The roar from the crowd at TD Garden said it all—this moment was bigger than any rivalry.
Celtics fans cheered as Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant was introduced Wednesday night, a reception fit for the Black Mamba’s final game in Boston:
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What do you give a man who has left his fingerprints all over the NBA history books?
An actual piece of league history perhaps.
That’s what the Boston Celtics did for Kobe Bryant‘s final game at TD Garden on Wednesday, framing a piece of the team’s iconic parquet floor and presenting it to the Los Angeles Lakers star privately before tipoff.
According to Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times, the piece is from the court the rivals played on during the 2010 NBA Finals, before the Celtics replaced it prior to the 2015-16 season:
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Kobe Bryant‘s farewell tour headed to the East Coast on Monday for his final game in Charlotte, where the Los Angeles Lakers star received a special message from his idol, Michael Jordan.
The NBA legend and Hornets owner recorded a video addressed to Bryant that flashed across the Jumbotron at Time Warner Cable Arena before tipoff. Jordan compared Bryant to a little brother, congratulated the five-time NBA champion on his career and noted he looked forward to seeing what he would do next.
Bryant, who’s affinity for Jordan has been well documented, watched the message from the Lakers bench:
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It’s a well-accepted idea that champions dedicate a level of effort to their craft that far exceeds their competition—no matter how strange or painful.
Kobe Bryant‘s preparation after the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2008 NBA Finals loss to the Boston Celtics was both.
For two full years, the Black Mamba routinely listened to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” as a daily reminder of the agony of Game 6, after which Boston fans gleefully belted out the feel-good anthem. In 2010, Bryant and the Lakers earned redemption by beating the Celtics to win their second straight title.
Bryant described that self-induced miserable period to reporters Friday:
It was a tough two years in between. I remember when we were losing, they played that song, that Journey song, and the whole arena started singing that song, and I hated that damn song for two years. Seriously, man. But I listened to the song every single day because it just reminded me of that feeling.
Bryant said he did the same with “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” by the city’s popular Dropkick Murphys.
Unusual? Yes. Effective? Obviously.
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Kobe Bryant is getting the legend treatment for the All-Star Game in his final NBA season, and that’s totally fine with Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers.
The Los Angeles Lakers superstar and future Hall of Famer leads all Western Conference frontcourt players by almost 370,000 votes in the first return of ballots, and Rivers thinks Bryant is more than deserving, per Bill Oram of the Orange County Register:
Rivers also told Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times he thinks Bryant should be in the game, even if it meant leaving someone more deserving off the ballot.
It’s no surprise Bryant is running away with the votes, despite the Lakers having the worst record in the Western Conference. He’s been a fixture in the NBA for almost his entire career. Plus, as mentioned before, anyone who makes it known that they’re retiring has usually been a staple in the All-Star Game. Look at Michael Jordan, for example, who started his last All-Star Game and even hit a go-ahead shot with five seconds left in overtime.
The Washington Wizards did not make the playoffs that year.
Shaquille O’Neal was even given an All-Star selection during his final years, mostly because the game was held in Phoenix and he played for the Phoenix Suns in the 2008-09 season. Phoenix also was held out of the playoff picture, and he even shared MVP honors with former teammate Bryant.
The only gripe to be had about Kobe’s spot in the voting is that he’s attained more than double the votes for Kevin Durant, who sits in second place. The All-Star rosters usually contain 12 players, so there’s a chance players like Tim Duncan, DeMarcus Cousins or Dirk Nowitzki could be left off the roster.
For right now, there’s nothing wrong with Kobe leading in votes the way he is, no matter how controversial the concept of fan voting is.
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Kevin Durant knows his Chicago Bulls–Oklahoma City Thunder game is the mere opening act before the NBA Finals rematch and Christmas showcase between LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers and Stephen Curry‘s Golden State Warriors.
Being the snow-crunching reindeer ahead of Santa’s big scene isn’t all bad.
It’s just not what All-Stars truly aspire to.
Durant knows Cavs-Dubs was the most-watched NBA championship series since Michael Jordan’s heyday in 1998, and he certainly knows how deeply it stung him that James and Curry got to play for everything while Durant was just trying to walk normally after a third surgery on his right foot.
