Kobe Bryant: Why Breaking Record For Missed Field Goals Will Be His Greatest Achievement
Kobe Bryant scored 39 points against the Phoenix Suns on Nov. 4. It was a quintessential Black Mamba performance. It was impossible. It was incredible. It was fascinatingly watchable. It was utterly inefficient. It was both awfully great and greatly awful. In a word: It was Kobe.
Bryant has been on a mission to defy the “experts” who voted him as the No. 40 player in the NBA. He alluded to that before the season even started telling Bill Oram of the Orange County Register,
"“Honestly, all jokes aside, it really doesn’t bother me too much,” he said. “I’m going to do what I do regardless. And God willing I can stay healthy and if I wind up proving a lot of people wrong in the process that will just wind up being collateral damage.”"
The game gave his fans fodder to believe he is making the “experts” out to be the “idiots” he called them. Five games into the season, he’s second in the NBA in scoring, averaging 27.6 points. And then in one night he scored 39. But that’s the enigma which is Bryant.
To reach that number he had to use an incredible number of possessions. He had to fire off 37 shots.
Cue the bickering.
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Since at least 1985, only one player older than him has taken so many shots in a game. Michael Jordan, while a Washington Wizard, shot 38 times to get to 51 points on Dec. 29, 2001.
And that’s not all the possessions Bryant used. He also took 12 free throws and turned the ball over three times. All told, that’s 46 of the Lakers’ 100 turns with the ball he used during the game.
Bryant’s fans will point to Carlos Boozer, et al, and ask what he’s supposed to do? Who else is going to score?
His detractors will respond that while he scored 37 on his 46 possessions, the rest of the team scored 69 points on their 54. Bryant averaged .87 points on his possessions. His teammates averaged 1.25 on theirs
His defenders will say, that’s because Bryant creates opportunities for them because all the defensive attention is on him. His “haters” will point out that he had just one assist, making him the only player since at least 1985 to have more than 35 shots, shoot worse than .400 and still only dish one assist.
Only twice since ’85 has a player missed at least 23 shots and notched only one assist. Keith Van Horn on Jan. 19, 1998, and Bryant on Nov. 29, 2005, were the other occurrences.
The fans and haters will bicker forever on all things Bryant, but in the process, they talk past each other.
This is what makes Kobe’s game so much Kobe that it couldn’t be more Kobe. It was everything great and wonderful about him, flawed selfishness and all.
Here was Bryant, coming out with 10 games played in the last two years, recovering from a torn Achilles and a broken knee, hurling insults at all who defied him, throwing up shots with abandon and putting together a preposterous point total with insanely bad efficiency.
And through it all he used 46 possessions. Forty-six!!!! A 36-year-old man with that many miles on his broken knee and torn Achilles has no business with that kind of usage.
That he would deign to even try to use that many possessions in a game is deliciously, grotesquely, narcissistically preposterous.
That, more than anything is what defines Kobe. It’s not his makes. It’s his misses. It’s the way he is completely impervious to self-reflection.
There’s a kind of beauty to that mentality. To be able to fail so often, and yet retain utter confidence that you won’t the next time, is fascinating. I have no doubt that Bryant never took a shot thinking it wouldn’t go in.
With 25 more misses, he’ll be the biggest failure in NBA history, and he won’t give a single hoot about it. The first shot he takes after breaking the record will go in. Just ask him.
It’s because of that ability to dust off failure that he’s also one of the most successful. Not too long later setting the miss record, he’ll pass Michael Jordan on the all-time scoring list. Later, he’ll become the inaugural member of the 30,000-point, 6,000-assist, 6,000-rebound club.
And none of that would be possible without his utter disregard for failure. All the great things he’s done are indelibly entwined with his failures.
Kobe’s fans are right, he’s done truly amazing things. But, so are his haters. He’s fundamentally flawed. While his fans would like to hide from his failings, and his haters would like to define him by them, the truth is he’s forged by them.
I don’t like labels like “killer instinct” and “clutch gene” because they’re silly, pop-psyche sports metaphors that over-simplify complex discussions. That’s not what I’m talking about.
Bryant is a driven man. I don’t know what it is, but something burns in him and nothing’s stopped him, thought the list that have tried is lengthy: opponents, teammates, winning, losing, rape accusations, failures, success, losing seasons, winning seasons, other accusations, haters, stans and injuries—so many injuries—they all just keep piling up.
And all the while Kobe just keeps firing up shots, make or miss, and marching on. To maintain that relentless attack on whatever inner-demon he’s bene trying to slay for as long as he has is amazing. He’s the most relentless, enduring athlete I’ve ever seen.
Bryant has won rings, but five is just historically outstanding, not great. He’ll be third all-time in scoring when he retires. He’ll have a unique club all his own. He’ll have a very long list of accomplishments, but he will only have one actual record: missed filed goals.
And that one record is the perfect one for him, because that encapsulates the essence of Kobe. When he breaks his fans will run from it. His haters will mock him for it. And I will applaud him.