pause for the sound of a gigantic shoe dropping with a loud, dull thud. Yes, that guy from the Cavs, the one last seen with LeBron’s tire tracks across his back. He was on ESPN the other night, grinning huge at the prospect of working with Kobe. I’m sure Kobe’s excited to be working with Brown as well, henceforth to be known as the big bulls-eye.

What was Jim Buss thinking? You probably don’t want to know, I suspect his mind is a soggy and dangerous place. He often talks of learning at the hand of Mitch Kupchak but it’s a crock – the only guy who sat at the right hand of Kupchak was Ronnie Lester, 25 years with the Lakers and the one really responsible for scouting and championing Andrew Bynum. Lester is now joining the exiting conga-line of coaches, scouts, trainers and video staff, courtesy of Jimmy’s sloppily wielded truncheon.

Cooler heads did not prevail – the league would soon shut out its players, resulting in a protracted lockout in which a cabal of owners attempted to shut things down for a season and break the players’ union, it was a time of strangeness and abstractions. That a season was rescued at all was due to lawsuits from the players – a ludicrous checkerboard schedule followed, along with predictable injuries and spotty up-and-down play.

The Lakers’ abbreviated preseason brought them a blockbuster trade that was summarily scuttled by David Stern, the trade of Lamar Odom for financial reasons, and the rupture of some key ligaments in Kobe Bryant’s shooting wrist. And so their season began, with three games in three days - Kobe played with the torn-up wrist, naturally.

The team itself went through a series of lineup experiments as the season progressed, a dizzying array of rotations that baffled most observers, along with the players themselves. The musical chairs lasted until this past week when Brown declared himself settled (notwithstanding the fact that Pau Gasol remains on the block).

You may ask yourself, how do I work this?

A couple weeks ago, Kobe Bryant spoke up for beleaguered teammate Pau Gasol, blasting the front office for keeping the guy dangling. It’s not a good way for management to promote team unity and success. Kobe’s statement however, was a good way to promote team unity and success. Ken Berger was one of many to write about the team’s deteriorating front office.

The Lakers’ front office is an uncommunicative, rudderless fiasco, and the unrest and paranoia that have been festering for years threaten to derail the team’s plans to ride Bryant to his sixth NBA title while they still can. And much of it can be traced to the growing influence of executive vice president Jim Buss, the owner’s bon vivant son, who has helped transform a great franchise into a steaming pool of nepotism and nincompoops.

General manager Mitch Kupchak responded to Kobe’s statement in the only way he really could, preserving the right to make personnel changes when needed. Lakers icon Magic Johnson put himself into the mix via a conference call with reporters, stating that Jim Buss is the one running the show, not Mitch Kupchak. Magic elaborated on television, “I’ve been with the Laker organization for almost 35 years, and this is really the saddest, the most disappointed that I’ve been.”

Roland Lazenby, author of numerous sports biographies, columns and other good writings, unleashes some wonderful threads on his twitter account. During the height of the Buss/Magic/Kobe tempest, he opined acerbically on the subject of the Lakers blowing out the minutes of their most valuable asset:

A season like this could burn Kobe’s candle out quickly. It’s a big price paid for a new CBA. Kobe won’t decide to retire. His knees will make that decision for him. He’s long known that. A basketball player’s knees are like a rock musician’s ears. They wear our and leave you crippled or deaf. That’s the real price of it all.

Race horses are surprisingly delicate creatures. They’re bred for blinding speed, and support themselves on incredibly spindly legs. As they run, their hooves hit the ground independently, 2,000 pounds of crashing weight. Each year about 800 die in the United States as a result of on-track injuries. Somebody could ask Jim Buss about this – the guy running the front office into the ground used to train his dad’s racehorses.

The racehorse analogy’s a tough one for me. I actually love going to the track, or at least I love the memory of it. I bought a fake ID when I was 13 and would go to the Del Mar summer meets until my meager savings were exhausted. It’s a brutal sport though. Ever see a horse break down in the home stretch? They struggle to cross the finish line, ankles sometimes flopping - whether it’s the instinctual drive to win or simply a sad attempt to outrun the pain, who knows. They can’t speak.

Like most of the teams in the NBA, the Lakers have had a jagged up and down season. The common wisdom is that they don’t have the talent to go all the way – hence the nonstop trade rumors. There can be no doubt that the team has been playing better since Kobe spoke out in support of Gasol. A couple days later, after a win against Portland, the team held a brief players only meeting, and further circled the wagons.

