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Mamba Out. Those were Kobe’s parting words as he said goodbye to basketball.
Since then, words have been fired off memorializing Kobe Bryant, in volume like they are Black Mamba field goal attempts. If you have a take — of any temperature — on what Kobe means, or who Kobe is, or what Kobe’s legacy will be, the last few weeks have been your Kobe-Rumspringa.
We’ve seen legends retire, but I can’t remember a generational athlete hanging them up while leaving so many questions in his or her wake. How do we balance the on-and-off-court Kobe Bryants? Why is Kobe Bryant so overwhelmingly popular? Is it fair to call Kobe Bryant a hero?
Unquestionably, Kobe is an all-time great, a legend, and a champion. Kobe was a high school maestro. He has five rings, which puts him in exclusive company for an NBA-er that didn’t play on Celtics dynasties of the 1950s and 60s or with Michael Jordan. Kobe’s achievements make him a historic great (undoubtedly between number 10 and 20 all-time), but the public’s adoration for him makes Kobe legendary.
Many have the talent, success, and swagger, but Kobe was another beast. Like Kobe’s basketball idols before him, he was a cold-blooded asshole. On the court Kobe was relentless, exploiting opponents’ weaknesses time and time again. It’s no wonder the man chose to compare himself to a snake when he instituted his own nickname, Black Mamba. And it wasn’t always venomous bites, but often a slow, methodical overpowering, taking four quarters to choke out his victims.
Sometimes, he was even cold-blooded to his own teammates. He trashed Andrew Bynum on-camera in a mall parking lot. He took out three teammates at once in a local newspaper. And while infamously dealing with his own philandering problems, he publicized that Shaq paid “hush money” to his mistresses. And even when basketball Kobe was at his worst, hurling a gay slur at a referee, basketball writers still found a way to humanize him.
Furthermore, a conversation about Kobe’s legacy that ignores his “alleged rape” is incomplete. The story is well-documented and regardless of whether he was convicted, Kobe settled the civil suit and admitted to an extramarital transgression that night. For too many people though, either time (almost 13 years later) or basketball success (MVPs, scoring titles, rings, and rings) have whitewashed over his darkest moment.
And in the court of public opinion, Kobe stays winning. In his last few years, Kobe has been showered with “MVP” chants in most NBA arenas and his jerseys are still so popular even in his 20th season.
This year’s retirement-mode Kobe is a reflection of all the Kobes that came before him, including the wreck that the Lakers have become. Kobe’s last three seasons have cost the Lakers $79 million and have produced a mere 65 wins. Kobe has played in only 107 games (out of 246) in the three worst seasons of Lakers results since the 1950s. Each of the three seasons has gotten worse than the one before it.
All of that has added a new feature to Kobe’s game: humility. Today, the cold-blooded hardwood killer, the singularly-focused machine, the win-at-all-costs monster can laugh. He’s entered a self-actualized and self-deprecating state. The losses, the misses, being on the receiving end of big plays have taken their toll, and perhaps that’s helped Kobe win over a new class of fans.
Kobe has flaws, but that might be the only ordinary thing about him. For 20 years, he’s been one of the NBA’s biggest stars, shining brighter than most, so his flaws are magnified by his stage. We’ve never known as much about superstar athletes’ personal lives as we do today, and that is something that has not helped Kobe. It’s fair to think that Kobe’s transcendence from sports into everyday pop culture life has hurt as much as it has helped him.
Kobe always has been someone so easily labeled; his career defined by binary outcomes. So is Kobe a hero? Is Kobe a bad guy? Why can’t he be both?
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