Missing the Point About Kobe
Kevin Durant’s misguided anger.
Outside of perhaps the historic dominance of the Golden State Warriors, no topic has dominated the opening fourth of the NBA season like the perplexing nightmare that is the Kobe Bryant situation. From news articles, to tweets, to player interviews, and podcasts, everyone attached to, or simply interested in professional basketball is sharing their opinions about the once great Black Mamba.
Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City’s ever more increasingly outspoken superstar made headlines this week when he sympathetically stood-up for his former Olympic teammate. Durant was asked to respond to Bryant officially announcing that this season would be his last, and the Thunder forward took the opportunity to lambast the media for how Kobe has been covered by them this season.
I’ve been disappointed this year because you guys [the media] treated him like s — -. He’s a legend, and all I hear is about how bad he’s playing, how bad he’s shooting and it’s time for him to hang it up. You guys treated one of our legends like s — -, and I didn’t really like it. So hopefully now you can start being nice to him now that he decided to retire after this year.
I understand [the media] have to write about the game. Of course I understand that. Kobe hasn’t played well, and his team hasn’t played well…but it seems like everybody is happy that he’s going out like this. Every game he’s played on TV is about how terrible he looks, every article the next day is about how he should retire and give it up. Just killing him.
By all accounts Kevin Durant is a nice guy. His teammates and coaches never utter anything but praise and plaudits for him. His MVP speech was remarkably poignant. My little sister even gushed about his personality after speaking with him for a few minutes as they waited in line at the on-campus Wendy’s while they were each University of Texas students. And in defending his ‘idol’ Kobe Bryant, it appears that his remarks were well intentioned.
However well intentioned they may have been, if examined deeper than just the face-value of one basketball player standing up for another, Durant’s comments are insulting to the media, the fans, his fellow players, and really the entire entity of the NBA.
Why are the games played? That is the question I would have asked Durant. A simple question, that requires a simple answer. The answer of course is that basketball games are held for two teams to compete and determine a winner. Players and teams play to win, but Durant seems to be confused.
Durant is correct that Bryant is a legend. The 20 year veteran Laker is a five-time NBA champion, and good arguments can be made that he is one of the 10 best basketball players of all-time, but he is no longer that player. In fact, he has fallen so far, that good arguments can be made now that he is possibly the worst player in the NBA.
There are current NBA players who do not possess as good of basketball skills as current Kobe — for instance Kobe can handle the ball better than Dwayne Dedmon, and he can out-shoot DeAndre Jordan. He doesn’t possess the league’s worst skill-set, but no player is more detrimental to his team’s chances of winning as Kobe is for the Lakers.
Watch a Laker game and it is painfully obvious how much he hurts their chances of winning, but if statistics (and specifically advanced statistics) are your thing look no further than the correlation of Bryant’s Usage Rate and Player Efficiency Rating (PER). As of today, Bryant is twelfth in the NBA in Usage with a rating of 29.4 — higher than star players like John Wall, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and even Kevin Durant. His PER is 10.59, which places him at 244th in the NBA, right behind Spencer Hawes. Of the eleven players who have higher usage rates than Bryant, the one with the closest PER to him is Dwyane Wade, and Wade’s is exactly double at 20.98. Double!!
Bryant is playing terrible basketball, and he’s playing a lot of terrible basketball. Durant knows this, but he feels that Bryant deserves a pass because of his past glories. He’s mad because he thinks the media is being mean to a fallen superstar, and he wants them to be nice. He says that he understands that the media have a job to cover the games, but he doesn’t want them to say anything if it tarnishes the shine of the ‘Legend.’
In effect, Durant wants charity from the media. He wants the media to only write nice things, and he believes it is deserved because of the narrative that Kobe has been good to “the game,” and so he should be treated with kid gloves.
Is it nice that the Lakers have the second most expensive tickets in the league? They’re not giving charity. Is it nice that NBA League Pass costs $200? No charity there. Is it nice that fans want to watch basketball competitions, or that players want to participate in them, but that when the Lakers are involved they are being cheated of this?
No basketball coach would allow a player to play in a way that puts out statistics like Bryant’s Usage Rate and PER. No basketball coach would play a player who’s playing so badly. If a player plays that badly, they are coached to change their ways or they are benched. Neither is happening in Los Angeles because Byron Scott is not coaching basketball. The Lakers are not playing basketball.
The Lakers are enabling Bryant to do whatever he wants, even if that takes them and him down. They are not trying to win, and it’s insulting to their fans, their opponents, and the fans of their opponents. If they were trying to win, Bryant would mimic his contemporaries Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitski, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce —aging players who have accepted smaller roles and smaller salaries to help their teams win games.
Kevin Durant has every right to be mad about the Kobe Bryant situation in Lakerland, but he shouldn’t be mad at the media. He should be mad at the Lakers, and Kobe himself, for putting out a product that deserves so much media criticism.
