IMAGINE IF 17YR OLD BYNUM HAD TO ENDURE THIS

I felt obligated to rehash kobe's woes and concede that he's partly to blame for them. However as a lot of folks have said, it's well documented. So instead I'll focus on the story that's not often told, the source of my angst when i complain about a lack of balance in these stories about kobe the hot shot selfish kid that joined the laker dynasty and became a thorn in the side of his teammates.

http://www.yaysports.com/nba/2005/09/shaq_slapped_kobe_but_good.html

For those seeking credibility, the book is by a dude we know on this blog "Roland Lazenby" and the forward is by tex winter.

Snippet from the book
[
“The other players on the team wanted to make sure [Kobe] earned everything he got, that the coach didn’t just give him something just because the fans wanted to see this young phenom play,” recalled Del Harris, Bryant’s first coach with the Lakers.
That was especially true of Shaquille O’Neal, the game’s dominant young center who felt immense pressure to win championships. Each season his dislike of Bryant had grown.

“What surprised me about Shaquille during our early days in Los Angeles was how frustrated he got,” said former Lakers GM Jerry West. “He was not fun to be around. The shortcomings of our team and his teammates made him angry because he knew he was going to be judged on how much we won.”

How angry?

Just months before Jackson arrived, O’Neal had slapped Bryant during a pickup game at the Laker practice facility.

“It would not be forgotten,” former Laker guard Derek Fisher said of the incident.

When Jackson and his coaching staff began work in Los Angeles, they were caught off guard by O’Neal’s level of animosity toward Bryant.

“There was a lot of hatred in his heart,” Tex Winter said of O’Neal. “he would speak his mind in our team meetings. He was saying really hateful things. Kobe just took it and kept going.
]

This is what the folks that put up that site had to say about the incident, i dnt care how this makes me look but truth is their comment almost made me cry
[
We don't think it's any secret that Shaq can be extremely petty, especially when it comes to Kobe. That said, we're sure Kobe deserved the slapping.
]

More snippets from the book:
[
Having witnessed the unfolding behind-the-scenes drama over five years, Lakers owner Jerry Buss [told Coach Phil Jackson] his services would no longer be needed.
Stunned, Jackson abruptly changed his approach with Bryant. Suddenly, the coach began trying to have a relationship with Bryant, Winter said. And Bryant responded in kind.

“But it was too late,” Winter said.

Buss had made up his mind. Jackson had to go. And the owner had no desire to meet O’Neal’s demands for a lengthy extension on his $30 million plus a year contract. So the Lakers traded him to Miami (where O’Neal would later meekly agree to play for $20 million a season).

As he was cleaning out his office, a jilted Jackson did his best to portray Bryant as the villain in the breakup of the team, and soon that perception became the reality, simply because so many people believed it. Jackson made sure of it, phoning reporters as he drove from Los Angeles to his summer home in Montana. He dialed up columnists and radio talk shows to offer his version of events. Sports columnists everywhere who had no idea why the Lakers had fallen apart simply began reporting as fact that Bryant had schemed to make it happen.

Despite the blame game Jackson was playing so deftly, he would later admit the truth. Despite all his success in Los Angeles, he had failed in his handling of Bryant. And that was one of several factors in the breakup of a very successful team.

“in the final analysis, it’s the coach’s responsibility to manage the team in the proper manner and not have those things happen,” Winter said.

It was simply a huge mistake to not keep Bryant in the loop, Winter said. “I think Phil realizes that now.”
]

There's more on the link, so check it out.

I know some will say the book is one man's intepretation of events, and i won't argue that. All i've been trying to say is if the media was trying to be fair, the image of a selfish kobe that ended up blowing apart the lakers and is still prone to being an aloof loner won't be the only angle that's examined by nbc/abc/espn/laker blog/etc when we're on the topic of kobe and his relationship with teammates.

The kid that refused to bow down, will lead a team that refuses to bow down to the championship.

In Kobe we Trust,
Go Lakers

AK;

Excellent post responding to Jman.

I thought your overall analysis was very accurate with the exception of the media’s treatment of Kobe during the Colorado trial, which is when I believe the “love me or hate” version of Kobe was created, well before the unfortunate breakup of the Lakers championship team.

The two things that still enrage me about the media coverage of the trial were how Kobe’s infidelity was treated by everyone in the media compared to Magic’s and Jordan’s and how the mainstream media torched Kobe with sensationalized headlines even when the content behind the headline was additional evidence that Kobe was innocent.

Part of the problem was the pedestal on which the media had elevated Kobe. When Colorado happened, it was as if Kobe had betrayed the media. Outraged columnists responded that the Kobe that everyone had loved had just been a PR image that never existed. Kobe was vilified because of his previous image and cast as a man who had fooled us all – rather than as a good person who had just made a horrible one-time mistake he would forever regret. Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, on the other hand, both of whom were well-known philanderers throughout their careers, were basically given a free pass by the media.

