The arc of their careers makes it conveniently appropriate for the cult of sports writers — unified in theme and thought — to bill this first-round NBA playoffs series as rising star versus falling star. After all, even the sun will one day implode.
If Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers lose to Kevin Durant and Oklahoma City, it’s time to scientifically conclude that Thunder comes before lightning. Or so the media say.
Yet I remain unmoved. How can it be, one year removed from an NBA title, that Bryant is embarking on the tailspin of his career? Bryant’s injuries notwithstanding, could the NBA’s acclaimed heir apparent to Jordan be falling off, a former shell of himself?
At the very least, can we wait until this series concludes before making such grand statements? Right now, with the series tied 2-2 and heading back to Los Angeles, my money is on Bryant, despite the Thunder’s 29-point steamrolling of the Lakers in Game 4.
Could I be misguided and naïve for having faith in Bryant, for assuming these playoffs, if he and the Lakers should lose, don’t call to mind Bryant’s fade-to-black decline?
All I know is, in an era intent upon celebrating youth, too often the elderly are subject to career euthanasia. The 31-year-old Bryant fits the typical narrative, a superstar said to be beyond his prime, caught between the purgatory of good and great, glimpses of both cropping up and further fueling a contentious debate.
So much text has been compiled describing the “evolution” of Bryant’s game.
Let’s be real, though.
Basketball is the only sport in which the phrase “evolution” is a backhanded slight, the implicit meaning being that a player does not possess the spunk he once did.
Those are the exact phrases being casually tossed around in conjunction with Bryant, enough to lead Lakers’ head coach Phil Jackson to paraphrase — at best, bungle at worst — the father of literature, Mark Twain’s timeless words.
After Bryant’s 39-point performance in Game 2, Jackson wrote off the swirling innuendo that Bryant’s lack of production lately is a telltale sign “Black Mamba’s” venom is now less potent.
“What did Mark Twain say?” evoked Jackson. “‘Rumors of my demise,’ or whatever.”
Whatever? Even though it’s the equivalent of misidentifying the NBA’s greatest player, Michael Jordan, forgive Jackson for misquoting Twain. Inasmuch as it’s irreverent, Jackson’s paraphrase is appropriate.
The mainstream media is inclined to prematurely scroll Bryant’s fall from grace, paralleled with Durant’s meteoric rise to fame.
This series is a springboard to aid the dialogue. As it stands, Durant is the anti-Bryant: accommodating to the media and too adolescent to know it’s the media who are first to burn athletes. To the contrary, Bryant is terse, sarcastic and talks in sweeping generalizations. And even though Bryant is 31 years old, logic stands that 30 is not the new 20 in the NBA.
Moreover, the fact that Durant became the NBA’s youngest scoring champion this year — scoring 30.1 points per contest — stands to be painted as a pass-the-torch accomplishment. Much was made of Durant holding Bryant to 2-of-10 shooting in Game 3, the furor reaching a fever pitch after Bryant passive aggressively scored 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the field in Game 4. Yet it’s worth noting Bryant has four championship rings to Durant’s zero. Of further note, this is Durant’s first playoff experience.
But all I hear is the conversation about Bryant’s achy and arthritic knees, how he conserves his energy for the fourth quarter in hopes of turning in a rare ghost of Kobe’s past moment.
To these people I say: Thunder signals how far out lightning is. But how many times has thunder harmed a human being? Wait and see. Kobe’s patented playoff torrential downpour is in the clouds.
*Lakers vs. Thunder
Tuesday
8:30 p.m.
Staples Center
*
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