The Kobe Bryant Farewell Tour is officially under way. This week, the Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard announced the current NBA season would be his last.
As soon as the news broke, diehard fans began forking over huge amounts of cash for the chance to see the once-great man making his final appearance at their nearest NBA arena.
He is now basketball’s equivalent of Mickey Rourke’s character in ‘The Wrestler’ — a tired shell of his old self, desperately trying to live out former glories in front of loyal crowds who want to say ‘I was there’.
But basketball isn’t wrestling. It’s a team sport in which squads of competitive players fight for real wins that affect play-off positions and draft orders. Instead of rooting for their local team to move up in the rankings, supporters will now be cheering for a ghost who can no longer do the things that made him great.
Bryant did score 31 points in a throwback performance in Washington on Wednesday night, hitting shots from all over the court as the Lakers beat the Wizards. These nights will warm hearts, but they will be the exception, not the rule, between now and April.
After 20 seasons in LA, Bryant will retire as history’s second-best shooting guard and, at least according to former teammate Shaquille O’Neal, the greatest Laker. Bryant won five NBA titles, an MVP, two NBA Finals MVPs, two scoring titles and many other honours in a near-peerless career.
So if this grotesque peep show is how he wants his famous career to end, who are we to protest?
Except this is far from how he wanted it to end. As recently as last summer, he believed he could come back from an injury-riddled two-year spell to lead the Lakers to the playoffs.
In August, he told ESPN that he believed the Lakers would “absolutely” make the 2016 post-season, even after the front office failed in their bid to sign free agent star forward LaMarcus Aldridge.
Blame the deluded Lakers decision-makers, not Bryant, for the sad manner in which their all-time leading scorer will go out. They thought the club’s glorious history and the bright lights of Hollywood would be enough to snare another star, such as Aldridge last summer or Carmelo Anthony in the 2014 off-season.
Instead, when Aldridge joined the San Antonio Spurs, the Lakers were left to scrap for middling players such as centre Roy Hibbert and guard Lou Williams, just as they had to do a year previously with guard Jeremy Lin and forward Carlos Boozer.
Thanks to this roster mismanagement, we will never know if Bryant could have contributed on a winning team in the way Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan continue to do in their late 30s.
Instead, Bryant has spent the final season of a historic career toiling away on an outmatched squad featuring exciting youngsters who are not ready to win, such as DeAngelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson and Julius Randle.
It is the worst way to expose the flaws of an artist whose tools are getting duller by the day.
He deserves better.
It’s a mess, but it ultimately could end up bailing out the Lakers’ incompetent front office, which has a very good incentive to put out a loser this season. Their 2016 first round draft pick goes to the Philadelphia 76ers if it’s anything other than a top-three choice, setting back the once-great franchise even further.
The most fitting tribute to their longest-serving son would now be to ensure the best chance of finding his successor. The Lakers must do all they can to protect their draft pick by ridding the roster of any useful player aged over 21 and going into full tank mode.
Bryant’s heir certainly isn’t on the current team. The best way to find him will be in the draft, not through trades or free agency.
With a roster made up of Bryant and a bunch of the kids, the Lakers can stay terrible on the court while waving the Kobe Farewell Tour banner off it. Bryant, who was chucking 6.8 three-pointers on just 20.2 per cent, is freed to fire as many bad shots as he wishes.
Meanwhile, instead of writing about how Bryant is not the same player, we in the media switch to how the NBA won’t be the same without him.
Everybody wins — except Bryant. He was famously desperate for the chance to play for a sixth title, putting him on a par with his muse, Michael Jordan. He won’t get that chance now.
As we raise a final salute to one of the fiercest competitors of all time, let’s hope the Lakers learn from their recent mistakes and commit to a traditional rebuild, rather than a short-sighted quick fix.
It’s the least they could do to honour Bryant’s legacy.
