We are constantly having the Kobe conversation down at Club One. Not that I'm constantly down at Club One. And not that there's anything wrong with that. You know what I mean.
Think of it as contributing to the downtown economy. Doing my part.
So I'm often having the Kobe conversation with a friend, Smokee, and if you've never had a friend named Smokee, maybe you should get one.
He is a Kobe Bryant fan. He's also a Lakers fan, but "if Kobe was traded to Toronto," Smokee would be a Raptors fan, and "if Kobe was sent to Mars," his allegiances would switch planets, as well.
Which of those locales is geographically closer to an NBA championship is up for debate.
Mr. Bryant, however, does not need to go anywhere to bask in the accomplishment. The championship is in Los Angeles, where this week they celebrated an NBA title with a downtown parade three days after marching past the Magic in five games.
To some, earning a title without Shaquille O'Neil solidifies finally Bryant's greatness and puts him on a Michael Jordan level. To quite a few others, that statement triggers the gag reflex.
Bryant is Communism. There aren't too many people in the middle on the subject.
The fact that after three championships, an MVP award and two scoring titles, Bryant would need to do anything to prove himself -- as he said himself after the Finals -- is "idiotic." That the public sentiment even exists, though, says plenty, and Bryant worrying about it anyway probably says just as much.
Bryant wants to be the greatest of all time. Jordan simply was, and there was no reason to lobby for it.
On the basketball court, the similarities between the two are many. The famous inner drive. The high-maintenance teammate. The fadeaway. The jump shot so flat it could be cast sidearm from a bass boat.
If you answered honestly, it would be difficult to say Jordan ever had significantly better physical skills, if at all. And yet, Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan, and now at 30 years old, it's obvious Bryant never will be.
He's the Alex Rodriguez of basketball, an astronomical talent who has mostly been assigned to the role of villain.
You might put the responsibility of that on a well-publicized rape accusation, but Jordan had plenty of personal demons, documented transgressions, affairs, a gambling habit that only his checking account could shoulder.
No, the difference is the ring. Not the winner's ring, the wanderer's ring. Not that Jordan, or any of us, haven't once bought ourselves out of relationship trouble by credit card. But not so publicly. Not so grandly and blatantly as that giant purple diamond ring he bought his wife, however many millions it cost, the bold, hardly underlying statement that said pretty plainly, Adultery? C'mon, didn't you know? Kobe is invincible.
Bryant does smug the way Charlton Heston did bold.
In these playoffs, Bryant was quite the actor himself. His expressions were so exaggerated and obvious he was practically a line of Barbie dolls. TV announcers were calling them out: Oh, look, there's Intense Kobe. Wait, it looks like Tough Kobe is back.
In the news conference after Game 2 of the Finals, up 2-0, Bryant glared so intensely reporters finally had to ask him about it. "What's there to be happy about?" he snapped. "The job's not finished."
It all felt so rehearsed. You wondered if he typed his own postgame notes, making sure all the writers noticed his interview focus, how he took nothing for granted.
Everyone wanted to Be Like Mike. And while kids imitate his moves, too, clearly nobody wants to Be Like Kobe more than Kobe does.
Remember A-Rod swatting Bronson Arroyo's glove away in the American League Championship Series and then acting like he was shocked when he was called out? It's classic Bryant. No one pleads to the referees more adamantly or more often. No one lands more incidental elbows. In the Finals, he whipped two at Magic center Dwight Howard in the biggest overreaction of this year's playoffs.
None of it is to say Bryant isn't the best basketball player on earth. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. He is an unreal talent, a champion, a tireless worker whose now earned a title without O'Neil. Smokee and I will argue on about which pedestal Bryant should be placed.
But, as a reminder, it's the people who choose the icons, and a fourth title isn't what his résumé lacked.
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