Kobe they don't know me

This was the most interesting Kobe story I have ever read. I want to save this to read when ever the world seems too tough. Just when you think you can't win you see someone who had it rough and they inspire you to go on.

Also something that should be mentioned... Kobe is not Micheal Jordan, he is his own man and he handles things his own way, but with the amount of time he has left to play, one day he can be as great.

Also critics of Kobe Bryant, last year the Lakers tried to play as a team and they were horrible. They brought back Phil Jackson, Micheal Jordan's mentor, and he has given Kobe the green light to play till it hurts. Kobe will learn he can not do it all on his own but before that he has to play basketball to win (See Jordan in 1987). If he gives up that winning spirit then its over and the Lakers should fold and mail in their lottery picks. In addition, great teams don't sulk or use the draft to rebuild, great teams have great players who attract others, like the glow of the sun. Kobe is burning so hot he is begging, not for your attention, but the attention of basketball players to come back to LA. His team has quit on him and that is why he scored 81 points. Lamar Odom basically stands around and lets Kobe do all the work. If you are driven then you make an effort to win. Read on...

It has happened: Must-see Kobe source By Scoop Jackson ESPN Page 2

When did it happen?
Not the 81 points. Not the 51 he dropped last week in Sacramento. Not the game against Dallas, where he outscored the Mavericks 62-61 through three quarters before not playing in the fourth.
None of that.
Kobe fired himself up -- and enough shots -- to rain an amazing 81 on the Raptors.
It needs to be known when it happened. When did something inside Kobe Bryant snap? When did he get so angry that he decided to take it out on the court? At what point did he reach that point? That point of no return. That Tupac point. He against the world.
Was it the Mike Miller moment? Is that where we begin this? Is it that game against Memphis, when Miller gave Kobe one shot to the dome that opened up a Manny Pacquiao cut above Kobe's left eye? Is that when Kobe lost it? Because ever since that game, ever since he got suspended for two games by the league for a blow-to-the-throat retaliation, Kobe Bryant has lost his *&%#@ mind.
Or was it before that? The game before that Dallas game. The game that he said made him sick. The one the Lakers lost. When they scored only 74 points against Houston on Dec. 18. Kobe was scoring 31.3 points per game, trailing Iverson, who was averaging 33.4 at the time, and there was little discussion of a scoring race.
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Maybe that's when that something else entered his body. Taking it over. Linda Blairing it. Making him the simultaneous combination of Jordan, Baylor and King. Making us see things we've never seen before; making us watch Lakers games that last year we'd totally dismiss for "Nip/Tuck" or "Grey's Anatomy."
Was it after he sprained his wrist in the game against LeBron in the first quarter, then made himself hit the final eight points to win the game? Was it when AI came to town and he knew a casual 40 was not going to be enough? The game when before the tip he said ultra-sarcastically, "Oh, so this is a [scoring] race?"
Or was it at halftime of this last game? The one when Lamar Odom said, "He was ticked off." Was that when it all came out? Made him straight lose control and empty 81 rounds on a team so bad that former Georgetown coach John Thompson said on his radio show that if Wilt Chamberlain played against that Raptors team he'd have scored 200 points.
To pinpoint the time is essential to understanding why Kobe Bryant is doing what he is doing. In order to get a grasp, to get some type of comprehension of what is really going on, we need to know when -- when! -- did Kobe get so heated at the world that he decided to take his frustrations out on the game of basketball?
Kobe '06 vs. Jordan '87
How does Kobe's 2006 season compare to Michael Jordan's 1987, when MJ scored his career-high 37.1 points per game?

