2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Kobe

John Bazemore/AP

It’s impossible to discuss Kobe Bryant without intangibles dominating the conversation. As with any player of his stature and cultural significance, particularly in professional sports, his identity becomes indistinguishable from his legend, with the mythology often overshadowing the actual performance (see: Jeter, Derek). It can be reductive; when the idolatry distracts from the reality, and our over-reliance on the un-provable prevents us from appreciating the unique talent that originally inspired the legend (see: Chappelle, David). And sometimes, it can be apt, and the seemingly-empty phrases somehow make sense, touching on the unknown (see: Bryant, Kobe “Bean”).


His career transcends statistics and numbers, relying mostly on the mythology to propagate his legend. When Kobe makes a couple of high-pressure baskets in a close game, he isn’t simply talented and a great player, he instead rises to the occasion when it matters most and puts his team on his back by single-handedly taking over with his clutch abilities (also, magic). It’s easy, and a bit lazy, and reduces his hard-work and preparedness to an abstract, but there is a place for it; it’s just trying to find the line, and the reason behind it.

Arguing in narratives is a double-edged sword, though. It’s a slippery slope from clutch to inefficient, hard-worker to obsessive, tough to stubborn, or over-competitive to asshole. No player walks that tight-rope better than Kobe Bryant.

The solution to every problem in his NBA career has been for Kobe to just work harder. If it’s a fractured left knee, for example, or a rebuilding roster lacking in direction, he attacks his problems with an intense devotion and sets impossible standards for himself that seem entirely unrealistic. It’s that indomitable will that lends itself to the hero myths of his fans, giving him yet another comparable to his predecessor, Michael Jordan, and inspires confidence in his comeback from any injury, regardless of age or severity. Whereas other, more-tragic athletes like Bill Walton or Brandon Roy were ultimately defeated by the limited-ness of their bodies, Kobe Bryant’s appears to take secondary status to his mental toughness, as if it’s afraid of letting him down.

There’s perhaps no better compliment to his work ethic than the universal dismissal of the injuries that knocked Kobe out of all but six games last season. To any other, maybe mortal, athlete in their late-30’s, missing a whole season because of a torn Achilles in April and a lateral tibial plateau fracture in their left knee in December of 2013 would spawn serious retirement discussions and cause concern as to future ramifications. Of course Kobe was already rehabbing diligently and angling to come back to the Lakers by late-March of a lost season. It was management’s insistence that he take the necessary precautions and return in October of 2014, rather than risking further injury on the worst team in the franchise’s Los Angeles history.

It’s that last distinction that could present the toughest obstacle to Kobe Bryant’s storied career, and the one problem that hard work and tenacity might not solve, or could even exacerbate. At the heart of Kobe’s singular will to win is an unwavering confidence, nay, narcissism, in his own abilities; that he alone can will his team to win.

As one of a handful of most talented players to ever play the game, he’s mostly been proven correct in his career. Even as a high school basketball player in Philadelphia, young Kobe exhibited the necessary talent, focus, and acumen needed to get his name onto NBA draft boards and the minds of Dr. Jerry Buss and Jerry West of the Lakers. In fact, when I interviewed a columnist from The Providence Journal as a senior in high school (Mr. Bill Reynolds) and asked him which sporting events stood out to him in a career spent covering sports, his first choice was watching a teenaged Kobe completely eviscerate his peers in a random high school tournament game in the New England area. Then he mentioned the Bill Buckner game from the 1986 World Series (Game 6). Young Kobe was that good.

He was also completely charismatic and exuded the confidence and star potential that he would fully realize in the NBA. Being named the best high school basketball player in the country is quite the accomplishment, but it pales in comparison to approaching a 17-year old Brandy at an event and inviting her to your Senior Prom. Entering the draft, he hired super-agent Arn Tellem and worked the media to ensure that he ended up with the Los Angeles Lakers, with the Charlotte Hornets trading his draft rights for center Vlade Divac.

