Kobe Bryant: Turning 37, It’s Time To Appreciate His Career

As you begin to investigate all-time historical players — in any sport — certain things stand out.  It’s easy to forget how special the greatest icons were during their prime, and their achievements are sometimes unbelievable.  Unintentionally, a feeling of appreciation for these players enters your body.

When trying to determine what makes a player “great” or “extraordinary” in their occupation, an important step is to develop some criteria.

Unfortunately, that’s where many arguments arise.  It’s the prime reason for people’s beliefs and opinions coming from different ends of the spectrum.  Typically, they have different criteria for what makes a legendary career.

In baseball, some would say a great criteria system would be a mix of home runs, hits, and defensive numbers/achievements.  Football is even tougher, with quarterbacks absorbing most of the acclaim throughout history.  Don’t believe it?  Just listen to most people name off their “greatest NFL players of all-time.”  Most pundits will include about 4-5 quarterbacks in their Top 10.  Offensive talents are more appreciated, mostly because it’s more exciting to watch.

With basketball, there’s an incredibly wide range of criteria you can use to arbitrate who’s the best talents to ever grace a court.  In this modern period of statistics and how advanced we’ve seen the NBA transform into, there’s literally an endless amount of standards you can set for greatness.

You can use Player Efficiency Ratings.  Some prefer the use of Win Shares.  Some people heavily value a player’s True Shooting Percentage mixed with key defensive metrics.  Or, if you’re clever and curious enough to experiment with a lot of numbers, the door is open to create your own formulas that illustrate a player’s excellence.  For instance, if you’re ever wondering how great of a passer certain players are/were compared to others, I devised a “Passer Rating” formula to help solve that mystery.

However, when you get into players that have crossed the 15-year milestone (or longer) in the league, people find it appropriate to sort through legends based on their large career totals.  It’s no coincidence — playing longer and staying relatively healthy in your 30’s will help you soar up the leaderboards in many statistical categories.

For the sake of the argument and to see how Kobe Bryant measures up to other Top 20 players in NBA history in regards to longevity achievements, I did the same.  What Bryant has been able to rack up on his career resume is almost unparalleled, yet he continues to receive bashing from critics that don’t agree with his “style.”

30,000 points, 5,000 assists, 5,000 rebounds, 5 championship titles.  In NBA history, there are only three players that can check all of those boxes off their legacy list.  Two of those three are rightfully appreciated for their successful careers:

• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — 38,387 points, 17,440 rebounds, 5,660 assists, 6 championships
• Michael Jordan — 32,292 points, 6,672 rebounds, 5,633 assists, 6 championships
• Kobe Bryant — 32,482 points, 6,800 rebounds, 6,122 assists, 5 championships

(7,804).  For just a 6’6″ guard that uses majority of his energy in the scoring department, it’s actually pretty remarkable that he’s reached this point.

The standard of 30,000 points, 5,000 rebounds, and 5,000 assists has also been achieved by Karl Malone, but Michael Jordan would be the first to smile & wink, revealing that Malone has zero rings.

When you sit back and think about it, that special criteria is extremely hard to meet.  Most of the time, someone is always going to lack something on the list.

Magic Johnson fell short on the points, being 12,293 shy.  It was for numerous reasons — Magic wasn’t known as a player with natural scoring abilities like Jordan and Bryant, and mainly used his size and speed to create his driving lanes.  He couldn’t shoot the lights out by any means, and attempted a very low amount of 3’s in the first six years of his career (164).  Magic eventually taught himself how to become a respectable 3-point shooter late in his career, though.  Plus, the HIV catastrophe forced him to stop playing after 13 seasons.

Kevin Garnett is 4,051 points away from the 30,000 mark, but has the rebounds (14,512) and assists (5,383) locked up.  Garnett is too over-the-hill to stay in the league and rack up more buckets.  Even if he did … he’s still four championships short.  Unfortunately for KG, his Minnesota teams had to deal with the wicked Western Conference.  Then, his Boston teams had to live in the era of LeBron.