Because until we get to that point, we may not appreciate exactly what it is he's really doing. Until we discover that day, none of us are going to truly understand what this vengeance of his is all about.
Eighty-one in the same season that he scored 62 in three quarters -- with two other 50-point games (so far).
Brotha's mad about something.
*****
He has become "Must-See-TV." Alone, win or lose, Kobe Bryant has made it essential that we not miss him play a game of basketball this season.
The Lakers versus the Raptors? Whatever. The Lakers against the Kings? Two years ago, maybe. The Lakers are playing the Mavericks? Cool, homey. I'll catch the highlights on "SportsCenter."
That was the apathy.
There were more things important than watching Kobe Bryant chuck up shots while the other nine guys on the floor stood around watching the shot clock.
Even the great Spike Lee, after a game against the Knicks, said he couldn't watch it anymore. I think his words to me after that game were, "That's not basketball."
He was right. But there were glimpses of it being something you didn't want to miss.
Even in the arrogance of a 9-for-33 night in San Antonio on Nov. 29, when Bryant belligerently said his "missed shots provided shot opportunities for his teammates off the offensive boards," you could sense in Bernie Mac-ology that "something different was goings on."
For better or worse, richer or broke, wins or losses, it made you want to pay attention to what may happen next in the book of Kobe.
And this is what Jerry Buss had in mind when he made the decision to keep No. 8. It wasn't about winning games or getting another ring or embarrassing Shaq or Phil. From a business standpoint, all Buss wanted to do was make the Lakers relevant, make us want to pay attention to everything that happened inside the Staples Center, make us never want to miss a game.
81 Ain't Nothing
Kobe Bryant's 81-point game was the second-highest in NBA history, but as Jeff Merron points out, the NBA isn't the only league. From Bevo Francis' 113 for Rio Grande College to Cheryl Miller's 105 in a high school girls to somebody named John Barber scoring 188 in college game, we have a list of some of the highest-scoring hoopsters in history.
It was a "watch a car wreck on the 110 or watch a Bentley roll slow down Crenshaw" mentality. Either way, Buss wanted our attention. And he had the guy who was going to grab it.
He wanted Kobe to deliver that to him last year. Kobe didn't. The shots weren't falling.
But this year, the Bentley is pushing 120 mph on the Santa Monica Freeway. Kobe's making Buss look like a genius.
*****
Michael used to do this. The same thing.
One of the things that Jordan used to do was invent drama to get himself mad so he'd have something to take out on whoever was guarding him that particular night. Or whatever team. Most nights he didn't need to create the pseudo-press clippings to get him started, but every now and then he'd turn a non-compliment into a spit in his face. And for 48 minutes (or however long he was able to hold on to that self-inflicted contempt -- sometimes it lasted for days or months) he had you in front of him, doubting him, hating him. He had you. At his mercy.
Kobe is doing the same thing … but only bigger. In almost never missing a game of Kobevison this year, I've noticed a similar tactic of motivation, but to a degree that $ never dared go.
MJ wanted to be loved; KB could care less.
Kobe has decided to pit himself against the world, not just those he's playing basketball against. Kobe has made himself believe that the entire world is against him. Players, coaches, GMs, media, fans, friends, strangers. All are out to get him, all are waiting for his downfall. That, as one magazine secretly wanted to publish, he is "the most hated athlete in the world."
To me, right now, this is what Kobe Bryant believes.
This has become his motivation.
He doesn't hear "MVP" when the Lakers crowd is chanting. He probably hears, "We hate he," or "Kobe leave," or "You ain't Thee."
When Greg Anthony or Marc Stein says he's the best player alive, Kobe somehow hears LeBron's name instead. He hears Tim Duncan's name instead, or Dwyane Wade's.
The McDonald's slogan to him is, "We Hatin' You." The Wal-Mart smiley face is a frown when he watches television. He can't -- won't -- push the Easy button.
He's probably already taken Vince Carter's comments about the effect these 81 points will have on kids ("The only bad thing about it is that younger kids, whose minds are easily warped, are going to think, 'Ohhh! I am going to go out there and do it instead of [honoring] the team concept first," Carter told the Newark Star-Ledger. "That is what is missing in the game, guys understanding how to play as a team.") so personal that when the Lakers play the Nets on March 17, VC might want to come up with another 'injury' so that Kobe doesn't break Wilt's other record on him.
I'll take it eight steps further: I'll say that everything in Kobe's life (outside of what went down inside of that Colorado hotel room) since he missed those shots against the Jazz in the playoffs his rookie year has been a calculated move to make the world despise him. He can take out his anger, his frustrations -- self-inflicted as they may be -- on not just the defenders and teams he faces, but against the game he loves so much just to show the world how wrong we've been about him.
Think about it. Watch five games.
He's turned the game into another sport. What he's playing is not basketball, but something closer to golf. Not in that he's playing alone, but he's playing against the game itself, as opposed to an opponent. Trust me, Kobe doesn't see the Mavs, the Kings or the Raptors when he's out there anymore. He sees that black cloud that's on "Lost." He sees the F.A.M.E. tattoo on Iverson's back that stands for "F--- All My Enemies." He sees the anti-Kobe.
That's why he's doing things no one has ever seen before.
He sees hate.
*****
So what are you going to do now?
Are you going to miss another Lakers game this season? Is "k-o-b-e b-r-y-a-n-t" going to be highlighted on your TiVo menu listing?
Over the last 10 games he's averaged 45.5. For the season, he's at 35.9. As ri-dope-ulous as that is, it's still less than the 37.1 Jordan averaged in 1987.
But even in that season, was Jordan this spectacular? Did Jordan have us on flat-screen lockdown like this? Rearranging our schedules, canceling vacations, thanking a higher power than David Stern that we don't have to chose between Kobe and the Super Bowl this year. Knowing that on any given February he may make history … again.
Did Jordan ever send us through something like this?
Was Jordan ever this angry?
Kobe gets to rest four days before he has to come back and continue this. Four days to hear how much the world hates him. He said he'd have been "sick to his stomach" if the Lakers had lost that game against the Raptors. Golden State should feel blessed.
But a funny thing happened one night on the way to the Staples. A teammate's compliment was made public. Lamar Odom recently said, "It's like God put Kobe here for us to watch him play basketball."
Umm.
I wonder how Kobe took it. I wonder what went through Kobe's mind when he heard about it. I wonder what Kobe's interpretation was of it.
I wonder was that when it happened?
Jackson, Scoop. ESPN.com, January 29th, 2006.