The first year in LA involved setting records in his limited minutes on the court. Bryant was the youngest player to ever play a game (for a few months, before fellow-1996 draftee Jermaine O’Neal got into a game), ever to start a game, and the youngest to win the Slam Dunk Contest, while averaging 15.5 minutes in his rookie season. Kobe’s rookie year also doubled as Shaquille O’Neal’s debut season with the Lakers, and the team won 56 games and reached the second round of the NBA playoffs before being eliminated by the veteran Utah Jazz.

It was the end of Game 5 of the Western Conference Semi-Finals against Utah which cemented Kobe’s star status, for all the positives and negatives that came with it. Throwing up four air balls in the final minutes of regulation and overtime drew mainstream criticism but it also embodied the exquisite confidence needed to succeed at the highest level of professional sports. Even his future rival, and The Man on those Lakers teams, Shaquille O’Neal, told reporters afterwards that Kobe “was the only guy who had the guts at the time to take shots like that.”

That’s the embodiment of Kobe Bryant. A mixture of incredible talent, unwavering confidence, and an alpha dog mentality, Kobe is a polarizing figure. The personality conflicts and arguments over shot distribution would eventually doom the relationship between him and Shaq, likely costing them a couple of championships in the process. The differences between the two were too extreme to coexist, with Kobe the driven overachiever and Shaq the fun-loving slacker. Neither star could truly empathize with, or even understand, how the other approached the game, and Kobe’s original, unedited reaction to Shaq’s “rehab on company time” line must have been an all-time classic rant.

The way they each approached conditioning and injuries epitomized their disconnect. Shaq spent his summers, and the days after winning championships, enjoying his celebrity through various adventures in anything other than basketball. Outside of his family and fascination with wine and wild animals, Kobe’s only interests outside of basketball seemed to be basketball. His hip-hop track with Tyra Banks served as the outlier, and seems out of place in his career, in retrospect, but he had some skills on the mic. Whereas Kobe devoted himself to the game and did the homework, Shaq showed up late and aced his exams. Their only common-trait was their affinity for self-titled, horrible nicknames. The resentment eventually boiled over, quite publicly and through the media, and Kobe won the ultimatum.

The post-Shaq years were individually successful for Kobe, as he led the league in scoring twice and finished second in two more seasons, but the team struggled to advance past the first round without another All-Star-caliber big man. The 2005-06 and ’06-07 seasons saw him average 35.4 and 31.6 points per game, but the second-leading scorer on the team was Lamar Odom at 14.8 and 15.9 per, respectively. Old friend Smush Parker actually scored the third-most points on the team in ’05-06 and the second-most the next season, despite not being allowed to talk to Kobe. Phil Jackson’s return helped channel Kobe’s aggression into playoff appearances, but consecutive first-round eliminations at the hands of the Phoenix Suns caused Kobe to publicly demand a trade in late-May of 2007.

The frustrations boiled over that summer, when Kobe was caught on a fan’s cell phone, um, disparaging Andrew Bynum (language warning). Unhappy with the team-building performance by GM Mitch Kupchak after trading Shaq, Kobe was given his offensive freedom, but all the 81-point game ultimately did was illustrate the gulf between him and the rest of his teammates. The team only finished a combined five games under .500 in the three seasons following the Shaq trade, but the pressures of carrying a limited roster to the eighth-seed in a loaded Western Conference were too daunting for Kobe, and he pushed hard for a trade to the Chicago Bulls.

Of course we know now how history played itself out; that Kobe never received his trade from Kupchak, and instead the GM transformed the franchise by trading Marc Gasol’s draft rights and absolutely nothing else for Pau Gasol in February of 2008. Gasol stepped right into the role of the mild-mannered secondary-scorer and dominant big man that the franchise needed to play with Kobe. Pau’s presence helped to elevate the play of a developing Andrew Bynum and future-Sixth Man of the Year Lamar Odom, forming the front-court of a team that would make three-straight Finals appearances following the trade. Kobe would win the Finals MVP trophies after emerging victorious in the 2009 and 2010 NBA Finals, but Pau’s underrated two-way play against Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett were far more crucial to the Lakers’ success as a team.