A litany of injuries over 16 seasons, from shoulder to knees to ankles, gnarled fingers that no longer grip the ball as strongly, the torn-up wrist that somehow self-healed and now pushing through a head injury that didn’t seem to faze him a bit. Somehow he perseveres. His ability to will mind over matter his astounding – he terms it “adjusting”. Terminator-esque, shedding parts along the way. Muhammad Ali used to will his mind over body, laying on the ropes and inviting punishment, waiting for his moment to counter with dazzling flashes that became fewer and more far between as age and punishment took its toll. As we all know now, he paid a heavy price for the blows to his head.

Throw a dart at the season’s schedule, ask at any random juncture where the Lakers should be. Take fans’ temperatures regarding trades, ask those who ponder such things if Brown was the right choice, if gutting an organization is clear-headed thinking, if Lamar’s trade exception should remain unspent, if anybody thought the team would be in fourth place in the west right now and climbing.

The game against Miami looked different, just as the past few games have looked different – the white light that leaks from the edges, the blurring of age and injury-defying moves, time standing still once more as it always seems to in this game when brilliance unfolds.

The future doesn’t always play out as predicted – LeBron’s Heat lost to the Lakers this afternoon and afterward, he came over and gave Brown a cordial hug. Wade just stared with a towel over his head. As for Kobe, he was giving an on-court interview at the time, relaying how it feels to play with a plastic mask covering his face – this in the wake of three games in which he averaged 36 minutes and 34 points. And I can make no real sense of it except to take it as it comes. Once in a lifetime.

DAY OF THE LOCUST

The post holiday blues had nestled into the folds - it's that time of year again. The season drifted across three lanes before realignment peeked its bright face in – the Lakers notched their first win and in doing so, chased the gathering storm away. This was not a switch being thrown, simply a team adjusting to a system, finding their range, finding each other.

A prolonged work stoppage benefits nobody. It’s not a rest-cure, it did nothing to promote parity and with the full knowledge of missteps pulling like a wound, David Stern stepped deliberately and awkwardly over the line. He can bluster about being a caretaker for the New Orleans Hornets but his stewardship, along with equal partnership from the 29 other teams, should have been a step removed. Executives are in place for the Hornets - it is their job to run the ship, regardless of ultimate ownership. The commissioner backhands your concerns like a mad mood child and stalks away.

We haven’t heard much about the hardliners lately. They’ve withdrawn into the shadows, as a season they didn’t want, begins to unspool. Dan Gilbert became the public face of a certain cadre and it was curious from step one because he’s such an utter failure as a team owner. The only one worse is Donald Sterling who at least knows which side his bread is buttered on – he stayed out of harm's way during the lockout and somehow wound up with Chris Paul. There is no lesson learned here, no parable, no rhyme or reason. It’s a strangeness that simply exists all on its own.

The love-hate relationship that much of the country has with the Lakers, mirrors the attitude toward Los Angeles itself. Top on the hit list is the catch-all "Hollyweird" description, easily one of the most unimaginative phrases ever coined. Fortunately, weather patterns and foliage discussions can often be used to charm hinterland creatures - mention blue skies and waving palm fronds and wait for the wistful "some day" sighs, followed invariably by "I've got a great idea for a TV series, it's kinda based on me."  Thanks for that, always.

That Jerry Buss and his family-run business are somehow synonymous with entitlement and rings on a silver platter, escapes me. An odd family, yes. But not nearly in the same financial stratosphere as most of the so-called hawks. Dan Gilbert’s worth scads more from selling retail loans and Paul Allen’s fortune is somewhere around $23 billion, depending on how much he’s spending on his super-yacht 'Octopus' in any given week. Allen was chief among those who wanted to either cancel the season or corral more of Jerry Buss’s earnings, to compensate for their own teams’ failure to launch.

Regardless of past Lakers precepts, this year’s model under Mike Brown’s direction is more lunch bucket than showtime, an amalgamation of aging stars, second-round draft picks and journeymen role players. Kobe Bryant had the ligaments in his right wrist torn during a preseason outing against the Clippers. The ligaments aren’t necessarily important, they only hold the bones in place. Taking this all into account, Bryant has decided that the proper course of action is to continually drive hard to the basket and offer his mangled arm up for retribution. And make no mistake, opposing players are drawing a bead. Nobody's better than Kobe, at Russian roulette basketball.