Kobe makes records wilt source ESPN
I was reading another blog last week about Kobe Bryant and this guy was making claims that Kobe would be remembered as on of the best NBA players and would win another ring without Shaq. I agreed with him and after this 81 points Kobe put up against the Toronto Raptors it is for sure that he will be remembered as a great. The only score higher then his is by Wilt Chamberlain who played when short guys where the norm and he was a giant. They had to change the rules of basketball because he would stand by the rim and lay it up. If we had tape of the 100 point game, Wilt is likely to be called for, offensive goal tending, and 20 or more 3 second violations by today's standards. I don't want to blame Wilt for his gifted size but anyone arguing that Wilt or Shaq are great athletes doesn't know what they are talking about. They have great size and some agility for their stature but really its like a bull surrounded by clowns. Kobe is like Jordan, he has the finesse game. Its a thing of beauty and it is difficult to come by. Only Lebron James, Allen Iverson, Tracey McGrady and Vince Cater fall into the same level of skill. I hope his involvement in the US team brings some forgiveness for his recent misdeeds Kobe and goes on being the superstar he is.

American Idol Returns
While I'm not a big fan of the show it is amazing how much it has changed through the years. The 1st year was kind of a joke among show biz kids. It was purely amateur stuff, yet turned out the only true American Idol, Kelly Clarkson. The next year after her validation came more serious competitors and the top three finalists were all given records though the second place finisher, Clay Aiken seemed to have the highest popularity for the teen audience. By the third year it had gotten pretty serious in the competition phase but the emergence of William Hung really made them all look like the making fun of people was more important then producing a quality Idol. The following year could have been the best flock of talent yet with Carrie Underwood, Bo Bice and crowd favorite Constantine Maroulis. But after Constantine lost I stopped watching, I knew the show was no longer credible and Carrie Underwood would win on looks alone. I was glad during this years premiere show, (the 1st hour, I watched Scrubs during the second hour), they showed more talented people and less of the untalented people. Its ok to show people who can't sing but are still trying but I don't like the people who are just trying to get on TV. It doesn't make sense to wait in line to make a fool of yourself for 10 minutes and maybe a shot on TV. You are like the TRL people jumping up and down trying to get on camera. Guess what I was on TV for doing something as a teen and its cool for a few days and then people forget. Being on TV doesn't make you cool, standing in line doesn't make you able to sing, you are holding up the line for respectable people that have things to do. I hope this show get a lot better but its likely I'll skip the show all together.

Next two weeks could make or break Kwan's image source ESPN
Michelle Kwan has had quite the career as amateur figure skater but has always come up short at the Olympics. She has a silver and bronze in her last two attempts and is now begging for a chance to get one last shot at the gold. But what is the price of this medal? Back in 1994 she earned a spot in the Olympics only to be passed up for Nancy Kerrigan under the special circumstances we all know about. I don't know if ratings are important for Olympic selection but in both cases the committees went with the big draws. Kwan was an unknown during the Kerrigan saga and now the girl she hope to replace is also an inexperienced child. In this respects we can argue that its better to go with the mature skater who has faced the music then the child who may crack under the pressure. But the other side is that Kwan has had her chances, twice to be exact. And in her prime she was struck down by the so very young Tara Lipinski. So what makes her think that after an injury keeping her out of the Championship that she deserves another chance? I think this is a mistake. She has had her shot, let someone else earn their stripes. The young Emily Hughes, is the sister of the last Olympic champion. It seems more like fate for her to following the family footsteps then for a two time runner up, desperately trying to make a comeback. Michelle Kwan you have had your chance, retire in glory knowing you did the right thing and give Emily Hughes a chance.