The 2011 playoffs saw the official decline of the Kobe/Pau/Bynum/Odom core, with a four-game sweep in the second round at the hands of the eventual-champion Dallas Mavericks. Kupchak again tried to reinvigorate the franchise, conducting a sign-and-trade for the 38-year old Steve Nash and moving Andrew Bynum and a future first round pick for center Dwight Howard. The strike-shortened 2011-12 season ended up being a disaster for the Lakers franchise – more so even than the 2004 team with Karl Malone and Gary Payton - as the Hall of Fame talent and divisive personalities never really meshed, and the team finished with the seventh-seed in the Western Conference playoffs. A sweep in the first round at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs wasn’t even that close, as the Spurs won all four games by almost 19 points per game.

Dwight Howard’s single season in Los Angeles was probably finished before the playoffs even began. Amidst a season lost to injuries and insane expectations, Dwight never really appeared comfortable with the Lakers franchise, from the coaches and style(s) of play to the pressure and exposure of the LA market. The rumors of personality clashes between Howard and Kobe began early and often, with Dwight’s passive-aggressive approach contrasted by Kobe’s confrontational nature.

Regardless of his clownish antics and injury-riddled season, the Lakers were still desperate to retain Howard in free agency and somehow thought a meeting/sales pitch between Kobe and Dwight was a good idea. Quite ironically, Kobe’s pitch reportedly revolved around Dwight being patient and learning how to be a champion under Kobe’s tutelage, while Dwight’s demands to management concerned an exit strategy from the Kobe era. Howard signed in Houston while Kobe missed almost the entire 2013-14 season, recovering from his Achilles tear he suffered in April and then the knee injury in December.

Much as with the relationship with Shaquille O’Neal years earlier, both Kobe and Dwight Howard shared blame for their falling out. It gets back to the empathy issue again, as an older Kobe was still unable to relate to a… less mature and devoted future-Hall of Fame teammate, just as the big men were unwilling to take the game as seriously as Kobe. The ideologies were ultimately as extreme in both situations, but the timing in their careers worked against the Dwight/Kobe pairing. Dwight had already led a team to the Finals before coming to Los Angeles, and had enough self-esteem to undermine Kobe to Kupchak and flex his star muscles before fleeing to Houston. Kobe would win that ultimatum too, but the Lakers team he’s returning to is decimated without Howard and now Pau Gasol.

The 2013-14 Lakers won 27 games under head coach Mike D’Antoni, and fielded a replacement-level roster for much of the season due to injuries to Nash and Bryant. The team survived by shooting the seventh-most three-pointers in the league at the third-best percentage, even winning a road game in Cleveland with only four eligible players after injuries and foul outs. Off-the-radar offseason signings Xavier Henry, Wesley Johnson, Jordan Hill, Kendall Marshall, Nick “Swaggy P” Young, and Kent Bazemore all had moments over the course of the season, but the team finished with the ninth-worst record in the league. Kupchak selected power forward Julius Randle with the eighth pick in the 2014 NBA Draft, the first lottery selection for the Lakers since selecting Andrew Bynum at #10 in 2005.

The overall talent on this Lakers roster will be better in 2014-15 than it was last season, after a trade for Jeremy Lin, free agency signings of Carlos Boozer, Ed Davis, and Wayne Ellington, and the draft picks (Randle and second-round guard Jordan Clarkson). Kupchak chose not to retain Mike D’Antoni and eventually gave the head coaching job to former-Laker Byron Scott, who has so far vowed to reduce the team’s output from the perimeter. It’s a familiar refrain from “old school” coaches, and ideally, shots at the basket are better than jump shots, but three pointers also help to hide some of the talent deficiencies, along with playing faster.

Outside of Kobe, though, this team lacks difference-makers on both sides of the ball. Jeremy Lin is a very good offensive player and pick-and-roll point guard who can shoot off the bounce and in the paint using floaters, but gives his fair share back on the defensive end and doesn’t have the quality of big men defenders to funnel drives into as he did with Houston. Carlos Boozer stopped playing fourth quarters entirely for Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau last season, and saw his numbers drop in his 12th season. Steve Nash seems spry and could contribute at age 40, assuming his back and hamstring issues allow him. Rookie Julius Randle will have every opportunity to bang in the paint and vie for Rookie of the Year contention, as long as he can manage foul troubles and the expectations of his head coach and Kobe. Injuries have already taken its toll early in training camp, which is the last thing this Lakers team needs if it hopes to scrap an 8th-seed in the Western Conference playoff race.

