We’re All Only Human
My thoughts on the Lakers’ playoff loss, cross-posted from the Lakers blog

When I watched the game, I was disappointed. I was disappointed that the Hallway Series was not to be, that the team played poorly, and that the playoffs that began with such promise ended so bitterly.

But most of all, I was disappointed that it seemed like Kobe wasn’t trying.

Kobe has always wanted to win. That burning competitive fire always set him apart from Shaq. And yet, in this game, with matters still within reach of an 81-style second-half detonation, Kobe kept his six-shooters in the holster.

As I expected, Charles Barkley tore into Kobe afterwards, calling him selfish for refusing to bail out his teammates to prove that criticism of his FGA volume in Game 6 and during the season was unwarranted.

I expect that more columnists and sports writers will pile on.

But we need to have some perspective.

This team, which less than 1 in 10 picked to make the playoffs, won 45 and could have won more.

This team, which no one picked to make this series close, stretched it to 7 games, and were less than 7 seconds from closing it out in Game 6.

I’m still disappointed that Kobe went quietly in the second half. But I’m not in his shoes.

I’m not the most talked-about and abused player in the league. I’m not subject to endless “you shoot too much/you don’t shoot enough” diatribes from reporters and broadcasters. I didn’t have to see a Game 6 victory, which I gift-wrapped for the Lakers with my clutch shooting in the 4th quarter, stolen away by a last-second 3.

Kobe is the most talented player in the league. But he is far from perfect. A greater player might have found a way to win yesterday, even with all his teammates flailing (every single other Laker had an off game). But you know what? Magic got swept out of the playoffs by a Phoenix Suns team, in a series in which the Lakers were favored. Michael Jordan got sent packing repeatedly by the Pistons. Tim Duncan has had his heart broken many times.
I would have liked Kobe to respond with greater grace. To have tried one last time to pull out a miracle with a scoring barrage over the last 18 minutes of the game.

Heck, every basketball fan would have liked to have seen that. And after the Lakers still lost, the Kobe-haters would have criticized him for shooting too much, and said that his domination of the offense had stunted the other Lakers.

We expect so much of Kobe. Thrilling performances. Miraculous wins. And we constantly compare him to Michael Jordan. Not the Jordan that actually was, but the mythical Jordan we’ve constructed in our minds out of commercials, ESPN Classic specials, and the memory of his final shot against the Bulls in 1998.

And today Kobe came up short. Maybe he was selfishly proving a point, damaging the psyches of his teammates forever. Or maybe he was a new dad, operating on little sleep, in a hostile arena, under unimaginable pressure, with teammates who were nervous and off their games, against a team that was scoring at will so that even after a near-perfect first half the Lakers were down by 15, and he was simply…tired. Tired of carrying the burden.

Maybe it’s not how a champion should act, whatever that means, but it is human.

Haven’t you ever felt the urge to pack it in? How many of us can say that we’ve always given our maximum effort in our personal Game 7s?

Next year, the youngest team in the league will be a year older. Kobe and Lamar are still improving. Kwame Brown is finally getting it. Sasha and Brian Cook have grown up a lot. And who knows what we might end up getting out of Socks and Turiaf next year?

Two weeks ago, if we had been told that the Lakers would be able to push the Suns to seven games, most people would have been overjoyed.

We should be disappointed that the season is over. We should be disappointed in how it ended.

But we need to remember that we are all human in the end, even the great and mighty Kobe Bryant, and that graciousness in defeat and compassion for others are important virtues as well.