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Thursday, January 26, 2006
Kobe’s 81 sets selfish example for kids
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
The worst thing to happen to basketball was the dunk. More specifically, you had Dr. J becoming Dr. Frankenstein by turning his perfection of the thundering slam into a monster. It helped kill the purity of the game. That is, if the discussion involves things that entice youngsters into playing the wrong way.
Here’s the latest of the worst things to happen to basketball, and it’s a horror in progress: The aftermath of Phil Jackson sitting smugly on the Los Angeles Lakers bench last Sunday and allowing Kobe Bryant to gun his way to a ridiculous 81 points. Through it all, the ruthless duo couldn’t care less about the other Lakers (two assists for Bryant), or about the game already rolling toward a rout against pitiful Toronto, or about the effect of this selfishness on youth.
This is scary. This is very scary, especially when you listen to Javaris Crittenton, the wonder guard from Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy who is dribbling toward Georgia Tech. “Anything that any great NBA player does is always going to come down and have an impact on the younger generation,” Crittenton said. “There are 5-year-old kids out there who probably don’t know their ABCs, but they know that Kobe scored 81 points.”
They also know through osmosis, if nothing else, that it is more about “me” than “us” in today’s NBA. Well, except for the flukes that are the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs. Eight guys scored 50 or more points in a game last season and just five did so the season before that. We’ve already had eight such players this season, and we’re still a month from the All-Star Game. As a result, Bryant will go from the ridiculous to the absurd sooner than later by trying to surpass Wilt Chamberlain’s record of 100 points in a game.
There is Friday, for instance, when the Lakers will play their first game since Bryant became Mr. 81. They’ll be at home against the defensively flawed Golden State Warriors, which means Jackson and Bryant will have another chance to ignore the whole and manipulate the environment to their liking for an individual.
Whatever the case, Big Kobe already has spawned Little Kobes everywhere, but that won’t necessarily be true 2,000 miles away from Staples Center, where Crittenton will spend Friday at a Henry County gym against Eagle’s Landing Christian.
This is the same bunch that Crittenton torched for 54 points two weeks ago with his Little Kobe moment.
“When we play them at their home this time, they’ll bring a whole other team inside of them, and they’ll come hungrier, which is why you can’t be complacent and say, ‘Oh, I scored 54 against them before, so this is going to be a cakewalk,’ ” said Crittenton, whose maturity is noted on and off the court. “I’m not going into this game or any game saying, ‘I’m going to score 70 this time.’ If I don’t and get 30 or even 20, hey, as long as we get the ‘W.’ My goal is to just play and get my teammates involved and let the rhythm come to me.”
Sounds good. Then again, somewhere it is written that “a little child shall lead them,” and thus we have Crittenton delivering his indirect message to Big Kobe: A basketball team is about everybody, and if you happen to be the star, that doesn’t mean you have to try to scorch those around you by slinging your brightness in their faces.
Even Allen Iverson and LeBron James understand as much. They rank No. 2 and No. 3 behind Bryant as the only other NBA players averaging 30 points or more per game. Still, while Iverson is seventh in the league in assists, James is 15th.
Bryant? Uh, 35th.
Let’s end with that “little” child of 6-feet-4 and 185 pounds. He said the following when I asked him if he could score 81 points someday: “In the NBA, I don’t think so, not since I’d have to set people up as a point guard. I’m not going to say that I wouldn’t, but I can’t say.
“In high school, I have a couple of more games left, but that’s not my goal. If 81 points don’t get me a state championship, then I don’t want them.”
I like this “little” child.
Permalink | Comments (52) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Terence Moore
Kobe’s 81? Awesome!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I was pleasantly surprised to note that Kobe Bryant scoring 81 points brought out the fan in me. When you’ve been doing this for as long as I’ve been doing it (28 years, the last 22 at the AJC), games and seasons tend to blur. Kobe getting 81 was one of those rare things that made me stop what I was doing and break out the NBA’s Game Tracker online — I’d heard he had 62 points and wanted to see how high he’d score — and follow in rapt wonderment.
Even now, the feat having had four days to sink in, I still get excited thinking about it. Eighty-one points! I was 6 years old when Wilt Chamberlain got his 100 in Hershey, Pa., against Imhof and Naulls and the rest of the Knicks, and there was, as you know, no Game Tracker back then. Kobe’s game was the kind that I figured the NBA would never see again, and I’m delighted to know that I was wrong.
At the Hawks’ game Wednesday night, I was still so stoked that I listened to Dominique Wilkins’ quibbles — the Raptors didn’t double-team Kobe until he got to 79; the no-hand-check rule in today’s NBA makes it easier for such nights to occur; such a windfall would never have happened in the prideful days of the 1980s, when Wilkins was plying his trade against Jordan and Bird and Magic — and managed to laugh them off. I have great respect for Dominique, and I know how hard he had to work to get 57 points in a game (which he managed twice, once against Jordan’s Bulls), but I still kept coming back to the same magic phrase.
Eighty-one points!
Mike Brown coaches Cleveland, which means he’d seen his man LeBron James go for 51 against Utah on Saturday, a total that figured to make LeBron the weekend scoring champ for sure. One night later, Bryant got 51 plus 30 more. “I didn’t think anybody could get 81 with everybody knowing he’s going to shoot,” Brown said. “Back in the day, you could make excuses and say, ‘Well, the [scouting] film wasn’t there, and the defenses wasn’t very sophisticated,’ but now everybody has tapes and DVDs and every coach puts an emphasis on defense.”
And still Kobe got his 81, and now Mike Brown figures someone else could equal or better that, someone like LeBron. “He’s definitely talented enough.” And the afterglow of a guy going for 81 on a Sunday night made LeBron’s otherwise huge game against the Hawks — he had 38 points — seem almost pedestrian. Before Sunday, I’d have thought 38 was a big deal. After the 81, my first thought about LeBron’s outlay was, “Kobe just scored more than twice that many.”
I’m 50 years old, and games and seasons are running into each other. For example, I have the toughest time telling one Braves’ division title from another. But I’ll remember Kobe and his 81 for as long as my memory continues to function.
Permalink | Comments (18) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