Oscar Robertson fell 3,290 points and four championships short.  Jerry West?  4,808 points and four championships short.  John Havlicek?  Oh, he definitely had the titles (8 of them!), but only played long enough to score 26,395 points.

A handful of others were very close, as well.  Shaquille O’Neal missed the cut in three categories, but he’s known for being the most unstoppable force in the middle we’ve ever seen.  He retired just 1,404 points, 1,974 assists, and one championship shy.  Tim Duncan — probably the greatest power forward ever — is the most unselfish player you can think of, so he obviously missed the cut in points (4,026 shy, but currently playing).  Duncan is also 938 assists short, but he’s one of the few with five championships under his belt.

LeBron James is actively pursuing Jordan, Magic, Kareem, and Kobe so he can enter the top four players to ever lace up the sneakers.  It’s apparent that LeBron has 4-5 years left before a major decline knocks on his door.  Therefore, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for him to rise above a couple of those prestigious names.  But, even “The Chosen One” may fall short of something in that criteria.

James is only 5,087 points away from crossing off the 30,000 career points.  Astonishingly enough, he’s already passed 6,000 rebounds and 6,000 assists.  Nevertheless, he’s still three championship titles away from the benchmark of five rings on his hand.  He’s going to have everything except for the championships by the time 2018 arrives, but should that matter?  That’s when the discussion of “How much value should team winnings have on your personal legacy” comes into play.

The underlying problem with basketball fans in this era is simple.  They are often too critical on players for the most silly reasons.  Opinions of players and their legacies are all based on personal preference anyway.  Therefore, every argument shouldn’t be about assaulting and chastising all-time figures.  Regardless if they had their deficiencies that make them “not as great” as others in your narrative, it doesn’t mean they weren’t ridiculously skilled players during their time.

Out of the four players to break the 30,000-5,000-5,000 barrier, of course Kobe has the lowest True Shooting Percentage.  Of course Kobe has the most missed field goals, and the lowest PER rating:

• Bryant — 55.3% True Shooting, 13,766 missed field goals, 23.2 PER
• Jordan — 56.9% True Shooting, 12,345 missed field goals, 27.9 PER
• Malone — 57.7% True Shooting, 12,682 missed field goals, 23.9 PER
• Kareem — 59.2% True Shooting, 12,470 missed field goals, 24.6 PER

Those are what the critics and negative minds will point out, time and time again.  Instead of dwelling and nagging on the inefficiency of Bryant during his career, why can’t anyone appreciate that he’s on the same list as these icons?  Why does that get lost in every debate?

Longevity awards and accomplishments are tricky, because it all rests on how long you want to defy the aging process.  It also depends on how early you’re willing (and legally able) to start your NBA career.  Remember, Bryant was drafted at such a young age (17), as did LeBron (18), and Garnett (19).  When you surpass milestones based on how long you’ve played, efficiency and ugly team situations aren’t taken into account.

But, they are to be respected.  Anyone who can keep their bodies durable enough to play over 40,000 minutes against the best and most heated competition in the world deserves to be admired.  Especially if they did it with hundreds of memorable moments, great entertainment, and a large amount of success along the way.

As he’s now 37 years old, Bryant has to figure out how to make his final season memorable.  Only eight current players in the league are older than Bryant, as we’ve watched him grow up from the brazen and presumptuous 17-year-old brat, to now a 37-year-old dog refusing to die.

Some people are waiting for an Old Yeller moment, where his late-career misery can be put to rest.  Others are appreciating his eminence, unexcelled hard work through the last 20 years, and his place among the “Mt. Rushmore” faces.

Only playing in 41 of the last 164 possible games, Bryant has to stay on the floor this upcoming season.  It will be the last time we see a No. 24 in purple and gold.

Appreciate what you have before it’s gone.