Thursday, April 25, 2013

At the End of the Day, Black NBA Fans Take Issue With Kobe's Blackness, or Rather the Lack Thereof

“Started from the bottom now we here.”

Lyric from: Started From The Bottom from the Album Nothing Was the Same
Written By: Aubrey Graham, Noah Shebib and Michael Coleman
Performed by: Drake

Photo courtesy of @kobebryant/Twitter

Kobe Bryant can't catch a break.

And no, I'm not talking about his recent Achilles injury that has sidelined him for the playoffs, possibly part of next season and maybe even for his career.

The Mamba was, again, home last night as his Lakers tried and failed to even their series against the Spurs but; in his absence, LA just couldn't make the kind of timely offensive pushes that happen when you have a player that can get his own shot from anywhere on the floor. 

And poor Kobe couldn't even tweet his frustrations...

His Lakers...his absence...his frustrations...

It's the kind of use of a possessive pronoun that tends to make people uncomfortable when it comes to Kobe.

And that's just the type of discomfort that makes Kobe's tweets about a game he's watching just as big of a deal, if not bigger, than the game he's tweeting about.

Depending on who you ask, Kobe's live in-game tweeting is either a) part of his maniacal plan to pilfer all of the attention away from the game since he's not playing, showing a complete lack of respect for his teammates and his coach whose game plan he undermined by writing that Gasol needed to get in the paint or b) what you get when a guy who loves to compete can't compete and turns to Twitter to share his thoughts and blow off steam like the rest of us.

Sadly, the polarization of Kobe Bryant doesn't stop there.

Kobe's pursuit of a sixth championship is either a) part of his all-consuming, life-long obsession with Michael Jordan or b) what you get when a guy with five rings loves to compete and wants to win as many championships as he possibly can.

And this jewel of a debate from this season-Kobe's willingness to dish out dimes is either a) part of his unyielding need for fans' approval and as such he needs us to give him credit as a willing passer but all the while he hopes that we will secretly wish that he shoots instead of passes therefore proving that we really do like, nay prefer, his ball hawking ways or b) what you get when a guy who loves to compete decides to play whatever role his team needs him to play in order to get the win.

I've spent the last few days, since Kobe's tweeting raised such a stink after game 1 in this Lakers/Spurs series, trying to think of another player with such indisputable talent and verifiable greatness who has had such a polarizing effect on fans.

Only one name comes to mind-but perhaps with a lesser degree of venom- Larry Bird.

The Hall of Famer and 3- time NBA champion's impact on the game as a 13-year member of the Boston Celtics is the undeniable stuff of legend but, the question of whether or not the color of his skin played a roll in how we perceived his greatness is as much a part of the Bird discussion as his versatility and his superb outside shot.

For many, the narrative on Bird will always come down to how good he was "for a white guy".

Isaiah Thomas once infamously declared that if he had been black, Bird would be "just another good guy".

Larry Legend himself was not unaware of this mostly unspoken, save for Thomas, strategically and figuratively-placed asterisk denoting his ability. Bird has talked openly about being bothered when another white player was assigned to guard him. Unable to change his skin color, he knew that the next best thing to that in the NBA might be proving himself against some of the league's best black players night in and night out.

Kobe's conundrum is certainly not identical to that of Bird's but, it may not be altogether different. 

Even as a black superstar in a league full of black players, Kobe's likability has gone the way of his ability to prove to black fans that he is black enough and, he has been fighting a losing battle.

I can already feel the dirty looks.

I know, I know. Many of you think he's selfish and, reject his sense of  notion that the Lake Show is his to lead. You may not wish that to be so but, he 's earned it with his dominance.

Additionally, for many people, the biggest issue with Kobe is his Jordan-esque style of play. I even shared my thoughts about his game's resemblance to the great #23 here.

But to that as a justification for disdain I say let he who did not spend a good chunk of their childhood watching, memorizing and rehearsing "Come Fly With Me" cast the first stone.

And finally, I know that a rape charge, even a dismissed one, is not easy to forgive.

But it is people's reaction to what Bryant was rumored to have said in his police interview about wishing he had handled things the way that Shaq handled things that seems to tell a deeper story.

A caller on our radio show recently put it this way, "He doesn't understand the code. He wasn't supposed to snitch on Shaq. He didn't know that though because he didn't come up in the hood."

And there you have it. 

Long heralded as the voice of Black America with its ear to the streets, hip-hop's evolving landscape might provide a bit of perspective as to Kobe's uphill struggle to win over black fans. 

In the year that Kobe was drafted, the 1996 releases of "Reasonable Doubt" and "All Eyez on Me" made powerful statements about the changing aspirations of black youth.

As Jay-Z and 2Pac told their stories of poverty, absentee fathers and of their grind to make it from day to day, they were also speaking for a generation of black kids for whom it seemed privilege would never be a reality.

As those rappers became superstars of superhero status-post mortem for Pac-the kids who most easily identified with what they had overcome re-imagined a new black success story, one with its legitimacy rooted solely in origins of a hand-to-mouth existence and hardship. 

Then those kids grew up to be vocal sports fans.

And in the new, narrowly defined parameters of what would be henceforth considered a "real" journey to the top, Kobe didn't stand a chance. 

Speaking his multiple languages, growing up in Italy and coming from a middle-class family proved anomaly enough and, then, the Shaq slip sealed his fate.

Had Kobe come into the league a few years earlier this likely wouldn't have happened to him. In the years preceding his arrival, the success of the black superstar player in the NBA was celebrated, for the most part, without any overt bias. 

Grant Hill went 17 years in the league without having to address the pink elephant, only forced to pen this response to Jalen Rose in which he refused to apologize for his  "two-parent, middle-class" upbringing after Rose said in his 2011 ESPN film "Fab 5" that Duke only recruited players he considered to be "Uncle Toms".

But the wide-ranging and varied reactions to both Jalen and Grant's viewpoints indicate that we are long overdue for a serious conversation on this matter-as does ESPN's not so long ago firing of Rob Parker for his comments about Robert Griffin III being a "cornball brother".

I would like to believe that the outrage that followed Parker's comments is a signal of a changing of the guard, a sign that maybe one no longer has to be great against the worst odds in order to be respected. I'm hoping it's a sign that blackness is no longer being defined by whether you had two parents or one, whether your parent(s) had decent jobs or not and whether you grew up in a suburb or the projects.

But that would be foolish of me. 

Because in reality many, many people agreed with Parker. In reality, that was probably not the first time RGIII had been mocked in that way and; unfortunately it won't be the last.

Because in reality, we now celebrate the beauty of a hard fought trip the mountaintop at the expense of the beauty of a less eventful one. 

We owe it to our kids to make sure that both paths shine equally bright and getting really mad at Rob Parker was only the first step.

As for Kobe Bryant, I'm hoping that history will be kinder to him. In past tense he will no longer be burdened by his presumed lack of blackness. The highlights and the numbers will tell the unbiased story of his awesomeness.

But now the NBA belongs to LeBron James. He is truly the face of the league and its fans, in more ways than one.