With three games in as many days, the Lakers have been a work in progress. They blew a late lead against the Bulls on Christmas, imploded against the Kings and demolished the Jazz on a night when their legs should have been dead. They face the Knicks tonight and get Andrew Bynum back from suspension in time for Saturday’s game against Denver (the first of a Nuggets back-to-back). It’s a brutal first stretch in a compressed season but it's welcome after a year gone wrong. The system restores, the cathode ray tube warms and blurs and the season embraces us, once again.

thirty-three

One if these days I’ll wake up and the A/C won’t need to be on, perhaps not for an entire day. I yearn for cool and gray but facts is facts, summers in Texas don’t end in August or September. The school year and other seasonal benchmarks may commence but the triple-digit days will continue. Our esteemed governor (and presidential hopeful) is on record as not believing in the science of warming. He also recently opined that people in California move here for the weather. I lived a major portion of my life in Southern California. Nobody from that region moves here for the weather.  Nobody.

At the end of the Lakers’ season, I wrote about letting Phil Jackson go, about gratitude for the long and chaotic ride. The stunning loss to Dallas was so thorough, that finding a form of acceptance was like a port in a storm. I haven’t changed my mind about Phil coming back - his body’s simply too broken to sustain more coaching. Regardless, it’s the Mike Brown era now, for as long as it lasts and assuming it even begins which is assuming a lot these days. Still, there’s the time-stamps, triggers that slip in and allow you to steal away.

Kobe Bryant turned 33 a few days back, his birthday was noted across the blogger universe. Phillip Barnett at FB&G asked readers for their favorite memories and I was tempted to encapsulate a feeling but found it rambling and amorphous - late night thoughts dodged and drifted as I fell into a few hours sleep.  These elusive thieves lingered over coming days - that from all the transcendent moments, I’m struck by Kobe's darkest, most fractured period.  Not incidentally, the 2003-2004 season was chronicled in one of the most incendiary sports journals ever written, Phil Jackson’s "The Last Season".

It was a tough and ugly time in Denver. The hurt and repercussions rumbled across the western conference’s fractured tectonic plates and beyond. It was messy, it engendered anger and mistrust and bandages were ripped off as quickly as they were applied. Kobe entered training camp late, coming off knee surgery and in the middle of a court case that would have him flying frequently, weighing less than we had ever seen and raging at everything and everyone. If there was a time when a person would want support, if there was a time not to pick a fight with Shaq, this would have been it. He picked a main card of course. Two days before opening night, the L.A. Times’ Tim Brown wrote about the Return of Star Wars.  Jim Gray's ESPN interview followed and a bumpy season was underway.

Past trials and tribulations are no obvious means to a celebration. These were portals however, to a complicated season that in ways, mirrored our last one. Each ended in epic series losses, with Phil Jackson riding off. Each featured Kobe in significant transitional stages. He turned 25 just prior to the 2003-2004 season but his body seemed much older - a dizzying parade of injuries, surgeries and injuries again. The act of playing provided sanctuary however, these isolated moments contrasted and transformed, set apart from the court dates and loss of endorsements, the feuds with Shaq and Phil.

Kobe wrenched his surgically repaired right shoulder in January. Upon coming back, he promptly sliced an index finger open. He showed up against Orlando with his arm and shoulder swathed in a padded blue sleeve. Stu Lantz said he was basically playing with one hand. What followed was one of the season’s most memorable games as he dueled against T-Mac, taking over in a patented 4^th quarter bombardment.

The series against the Spurs was a prime example of Kobe overcoming obstacles - flying back and forth for court dates, often looking exhausted before games and taking IV fluids after. He put on a memorable clinic in game 4 with 42 points, owning everyone in the second half and absolutely torching Bruce Bowen, time and again. Check out the elevation, even on shaky pins.

