13 April 2016

Kobe Bryant is not our favorite athlete, has never been and never will be.

With him holding the ball for most possessions, the 6302 assists comes as a by-product of his selfishness. He is a control freak. He can’t let go and trust his teammates.  He drives teammates away with his single-mindedness.

These are the reasons why we could not like Kobe Bryant as a basketball player like we do Stephen Curry (who found a better balance between the selflessness of Steve Nash and selfishness of Kobe), but they are also why we admire Kobe Bryant as a human being.

He has every reason to be selfish, to only trust himself at the most crucial moments. Who else has worked on that fade-away hundreds of thousands of times? Who else has practiced that precise footwork every night? Who else is consumed by basketball and the desire to win as much as he is?

It’s not about the five championships that he won, or the number of times he’s been on the all-defensive team, or the Finals MVPs. It’s about his drive to win, his growth through the years, and his desire to be better. Kobe taught us there is no need to be ashamed of the hunger to improve.

While we could never like a basketball player that played so selfishly on the court that does not mean we could not admire the person that Kobe is. ‪#‎ThankYouKobe