Neocon Blues

I know what you’re thinking: “Kobe Bryant? The guy with millions of dollars, a hot wife, and legions of endorsements? Really?”

Yes. Kobe Bryant, as far as future hall of famers go, is your everyman superstar. He merits the title because he is the most human. Consider the legend who came before him - Michael Jordan. MJ played as if he were the son of gods. He won three titles, put up stratospheric numbers, and then walked away from the game. Two years later, he came back, and won three more, all the while becoming the NBA’s first marketing icon. Nothing could stop Jordan - not age or death or disease. He will always be remembered as “His Airness”, a name befitting the Achilles of basketball.

And consider the legend who will surely come after Kobe. Lebron James is without a doubt the most physically gifted athlete of all time. He has the presence and strenghth of Karl Malone, the passing game fo Magic Johnson, and the drive of Michael Jordan. He is a god among men. Lebron can win 66 games a season on a team that belongs to the development league. Every single play he executes with precision and ease.Jordan and Lebron have that mythic, deity-like quality that Kobe lacks. They can both electrify crowds and inspire teammates. Their careers are defined by perfection.

But it is Kobe’s imperfection that makes him compelling and relateable to the common person. Take his one-dimensional personality. Kobe isn’t a marketing genius. He doesn’t branch out to other players, and he rarely leaves the confines of his own personal space. He has more than once fallen from grace, and he has had his moral failings. He is not a perfect human being, but neither are we. Most importantly, the underlying ease that pervades every single action of Lebron and Jordan escapes Kobe. For him, everything must be earned, for nothing is given. You can see such a dynamic in Kobe’s game. He plays with a grace derived from hard work. Every movement, while beautiful, is conscious. Every shot is a consummation of blood, sweat, and tears.

Yes, Kobe has an abundance of talent. But keep in mind that his athletic gifts alone were never any more impressive than his all-star peers’. He never had the shooting touch of a Ray Allen or the vertical leap of a Vince Carter. Instead, Kobe has worked harder and longer than everyone else to form an arsenal that approximates perfection. He does everything well, but nothing flawlessly. The gods sent Jordan down as their favorite son, and they made Lebron in their own image. Kobe - a mere mortal - watched from the ground below. Like Daedalus, he tirelessly labored to one day touch the heavens above.

And if his hard work embodies Man’s drive for eternal greatness, then his failures in judgement embody the price of glory for those not blessed with supernatural gifts. Less sympathetic observers will say that much of Kobe’s adversity was his own doing. He was the one who cheated on his wife, disturbing the Laker’s focus in 2004. He was the one who got cocky and chased Shaq out of L.A, killing what could have been history’s greatest basketball duo. In the wildnerness years, from 2004 to 2007, he pursued individual achivement at the expense of team-building, ultimately wasting his best years on meangingless games. But that is precisely why Kobe is the most relateable superstar. In essence, Kobe is like any man pursuing his highest goals. We all fall, and often times, our failures are the fault of our own. And like Kobe, much of our hard work is spent not just making progress but making up for our mistakes. If the trajectories of Jordan and Lebron are perfectly progressive, Kobe’s has been peaks and valleys, like our own.

This is why, upon watching Kobe win his fourth and only title without Shaq, I could vicariously feel his joy. I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that all that hard work and time spent crawling back to the promised land hadn’t been wasted.