I still think the Lakers would have beaten Detroit with a healthy Karl Malone but a loss is a loss and with it came the dismantling of the team. The finals were not without a few highlight reels however and none better than Kobe sticking a 3-pointer in Rip Hamilton’s face to send the game into overtime. Phil referred to it as the "what the fuck", a play he learned from Red Holzman who could never remember its name. Watch the footage as the ball goes from Shaq to Luke to Kobe, with Hamilton caught on a switch. It would be their lone victory in the 2004 finals, one more than 2011.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning a moment of unintentional levity. With free agency looming, Kobe threatened to walk and take Slava with him. Phil thought it "the worst plan imaginable" but for me it was pure gold. Was there some unlikely kinship between the two?  I can remember them on the bench with Kobe gesturing in animated fashion, perhaps delving into the complexities of the game and even beyond.  Slava nodded in a typically stoic manner and watched whatever was in front of him. Islands in the sea.

It's these elusive moments that tugged at me while reading Phillip's post - not highlight reels in their entirety but those sections within a game as Kobe found his groove.  Sometimes his scowl would drop, sometimes it wouldn't.  Sometimes a crowd would carry him, sometimes he performed in pure defiance.  But for me there were little pieces of light that jabbed at a dark season, time signatures from a brilliant career.

Eight years have passed and his birthday is again marked by a summer of turmoil and transition. His team was blown out in the finals, the coach that he’d finally found peace with left. Brian Shaw was fired and Mike Brown was hired, without Bryant’s knowledge or input. The layoffs continued and even the owner that he had come to rely on throughout the years, faded into the woodwork, replaced by a son whose priority is Andrew Bynum.  And then came the lockout.

A younger Kobe would have fired in all directions. I look at a player who was isolated from others in the community and see him now, mobbed at the Drew League, speaking for solidarity at a union meeting, traveling the globe, smiling and reaching out. I see a family that’s intact, healthy and happy. And, a guy who in real and meaningful ways, learned and came out the other side.  Still, to old doubters and a new generation that may yet see a season of basketball - beware the smile of a killer. Happy thirty-three.

SEASON OF THE WITCH

One of my earliest memories is standing by the side of the road in a small New England town, around age 4, with my older brother and his wiseacre friends. I hear the wail of a fire engine, ask where it’s going. There’s a witch in the woods, comes the answer. I run home sobbing in abject terror. The deepest fear is often anticipation.

There’s a percolating sense of malaise in Laker Nation lately, whispers and gnawing doubts across the cyber universe, are these our championship Lakers? Third place in the west isn’t bad but probably not what Phil Jackson had in mind when he announced his grand last stand. Pau’s got tired legs, Ron’s trying to explain why he still doesn’t get the triangle and Kobe’s putting up circus shots, annoyed about the lack of team energy. You’ve got to pick up every stitch. Lesser teams aren’t going to hand you their hopes on a platter.

After the loss to the Bulls the other night, the press reported that Phil was unfazed and equally ambivalent about the likelihood of it being his last coaching experience at the United Center. Girlfriend Jeanie Buss however, tweeted that he was in a BAAAD mood, made worse by people in Chicago acting like it’s his funeral. "We may never see you again". Who are we supposed to believe, Phil at the podium or Jeanie giving a personal side? Easy answer, we love the game absolutely but can’t help putting a dramatic spin on it, it’s the reason after all for articles, editorials, abstractions in every form of social media and of course, fantasy leagues.

I’ve been an unapologetic fan these many years and don’t mean any doom. It’ll all be fine and after hand-wringing and blame (it’s Sasha’s fault for his .08 seconds of uneventful play), we usually band together in forms of unity. Still, I do think the battery’s having a hard time holding a charge, the oil’s dirty and the cylinder’s aren’t firing all that smooth. A good friend and ardent Spurs fan floated the theory that we’re just mind fucking with everyone. I responded that playing like crap isn’t Montaigne. (actually I used the mind fucking term but spell check just changed it to the father of modern skepticsm - kind of ironic, doncha think?). When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see? Some other cat, looking over his shoulder at me.

Sunday, the Lakers on the second of their six-game roadie, barely eking out a win against the lowly Nets. Pau says he wasn’t getting any calls, Ron shot 1-for-7, our bench was thoroughly outscored and Kobe’s still pissed about the excuses. Next up, Washington, Indiana, Philadelphia and Toronto with an aggregate win percentage of .374. Why does that worry me? Bynum’s supposed to be back in action at some point and I was supposed to be rich and famous. Christmas Day brings the improving Heat and the pick-and-roll Spurs visit on the 28^th, currently playing the best ball in the league. I think I hear sirens, must be the season of the witch.