On Kobe

By now, unless you’ve been in a cave for the past day, you know that former NBA star Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and seven others perished in a helicopter crash yesterday morning in Calabasas. The tributes began pouring out almost immediately, with people all over visibly shaken by the news. Personally, I treated the initial discovery by my wife with appropriate skepticism. Far too often in the age of Facebook we have seen hoax deaths, usually in copter crashes from my recollection, so I wasn’t in a hurry to believe anything. When she discovered it was TMZ reporting, I began to reconsider. TMZ is many things, but they are usually spot on when it comes to reports like this. And so it was this time.

To talk about Kobe is to talk about a man who lived a complex life. In a way, we all do. Nobody’s perfect, and we’ve all done things we regret. Kobe is no exception. The wunderkind that Jerry West took under his wing after acquiring him on draft night had it all, and blew a lot of it one fateful night in Denver. It took years before he began to repair his image after that, and he retired with the same sort of goodwill that Jordan did.

It became to the point that if you said the name Kobe in a crowd of people, it is likely that about 90 percent of them would know who you were talking about, even if they weren’t sports fans. He transcended his sport in ways that most athletes only dream of. And in the same vein, his behavior caused a great deal of friction at various times, most famously the breakup explosion with Shaq after the 04 Finals loss to the Pistons.

In Detroit, we call that series the “five game sweep,” because if not for Kobe’s heroics, it would have been over in four. The Lakers had no right to win game 2, but Kobe put them on his back and got it done with a huge shot in crunch time. That’s what he was capable of doing, and it was a remarkable thing to watch.

Nobody will argue his prowess as an athlete, nor his impact in the game of basketball. He set an example with his hard work, and his drive to win at all costs. He could be selfish; most pure scorers are and he was definitely one, but he could elevate like few others. I caught the end of the 81-point game when ESPN broke coverage to show it, and it was a masterful performance. He was on fire in every sense of the word, and earned that place in history. With rosters handled how they are now, and players doing more than ever to diversify their games, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see a game like that again.

Where people will argue is his off-court conduct. Specifically the rape allegation in 2003. Nobody will truly ever know what happened in that room that night, but the damage the incident did to Kobe’s rep was immense. He later apologized through a carefully worded statement after the accuser refused to testify, which if rumors are to be believed happened due to threats from purported Kobe fans and the like, and the very real assault by his team. In many ways, the way that case ended is emblematic of the problems with sexual assault and celebrities. If this happened now, post-#MeToo, would it be different? That’s hard to say.

What is also hard is at what point do we as a society allow a person to have things be in the past? Given the behavior of commenters at Jezebel following the news of Kobe’s death, it seems that answer is never. Rape is a horrible crime, but that many people feel comfortable spitting venom at the deceased for having had the incident at all right after his death is something that is problematic with society.

Any conversation about Kobe’s life must include that allegation. It is appropriate because it is factual to include it in any summation of his life. No matter what happened in that room, a young woman’s life was irrevocably harmed. But it is not an excuse to spew things like “Good riddance,” or “he deserved it” upon his death. Because while this incident and the harm it done is unavoidable, it is important to not forget that Kobe had a family, and of course that one member of his family, his daughter Gianna, was on the copter when it went down. Kobe left behind his wife and three other children, the younger two of which will have to grow up without their father, and all of the kids have to cope with their sister never coming home either. Zeal is common among the righteous and those who would act it, and oftentimes it eclipses the better senses. Society must be able to believe that a person can learn from a mistake and can change, and not devolve into such rhetoric, particularly in the moments following their death. Otherwise we are merely wearing civility as a mask to hide the darker impulses.

It is also highly inappropriate for Kobe-lovers to harass those who mention the rape case. It cannot be disassociated from the individual no matter the circumstances; it was always going to be part of his obituary no matter how long he lived. That he never spoke openly about it didn’t help in that regard, but is not surprising because that’s not who Kobe was. He had that same standoffish personality many great athletes have, and reporters seldom got close enough to get into the type of person he really was. His relationship with the media was not one that would be considered warm.

So who was Kobe? He was a basketball savant, who worked hard, won and starred at a great clip, and had a plan for his family’s future. He’s also a man who made a terrible mistake that he may not have fully understood even unto his dying day. He was also a loving, doting father and a good husband who repaired his relationship with his wife (yes, partly because of a $4 million ring) after that horrible mistake. He was an ambassador for basketball and a role model for many young men who have taken the court and will take the court in the future. He was an Oscar winner, and gracious to his peers and successors after he left the game. He was not that vocal about it, but he disliked Biff intensely. He was all of these things, no one further above the other. And no matter what you think, it should be universal that we would be sad that he and Gianna will never walk back through that door and get hugs from his wife and other daughters again.

He should be mourned, and his deeds in life not forgotten, good or bad. To gloss over one or the other would be a disservice to the entire picture. And that is what we need to remember.

The Jezebel thread:

https://jezebel.com/kobe-bryant-reportedly-dead-in-helicopter-crash-1841238268