There was something intriguing about Kobe Bryant back in the late 1990s, an energy you could sense before beginning to define. For the hordes of pre-Colorado Lakers haters, it was the cheapened stench of one man's marketability surpassing his ability to produce; his arrogance overshadowed only by his unearned reputation. Here was a bony kid with no business in the NBA All-Star game riding the coat tails of Michael Jordan's legacy farther than anyone dared before.
For the Bryant faithful, it was simply the intangible manifestation of a post-Jordan star. It was comforting to know that the NBA's image rehabilitation process had proactively begun. In anticipation of an eventual Michael Jordan retirement, the league had mobilized, happily led by a fool-hardy kid who jumped high and bit off more than he could chew.
That summer before his rookie year, Kobe Bryant hadn't yet won the 1997 Slam Dunk championship nor debuted alongside Shaquille O'Neal at The Great Western Forum. He'd never been coached by Phil Jackson, won championships, been married, cheated, gotten ripped apart by the media or had any tattoos. His slate was clean and his portfolio empty.
It wasn't long after I identified that skinny Laker as the player through whom I would live vicariously when his name started to mean more to me and to everyone else than I'd originally anticipated. Suddenly the unexplainable attachment I'd had to this glossy piece of cardboard would take on the form of faith and vested interest. The bandwagon I'd unwittingly climbed onto began rolling faster and faster and the evolution of Kobe Bryant had officially begun. My vested interest soon blossomed to fixation and eventually obsession.
What happens next is no secret. Boy grows up while NBA rookie turns to NBA star. Boy becomes manboy and eventual man while NBA star transcends stardom to reach global icon status. Boy-turned-man detaches himself from childhood hero in attempt to unbiasedly cover basketball for TheGoodPoint.com.
Though much has been said about Kobe Bryant's history with adversity, this very month his legacy is at stake. The reputation he has meticulously crafted over the past decade has been called into question by LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
After surviving the inherent character defamation of a bitter split with Shaquille O'Neal and sidestepping a legal nightmare in 2004 that would forever mar his career, Kobe Bryant has to finally defend his status as one of the NBA's greatest players. Win the championship, and he's one step closer to supplanting Michael Jordan as the greatest shooting guard in the history of the game. Lose, and he's out of the conversation forever. Lose to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals, and he never should have been there.
For the fans that have loyally stood by the arrogant, callous and perhaps "true" Bryant for the past five years, this post-season is truly telling. Meanwhile, the masses who originally hung onto the pre-Colorado mini-fro toting high school phenom have since left the party. Nobody left is in this for his personality but rather his hell-bent lust for greatness. To see him fail is to see their investment fail.
These days, humbled by rain and the trials of time, that tree fort from so long ago sits silent and unperturbed. Its former inhabitant, caught up in the chaos of the 2009 post-season, stops to reflect on that summer of 1996 before turning on the television to see if the hunch he had then will actually come true.
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