We know Durant knows because he tells us how he feels. The 2014 NBA MVP flat-out said he was “jealous” of 2012-13 MVP James and 2015 MVP Curry. Durant has a mind, and he speaks it.
There’s realness to Kevin Durant these days. He has effectively muted what was expected to be an epic free-agent distraction by owning the discussion and authentically staying in the moment.
And as wonderfully as Curry is playing, Durant’s scoring efficiency this season has been just as ridiculous—getting to the free-throw line more than Curry and shooting better from the field, per Basketball-Reference.com’s player comparison finder. Even more overlooked is that Durant is now playing consistently elite defense.
As uber-competitive Kobe Bryant plays his final Christmas Day game in the late-game afterthought matchup between the lowly Lakers and disappointing Clippers, Bryant’s fans would be wise to consider Durant as their new favorite player—no matter how captivating Curry is or the success James has had.
Durant left Staples Center late Wednesday night after dominating a delightful head-to-head matchup with Bryant (and pointedly telling him he traveled on the play where Bryant pump-faked him into a foul). Durant was carrying a certain rival player’s game-worn white high-top Nikes after the 120-85 domination. Under the gold swoosh, above the purple sole, was this inscription in black marker:
“To KD: Be the greatest. #24″
Bryant and Durant were photographed having dinner together in Oklahoma City last week, and since 2012, Bryant has increasingly served as an advisor to Durant in the pursuit of that greatness—because of the respect Bryant has for Durant’s approach.
“He plays with no fear,” Bryant said.
Besides that and all the fundamental scoring expertise, Durant is following another model of Bryant’s career arc: initially propagating a politically correct, good-guy image in his early years before letting his guard down and letting fly with what’s true to him later on.
Durant tells us while supposedly easing back into action in August that he feels he’s the best player in the world. He tells us how his foot had an unknown “crack” in it. He tells us Stephen A. Smith is “lying” about the Lakers being Durant’s primary free-agent preference if he leaves Oklahoma City. He tells us he “didn’t like” Wizards fans in Washington recruiting him instead of supporting their existing team.
Durant also tells us he didn’t appreciate our takes on Bryant, saying: “I’ve been disappointed this year because you guys (media) treated him like s–t. He’s a legend, and all I hear is about how bad he’s playing, how bad he’s shooting, time for him to hang it up. You guys treated one of our legends like s–t, and I didn’t really like it.”
There is no doubt Durant would be the ideal person to whom Bryant could pass his Lakers torch and salary slot.
“Me and him are great friends,” Durant said.
Even more important, unlike the likes of LaMarcus Aldridge, DeAndre Jordan and Greg Monroe, Durant yearns to be fully challenged, both in pressure and responsibility.
Durant mainly wants to win, however, so besides Oklahoma City failing to prevail this June, the Lakers would most likely have to recruit another top free agent (Al Horford? Hassan Whiteside? Nicolas Batum? DeMar DeRozan? Joakim Noah?) to come with Durant.
Durant says all that is for him to figure out another day. And because he dares to tell us what he thinks, we believe him on this.
He’s also playing like someone wholly focused on today. And he’s actually itching to face the Bulls on Christmas because he regrets the Thunder’s loss in Chicago back in the sixth game of the season. He has made a lot of progress since then with Billy Donovan’s vision for how easily Durant can create gimme shots for teammates sometimes while being a dominant scorer most times.
So as Bryant, the NBA’s all-time leading Christmas scorer, wraps it up, be ready for something special from Durant.
He is, in fact, close to the NBA’s leading per-game Christmas scorer. (Durant is averaging 31.8 points on Christmas, just behind Jerry West’s 32.2 among players who’ve played at least five times on the holiday.)
Word out of Cleveland is that LeBron is none too thrilled with what a Steph-fest this NBA season has become.
Durant will still have a say in that one, too.
All quotes are firsthand unless otherwise noted. Kevin Ding is an NBA senior writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @KevinDing.
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Kobe Bryant is the last of many dying breeds in today’s NBA.
He’s the last man standing from the 1996 draft. While Bryant, the No. 13 pick that year, is in the midst of his farewell tour, Allen Iverson, the top choice in Kobe’s class, is preparing for his likely Hall of Fame induction. The Answer officially retired in October 2013 but played his last NBA minutes with the Philadelphia 76ers in February 2010.
