ORLANDO, Fla. — The most powerful magic in the NBA Finals belongs to Kobe Bryant. Sorry, Mickey Mouse. This is the Black Mamba’s kingdom.
But as Bryant moves toward the rare air of his fourth league title with the Los Angeles Lakers, is this a story of redemption? Or snarling revenge by the most polarizing athlete in sports?
“Kobe cheats. Just ask his wife,” was the message on a handmade poster held high and waved with pride by a fan sitting behind the baseline in Amway Arena.
Down on the court, Bryant was fixing to stare an angry hole through the heart of helpless Magic sub J.J. Redick after burying a jump shot that put the Lakers two points closer to raising the 15th championship banner for the storied franchise.
And I sat slack-jawed, wondering: Does Bryant really have to be that way? His brilliance is unsurpassed anywhere in sports. So why spoil the moment by acting like a bully?
“In L.A., they love Kobe, and when he’s on the road, they hate him, because he’s in your face. That’s the path he chose to walk,” legendary Lakers alum Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told me Saturday.
“Kobe makes an obvious challenge to people. When I learned the game, I was told not to do that. It creates problems sometimes. You don’t want to give the other guy an incentive to play harder.”
A basketball fan must make a choice with Bryant:
Love him. Or loathe him.
Bryant allows no emotional wiggle room. And there’s no mercy rule in the way the 30-year-old guard plays the game.
“Like him or hate him, Kobe’s a great player. One thing you know about him, when he steps on the court, he’s an assassin,” Hall of Fame center Patrick Ewing said.
In the past 25 years, has any American athlete been so stoked by the anger aimed at him?
During the Western Conference finals, when Bryant was performing in Colorado, a rowdy band of spectators in the upper deck of the Pepsi Center derisively chanted “Eagle County,” where the Lakers star faced allegations of sexual assault in 2003, only to see the case against him dropped a year later when his accuser refused to testify.
Taunt Bryant at your team’s peril.
When the entire arena in Denver echoed with the mildly profane, but utterly unmistakable suggestion that Kobe stinks, Bryant admitted at the time that silencing an angry mob gives him a thrill.
“It’s a great feeling. It’s a much better feeling than being at home and hearing the roar of the crowd. You enjoy it a lot more, because everybody’s against you. And everybody’s wanting you to lose, wanting you to fail,” Bryant said.
Michael Jordan would wag his tongue and dunk in the mug of some defenseless sap, then punctuate the personal highlight by trotting down the court wearing an impish grin and beats-me shrug, as if to tell the world even his Royal Airness did not quite comprehend how he constantly defied gravity and logic.
Bryant seldom reveals anything that resembles humility or childlike joy. A growling arrogance is more his style. Unlike baseball villain Barry Bonds or football narcissist Terrell Owens, however, Kobe is truly polarizing because legions of fans around the world feel like a champ when wearing his Lakers jersey.
The league MVP of 2008 is poised to win a title without the help of Shaquille O’Neal. The sponsors who abandoned Bryant after his infamous act of adultery in Colorado can only wish they had a pitchman with such global reach. At the Summer Olympics in Beijing, a city of 17 million went rock star gaga over Kobe. He is destined to be remembered as one of the 10 best players in the sport’s history, according to Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Even detractors who find no redeeming qualities in Bryant must admit: Success is the best revenge.
Asked if counting championships was the ultimate way to keep score and the six rings won by Jordan were now within his grasp, Bryant said: “I’m just trying to get this (darn) fourth one.”
The truth is: Nobody roaming the sports landscape today compares to Bryant.
Kobe is a king of 21st-century pop culture, where both fleeting gossip and enduring greatness are reduced to the 140 characters of a Twitter blast.
Bryant doesn’t rap or talk politics. But he is every bit as polarizing as Eminem and Bill O’Reilly.
Maybe the rules of the celebrity game have changed. What’s right or what’s wrong is not as relevant as the number of eyes following your every little move.
It’s not whether you win or lose, but how deep a line you draw in the sand. Are you cheering for Kobe? Jeering the Black Mamba?
Either way, Bryant has gotcha.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
