All-Star Break Review
The Lakers are 41-12, the 2nd best record in the NBA. Except against their shared tenant at Staples Center, the Clippers, they haven’t lost a road game to a Western Conference opponent. LeBron is leading the league in assists at 10.8 apg, the first time he’s hit double digits in his career. The Lakers have the best point differential in the Western Conference at 7.4, a substantial stretch after the next team, the 7th seeded Dallas Mavericks at 5.9. Thanks to the block party of LeBron/AD/Dwight/Javale, the Lakers lead the league in blocks, and the team is overall a defensive powerhouse (minus wing defense). Most of all, this is the first great Lakers team I’ve watched where I don’t think it’s a total failure if we don’t win the NBA Finals. It’s just too much fun. The future is bright. AD isn’t going anywhere. LeBron is showing no signs of a career-ending slowdown. These guys, the vast majority of whom never played with each other before, love each other.
But Kobe Bryant is dead.
Everything in the paragraph above is inexorably linked to the death of Kobe, his daughter Gianna, and seven other people on that foggy Sunday morning in January. The night before, my girlfriend and I went out to K-Town for dinner and could barely see the Lyft coming down the street due to the fog. I had rarely seen something like that in all my years living in L.A. The fog still hadn’t lifted that following morning, when I read a tweet about a helicopter crash in Calabasas and what I initially thought was a Twitter troll @-replying to every message with “Kobe Died.” Kobe Died. Kobe Died. Kobe Died.
I went down to Staples Center almost immediately, where a giant crowd had already begun to form. But it was nothing compared to the week that followed. When I arrived around 1:30pm that Sunday, the circumference of the pile of flowers and letters and jerseys and shoes on the ground was about 10 feet. By the time the Staples Center cleaned up the memorial a week later, they packed up 1,353 basketballs, 25,000 candles, 5,000 signs/letters/flags, 500 stuffed animals, and 350 shoes to store for Vanessa Bryant and her daughters.
The thousands of flowers were collected, composted, and turned into mulch that will be spread into the landscaping around Staples Center.
When I started this blog, I stated that my biggest hope for the season was that it would be fun. I didn’t care if we won the title if it was a slog to get there, if AD and LeBron feuded and the role players felt more like emotionless mercenaries than fan favorites and Jason Kidd instigated a coup against Coach Frank Vogel. And my wish came true! AD is a true freak of nature and the most talented teammate LeBron has ever had! Dwight Howard has redeemed himself! So has KCP! Avery Bradley is the defensive stop guard and Danny Green is the three point assassin we needed. Alex Caruso has proved that he’s not just a dorky, balding white meme, but a legitimate threat on both ends of the floor. Rondo is… well, let’s just say that Rondo leading the point when LeBron takes a breather will likely be the reason we lose in the playoffs.
But it’s all connected back to that Sunday. In the days that followed, with the cancellation of the Lakers vs Clippers match-up and reports of grievance counselors at Staples Center, time slowed down and Friday January 31st’s game, the first since the tragedy, took forever to get here. I needed that game to be city-wide catharsis and it delivered. Usher sang a beautiful rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Cellist Ben Hong brought everyone to tears with his playing during the video tribute. PA announcer Lawrence Tanter’s voice cracked, the first time I ever heard him not do his job with robotic-like perfection, while setting up the 24.2 second moment of silence. LeBron James threw his notes on the ground and gave an improvised speech that finally made me understand the phrase “I’d run through a brick wall for him.” That speech might’ve become his defining moment in a life full of them. The Lakers lost, as Damien Lillard honored the dead with a Kobe-like 48-point performance, but it didn’t matter. I cried and drank myself to sleep and woke up feeling like things were back to normal. Just a little bit.
Kobe Bryant was never my favorite player, not even close to it. His personality always seemed too manufactured for me. He did give himself a nickname, after all. The nickname, the underbite, the tactic of being an asshole to push his teammates -- even though it worked with big ol’ softies like Pau and Odom and Artest -- it never felt honest to me. Which is why when he retired and dropped that persona, suddenly becoming the tech entrepreneur and filmmaker and women’s basketball advocate and smiling elder statesmen, it still felt contrived to me! But it wasn’t. It was real growth. It might not have been who he was then, but it was who he was on that Sunday, frozen in time like so many stepback fadeaway jump shots seared into our collective memories.