If not for Metta World Peace’s presence, he’d be both the Los Angeles Lakers‘ lone champion and the only active member who was on hand for any of the team’s five titles since 2000.
More than anything, he’s the only Kobe Bryant around.
Bryant’s CV is about as unique as they come. His 15 All-NBA selections are tied for the most ever. His 12 All-Defensive nods are tied for the second-most and his 17 All-Star appearances are the most behind only fellow Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. If not for Tim Duncan’s five rings, Bryant’s five would stand alone as the most of any superstar in his generation.
And unlike Duncan, Bryant can boast about his Slam Dunk crown to his grandkids, whenever they come around.
“The Kobe Bryants aren’t around no more,” Dwyane Wade told ESPN’s Michael Wallace before the Miami Heat hosted Bryant for what turned out to be his last trip to South Beach as a player. “There are good young players, but there will never be another Kobe.”
Perhaps no one in history who never teamed with Bryant in the NBA can claim as many connections to him as can Wade.
Both won their first championships as twenty-something shooting guard sidekicks to Shaquille O’Neal before winning back-to-back titles without him. Both made their bones as high-flying rim rockers before settling in as crafty post operators. Both took their cues from Michael Jordan—Bryant as an obsessive competitor, Wade as a Chicago native.
And both have produced per-36-minute lines over their careers that are eerily similar:
But as prolific as Wade has been throughout his decorated career, even he would hardly qualify as the sort of gunner and NBA horse artist that Bryant has been over the past 20 years. Where Wade has averaged 20 or more shots per game just once in his 13 pro seasons, Bryant has topped that mark a whopping 13 times.
According to Basketball-Reference, only three other players in NBA history have ever logged at least 10 such seasons:
Of those three, only Baylor shot worse from the field (43.1 percent) over his career than Bryant (45 percent). It’s no wonder, then, that the Mamba is the all-time leader in missed field goals.
As for the future of the NBA, you might think Bryant’s penchant for daredevil volume shooting might be a trait shared by the game’s current studs and up-and-comers.
After all, today’s top guards and wings—Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Jimmy Butler and Klay Thompson, among others—grew up watching the Mamba work his magic in purple and gold. Wade went so far as to call him “the greatest player of our era,” per ESPN’s Michael Wallace.
But like the triangle offense in which Bryant did his best work, his style of play can be difficult to track down. Of the 16 active guards or wings under the age of 30 who have appeared in at least one All-Star Game, only two have logged complete seasons in which they averaged at least 20 shots per game.
Those two—Durant and Westbrook—happen to be teammates. So far through 2015-16, the former has launched 17.3 shots per night while the latter has logged 18.8.
This isn’t to say that volume shooters are as ding-dong dead as the Wicked Witch of the East. This season, four players are averaging 20 or more attempts, with two others creeping above 19:
Bryant, for one, might be pleased to see that. He certainly was during the 2015 NBA Finals, when he tweeted in support of LeBron James taking shot after shot after shot for the shorthanded Cleveland Cavaliers:
Then again, James’ exploits might not be the best endorsement for Bryant’s tactics. James wound up hitting 39.8 percent of a whopping 32.7 shots per game, and his Cavaliers fell to the Warriors in six. The defending champions’ pass-happy approach has since been enshrined as the gold standard of NBA basketball.
Meanwhile, James and his fellow members of the current 20-shot club have a couple things in common that set them apart from Bryant.
For one, they’re all dishing out at least six assists per game. Moreover, setting up teammates to that extent is nothing new for those guys. Bryant, on the other hand, has finished two full seasons out of 20 with six or more dimes a night on his ledger:
They all fit the modern mold of what a dominant perimeter player can and should be. Where Bryant once ruled the NBA with a maniacal focus on putting the ball in the basket, subsequent generations of superstars have gravitated more toward making the most efficient plays possible, whether the shot flies from their fingertips or those of their teammates.
Post-ups and isolations are now more about drawing double-teams and starting chain reactions than getting a singular scoring talent a look at the hoop. Mid-range shots—the bread-and-butter of Bryant’s legend—have become anathema to basketball math.