A playoff appearance seems to be the goal of a Kobe Bryant-led Lakers team in ‘14-15, with the hopes that veteran talent (Booze and Linsanity) mixed with young, upside pieces (Ed Davis, Randle, Swaggy/Henry?) can improve the team significantly from last season and contend in the West. The overall talent level, when/if everybody is healthy, may be improved from last season, but D’Antoni’s fast-break offense could have even caused last years’ team to overachieve, making a jump in the win total an even tougher obstacle. Challenges are welcome for Kobe - more motivation and all that - but the Western Conference is really good, and the Lakers would have to pass a lot of better teams to take a playoff spot. This looks like a solid-lottery team, perhaps just good enough to send their 2015 first round pick to Phoenix to complete the Steve Nash trade. If Kobe misses most of the season, keeping that top five pick could be possible, but if he’s healthy he’ll dominate offensively, score 20+ points per game, and give the Lakers a chance to win any close games in the fourth quarter. How he approaches this season could also help influence the team’s upside, and show that he’s learned from past experiences.

Kobe Bryant enters his 18th season in similar conditions to his 9th season; his first without Shaq. It was the situation he had idealized since coming into the league, with a turned-over roster ready to be built around his particular skill-set, and the backing of upper management and ownership as The Man on one of pro sports’ greatest franchises. He made a conscious effort to move the ball more –setting his career-high in assists per game at 6.0 – while carrying the offensive load, but struggled shooting (43% on field goals). In his last healthy season, ’12-13, he set his career-high in assist percentage and matched his 6.0 average, which could have indicated an attempt to get Howard, Nash, and Pau involved, or perhaps a trend.

Expect Kobe to react to this depleted Lakers roster with the same attitude as he’s exhibited in every season of his career thus far, with that insatiable will to win and his incredible work ethic, but also with the customary chip on his shoulder and impatience. Kobe’s dominant personality can be… abrasive. “He’ll try you,” said former teammate Jordan Farmar. Julius Randle, I’m sure, can expect similar treatment early.

That profile is a fascinating look at the Type A personality off the court and how he sometimes struggles to relate to peers and teammates, preferring to seek out “people who do incredible things” in different fields other than, surprisingly, basketball. His experiences as a child, growing up in Italy with a professional basketball player for a father, always set him apart from his teammates - outside of occasions when he and Pau would speak Spanish together on the court, or the failed hip-hop career. Seeming aloof and guarded for much of his NBA career, from his drama with Shaq to the stories of his interactions with Smush, it was the flip side of Kobe’s competitiveness that prohibited him from relating truly to lesser-talented teammates.

That over-competitive quality is another intangible trait, one that Kobe must prove that he can regulate as he enters the 2014-15 season. The same singular focus preventing him from empathizing with Shaq’s disinterest in rehabbing also fuels his work ethic when rehabbing from his own debilitating injuries, and maintains his high level of play late into his 30’s. As he ages, especially, it’s a natural question to wonder how he’ll handle sustained losing for the first time since the summer of 2007.

Sitting out last season with injury prevented the on-court losses from personally affecting Kobe’s day-to-day demeanor, but this year will be agonizing to someone so competitive and with aspirations on ringzzzzz. He’ll have opportunities to pad his career stats, as he creeps up the all-time scoring list, but how he balances his competitive energy in spite of all the presumed-losing will determine how long the Lakers will rebuild. Kobe can harness that aggressiveness into helping Julius Randle become the next great Lakers big man, for example, or Randle could be the subject of a cell phone rant in another summer. It will be a serious adjustment to accept his situation and control his impulses; tougher perhaps than even before the Gasol trade, given how close he is to his own mortality as an NBA player.