TORONTO – So on his last visit to Air Canada Centre — at least until the all-star game in February — Kobe played pretty well. Which in the year that will mark the end of Kobe’s decline, counts for something, and not just because it was surprising, based on form.
Even Kobe was surprised — or played along at being surprised — when it was pointed out that by shooting 8-of-16 from the floor in the Lakers’ 102-93 loss to the Toronto Raptors it marked the first time this season he’d made as many shots as he missed.
“Really? 50 per cent? Finally,” he said with a big smile.
He finished with 21 points, the Lakers high. He grabbed eight defensive rebounds. He looked like a decent NBA player. And when he drilled a fade-away three-pointer from in front of the Raptors bench to pull the Lakers within two with 5:24 left, he even looked a bit like the Kobe Bryant before his three successive season-ending surgeries and before his 37th birthday. He looked 34 again.
And the fans loved it. For all his flaws, in his 20th year, Bryant seems more popular than ever. The ACC was packed with fans of all stripes wearing Bryant jerseys of all vintages.
“It’s amazing,” said Lakers teammate Metta World Peace on Bryant’s popularity as he gets set to exit stage left. “It’s like they’re horny for it. Horny fans … make sure you word that right.”
What else is there to say?
Fan reaction aside this season has been low on triumphs as Bryant fights a losing battle with his basketball mortality. The high points — he scored 31 points (on 24 shots) in the Lakers’ third win of the season against Washington on the second night of the current road trip — have been short-lived. Coming into the game Monday night at the ACC he’d shot 6-for-34 since in a pair of losses.
By now Bryant’s struggles are well known. Through the first 20 games of the season he was shooting just 29.4 per cent from the field and 21.8 per cent from three. Not that his lack of success seemed to bother him. He was averaging 20.6 shots per 36 minutes, which is actually slightly more than his career average, and a whopping nine threes per 36 minutes, which is more than double his career rate.
In Toronto in front of an arena covered in Bryant jerseys, with people chanting his name, he went back to well again. Having brought the Lakers to the edge of a victory he tried to put them over the top. He couldn’t help himself. He missed a 28-foot three-pointer. He missed a contested, fading, 18-footer from the corner. The Raptors came down and scored each time. Their lead swelled to nine. The game was over.
Afterwards Lakers rookie guard D’Angelo Russell, taken No. 2 overall in the 2015 draft, tried to put his finger on why the Lakers kept losing.
“We’ve had a lot of close games, we just have to figure out [why we lose them],” said Russell. “We have to figure it out. It’s like we lose by two, lose by three, lose by nine. Whatever it is, it’s the same. We just never finish the game.”
Of course, a common denominator could be who is finishing it. Bryant insists on playing the same role he’s had for well more than a decade, for better or worse.
The question is why? It turns out Bryant says he’s doing it for the kids.
“You have to continue to take what the defence gives you,” he said in his post-game press conference, a staple on his farewell tour, along with the in-game video tribute showing him make plays he can’t make anymore. “When you come up and you catch and you shoot and the defence is off you, you have to take the shots [that are there] and you cannot play the play according to what just happened.
“I cannot stress that on you enough,” he said. “Even if you’re writing a shit story about me — which is totally fine, it won’t be the first one, it won’t be the last one — it’s really important for kids to understand that you cannot hold on to the last play. Because it will affect you. You have to let it go and play what’s right in front of you.”
It makes sense, in it’s own way. Open shots have to be taken, especially with a 24-second shot clock. If you don’t the next one will almost certainly be contested.
Except, there’s a reason that open shots are there — by now defences are daring Bryant to take open threes. Before the game Raptors head coach Dwane Casey was reminiscing on the challenges Bryant presented to a game plan. Everything was in the past tense. But Bryant is insistent on taking shots that clearly aren’t in his arsenal anymore, the misses playing directly into the hands of the defence.
It’s the Kobe conundrum.
For his part, Bryant seems at peace with how his last season is playing out — as the worst performing player on the worst team in the NBA, the Lakers having lost to Philadelphia, with Bryant shooting 7-of-26.
Is there a hole he’s trying to fill? Is there something he’s seeking, a connection to his old self?
Nah.
“I’m [just] trying to take up the challenge of figuring out this age thing and finding a level of consistency where my game isn’t going up and down all the time,” he said. “I’m trying to figure that puzzle out, but in terms of comfort or peace of mind I am completely fine. Completely fine.”
It’s all part of the final chapter of a career built on struggle and the careful grooming of a public image as clutch shooting desperado, earning the right to take all those big shots because he’s put in the time, implying that others haven’t.
How does he want to be remembered?
“As a person who worked extremely hard every single day, who left it all out there,” he said. “That’s the most important thing. It has nothing to do with talent, it has nothing to do with the championships. It has everything to do with working hard every single day, leaving no stone unturned.”
Or shot untaken.
He’s such a massive part of Lakers history that there is no way anyone is going to reign him in or curb his approach. This is the Bryant we’ll be seeing until the wheels fall off, which could be any day.
Or it could last all season. Bryant played Monday night after having to take fluids via an IV following leaving the game in Detroit with a stomach problem. He said he would play if he could walk. He walked into the ACC at about 5:30 p.m., and it was on.
What was more surprising was that Lakers head coach Byron Scott, who has been Bryant’s chief enabler on his last shooting binge, announced before the game he was removing Russell and fellow prize prospect Julius Randle, a 2014 pick who is recovering from a broken leg that cost him his rookie season, from the starting lineup. It was an odd move in a season that is supposed to be about development.
There were two schools of thought on the decision. One was that Scott was actually trying to insulate the franchise’s most important assets from playing with the black hole that has so far threatened to swallow up the season. The other is that Scott is acting as irrationally as possible in hopes of getting fired so he can enjoy this year and next year on his guaranteed contract from the comforts of home.
Bryant wants no part of that. He’s in this for the long haul, regardless of how it unfolds for him personally, or statistically. There is some honour in that, as well as a lot of documentary footage to collect. He’s got 61 more games, 27 on the road. That’s a lot of video tributes, press conferences and waving to an adoring crowd. Bryant seems up for it. His long-time teammate Metta World Peace even predicts a Bryant renaissance of sorts.
“I told him the best is to come,” said World Peace. “He’s so competitive, he want’s it now. [But] He’s a vet. December is the vet’s time. January it starts to roll a little bit. February. And then you get primed for playoffs. That’s how it goes, especially for veterans.”
Not sure about the playoffs part, but sure, Bryant’s best basketball could be ahead of him this season, even if it’s at least three years behind him in the bigger picture.
In the meantime Bryant’s Lakers teammates can only wait and do their job as roadies on his farewell tour.
“If he misses a couple of shots it’s our job to build him up and keep getting him good looks and facilitating and making sure he’s good to go,” said Lakers centre Roy Hibbert. “He’s caught fire a couple of times but with Kobe, he’s a GOAT [Greatest of All Time]. You know?
“So everyone else has to fall in line and we all do what we’re supposed to do.”
Bryant wouldn’t have it any other way. No surprise there.