Bryant’s impending retirement, then, could be the death knell to the league’s storied tradition of guards and wings—from Jerry West and Julius Erving to Jordan and Iverson—shouldering such extreme scoring loads.
But what truly makes Bryant both one of a kind and the last of his kind isn’t just his freewheeling form, but the equity he built up to go down firing.
“He’s got 20 years in this league. We might not have six guys with 20 years in this league combined,” Lakers head coach Byron Scott explained in November, per the Los Angeles Daily News‘ Mark Medina. “He has that privilege. From a coaching standpoint, I want Kobe to be Kobe. Other guys haven’t earned that right yet.”
The NBA may never see the likes of Bryant in that regard again. He’s the first and only player in league history to spend two decades with one franchise.
Even if another prodigious and prolific scorer comes along, the odds of him resembling Bryant in game and distinction are exceedingly slim, if not already buried six feet underground.
All stats are accurate as of games played on Dec. 20, 2015.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
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Kobe Bryant has faced multiple generations of NBA players in his 20-year career, but Monday he listed the five best players he’s faced.
According to ESPN’s Baxter Holmes, the Los Angeles Lakers legend named Michael Jordan and LeBron James among them. He also included Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Durant and Clyde Drexler.
The retiring star noted it was difficult to pick just five.
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Kobe Bryant shot down once and for all any chance of a move overseas after the conclusion of the 2015-16 NBA regular season.
“I would have loved to play overseas for a season,” Bryant said Monday, per Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News. “But it’s not going to happen. I wish I could. But my body won’t let me.”
The Los Angeles Lakers star already announced this year will be his last, writing, “My body knows it’s time to say goodbye” in his open letter on the Players’ Tribune.
Italian club Viola Reggio Calabria was unmoved by the announcement, offering Bryant a spot on its roster earlier this month, per TMZ Sports:
Dear child of Reggio Calabria, fantastic Kobe, on this most beautiful stretch of land that is full of affection for you we close our eyes and dream.
There will always be a home for you at this great club on the Straits of Messina. Our dream might be too big but maybe it is the same dream you unknowingly had as that 8-year-old boy in the picture.
We want you to come home, to wear our colours, to represent our city, just as your father did before you. There is a black and orange family waiting for you, with the same name on the back: “Bryant”
Bryant’s dad, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, played for Viola, so joining the team would’ve been a fun way for Kobe to call a time on his basketball career. He also speaks fluent Italian, which made a move to Italy all the more feasible.
But in his first press conference upon confirming his retirement, Bryant didn’t sound like somebody who was having second thoughts about his decision to walk away from the game:
The lasting image of Bryant on a basketball court will be in a Lakers jersey, which is the way it should be.
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Kobe Bryant is in the midst of the worst—and final—season of his legendary career, and things aren’t getting much better for the Los Angeles Lakers star in light of a sore shoulder.
Continue for updates.
Mike Trudell of Time Warner Cable Sports Net reported Bryant has been scratched from Saturday’s game vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder with an ailing shoulder:
His timeline to return remains unclear, though the injury doesn’t appear to be serious.
Warranted questions were asked as to how much Kobe had left in the tank after he missed 47 games last year while suffering from a torn rotator cuff in addition to the general wear and tear that comes with playing two decades in the league.
Even Michael Jordan’s two years with the Washington Wizards were largely forgettable, and he wasn’t coming off a series of major injuries. Father Time catches up with even the greatest of stars, so Bryant isn’t immune to the effects of aging—a problem made worse by Bryant’s various health troubles.
If Bryant were content to play a more secondary role on the Lakers, both he and the team would arguably benefit. Instead, Bryant is still being treated as the star of the team, somewhat hindering the development of Los Angeles’ younger stars such as Jordan Clarkson, Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell.
Try as they might, the Lakers aren’t going to make the playoffs in the loaded Western Conference with or without Bryant playing 30 minutes a night.
In fact, his absence might benefit Los Angeles since it should open up more playing time for Russell and Clarkson in the backcourt. The Lakers will have life after Bryant, and how those two guards play will offer fans a glimpse of the team’s future when it embarks on a new competitive cycle.
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Bryce's Notebook 