Manning Struggles in Playoffs Again Source Yahoo
In what started as the upset of the year became a near miracle comeback only to end with history repeating itself. Everybody said during the 13 game win streak that if they didn't go for it and lost in the playoffs then the Colts had a season all for nothing. Well guess what, it wasn't for nothing because they did what no number one seed has ever done, they lost to a number six seed! The silver lining is it was a great game and Pittsburgh is on fire while the Colts were in a huge slump. Manning can't seem to win against great defenses and until he proves differently he will never win a Super bowl. Now the only thing standing in front of Pittsburgh's Super duper bowl run is Jake "The Fake" Plummer. A man who is so jinxed he makes Manning's playoff run look lucky. Troy Polamalu has proven he is the second coming of Rod Woodson and is the glue for this steelers defense. As I said before, history plays more of a part of the playoffs then anything else. I can't see Jake going to a Super bowl and I can't see Pittsburgh losing another AFC championship. Bill Cowher has taken them to one Super bowl against the Cowboys and to the AFC Championship 3 times in the last few years. So a Super bowl win is in their future. As for my playoff predictions I was mostly wrong but I did pick Carolina over the Bears. It was a better game then I thought but still Carolina wasn't in real danger of losing. Also this playoffs has to have had the worst officiating I have ever seen.

2005 NFL Divisional Playoffs source yahoo sports
Cris Carter predicts Seattle over Washington, new New England over Denver, Indy over Pittsburgh and Chicago over Carolina. Now the problem with these picks is the playoffs aren't a second season as much as they are a history of the team. Teams that traditionally fail in the playoffs often repeat this failure. Also a good defense usually outlasts a good offence. For a great example of this I once predicted the fall of the 15-1 Viking to the Giants, NYG won
in 2001 New York 41 , Minnesota 0 in the NFC Championship against the most powerful offense in the league that year. The Viking have tradintioanly been playoff losers so I knew they would fail again. With that in mind I say the mighty Seahawk are in trouble. If Washington can get their offense rolling their defense should shut down the less experienced Seattle team, the X-factor being Mike Holmgren out coaching Joe Gibbs. I think New England can probably beat the always jinxed Jake Plummer, Pittsburgh historically could beat Indy except their defense was their one weakness and now they are unstoppable. I know Carolina is a better team then Chicago and think they can win but its all about turnovers. If Carolina is careful or picks off Grossman even once I think they can turn the tables and beat up on Chicago. Remember the last time Chicago was a surprise team they also made a surprise playoff exit in after going 13-3 in 2001 they lost to Philly 33, Chicago 19. I hate to jump too far ahead but I'm taking Indy to beat New England in Super Bowl XL.

In-Vince-ible: Longhorns Hook a National Title source FOX
Well I'm shocked and if I was a gambling man I would have lost $20 on this game. I was positive USC was going to win this one. I was excited, I actually thought it would be close but never a Texas win. But all that said and done I did learn some things from the game. 1) Vince Young is the best player in college football, sorry Reggie. 2) I think the Houston Texans should beg him to enter the draft. 3) If not then N.O. Saints should beg him to enter the draft. 4) Matt Leinart is not worth a top five pick if N.O. takes him, the fans will boo him off the field. They want the next Donovan McNabb not a maybe Tom Brady maybe not. 5) Reggie is not the #1 pick ... if Vince enters. 6) Pete Carroll should go pro. 7) LenDale White is better then Matt Leinart too! But what do I know, I picked USC.

New Year day not the same on Monday
Sure I have Monday off but the fact that most people don't is weird. For the first time I guess in six or seven years the NFL was played on new years forcing college to play there games after new years. Now I love the NFL ten times more then college but the BCS should be played on New Years its just right. There's the rose bowl parade and then the rose bowl... Unless its the Championship but this year being on Monday people are going to miss a few cause they had to go back to work the day after new years. That sucks!

The Reggie Bush Sweepstakes is over
In what seemed like the luckiest coincidence in football the two worst teams, competing for the most coveted player in a decade, played on the last week of the year for the title of second worst team and it actually went into overtime! Some people argue that one team should have given up but that's because they don't see football and the draft as the players do... Its a job. The last thing you want to do before the season is over it to be know as the worst team to lose to the second worst team. It makes you look like a loser! Also losing in football means losing your job, the Houston Texan's coach was fired and the new coach is likely to release half the team and start over. Players don't care about some college kid coming to play for them, Ki-Jana Carter, Rasham Salaam and Ron Dayne are all would be greats that did nothing for their team and Thomas Jones taken 3rd was a wash until 3 teams and many years later. So the Pros don't look for a single player to turn the team around, the Texans need to trade down and build up their O-line. If Reggie plays for them now he will be killed just like David Carr.