While most Laker and pro basketball fans understood the temptations and lifestyles of pro athletes enough to not condemn Kobe and to keep an open mind about his possible innocence, the general public basically bought the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” approach of the general media as it sensationalized the accusations and events surrounding the Colorado case. Even when the revelations in the case showed that Kobe was likely not guilty of a crime, the headlines still trumped the “Kobe as a rapist” theme to attract attention.

The unfairness of how the media abandoned Kobe and misrepresented the flood of facts and DNA evidence that resulted in the case being dropped has really convinced me that the Colorado case was where the “love me or hate me” version of Kobe was born. I know that’s when I vowed to get Kobe’s back and to never allow anybody to slander him unfairly. To this day, I still encounter people who make unsubstantiated comments about Kobe being a rapist, which always ends up with me passionately defending Kobe. Most of these people are not sports fans but just regular people who only remembered the headlines the media unabashedly used to sensationalize the case.

I am not sure why fans like Steven or sonny hate Kobe so much, but I would bet it is a result of the events in Colorado and the betrayal they felt because Kobe turned out to not be “perfect.” I am also not sure why so many Kobe fans are so super-sensitive to media criticism of Kobe, but I think many of them may have had the same reaction as I did to how the media abandoned Kobe when he needed them most.

Tom

Laker Tom,

I hear what you're saying about the DNA/fact presentation by the media (if I remember right, you have a law background, so you may have some extra insight into this). And I can buy that some media members feeling betrayed. However, I don't agree with the part about MJ and Magic's affairs getting an easier treatment than Kobe's, because I think they're too "apples and oranges" of situations. Magic and MJ's adultry may have been bad, but they didn't lead to criminal charges. That's a huge difference and it has nothing to do with whether you think Kobe was guilty (as I said before, I don't). Kobe's is simply a bigger story, like it or not.

So what you need to ask is, "Had MJ or Magic been up on rape charges after adultry, would they have found themselves under similar scrutiny?" Absolutely, I think. Look at how MJ's personal life and gambling were put under the microscope after his father was murdered. Judging by that, I have to imagine the media would have been pretty "equal opportunity" in their coverage, had the situations been more similar.

AK

Taliq,
Great link. The whole thing is pretty sad how it went down. Lakertom wondered why some ppl here hate Kobe so much. From my experience from the ppl Ive talked to....it seems they hate Kobe cuz they love Shaq. Now part of me goes nuts everytime someone defends Shaq...but I can see why. Shaq was a lovable guy. In fact, part of the reason I hate Shaq so much is cuz I liked him so much. If a stranger wrongs you, you just let it go, its not worth the effort to hate him. If your close friend or family betrays you...you hold that grudge for a long time. And the reason I hate Shaq is cuz of "what couldve been". #1, I think Shaq had the potential to go down as the greatest of all time. If Shaq had Kobe's work ethic and desire to be the best, we wouldve seen Shaq 2000 year after year. If Shaq had even half of Kobe's work ethic and was more mature....Shaq and Kobe literally couldve won 5-6 championships in a row and maybe 8 of 10or11. *sigh*

Had Magic or MJ been accused of rape, it definitely wouldve been a huge story. BUT, people would not have turned on them like they did to Kobe. Lets face it, Kobe, even during his squeaky clean years, was never loved like Magic was loved or MJ was loved. They would get a lot more slack. For Kobe, the rapist jokes came out immediately. For Magic, it wouldve been "he's innocent till proven guilty". The outpouring of unconditional support wouldve been crazy. Man, ppl LOVED Magic. I know I did. My friends call me dead inside cuz I'm not very sensitive. I absolutely hate seeing crying in sports. But when Magic announced he was HIV+, I cried. Kobe was never loved to that extent. He was never cool enough...or street enough...or real enough....or copied MJ too much. Not only did he have to endure Shaq and Phil hating him...but just the mere timing of his coming to the NBA was hard because he played at the same time as MJ. So he was always the Wannabe MJ instead of the Next MJ.
In the end, I respect what Kobe's gone through, but it is all that crap he went through that has made him the most polarizing figure in sports. So although what Kobe went through was terrible, I really think that fans do love him more for pushing through it.

taliq:

Thanks for the link. I was a little put off by the article's author's comment about saying that Kobe deserved to be slapped by Shaq. I hope everyone understood that that was not Roland's or Tex's or even Phil's comment.

I read Roland's entire book "The Show" and the stories within the pages would make a most unbelievable reality movie. Or even an unbelievable television mini-series. Far better than anything the networks have done.

Your comments about Andrew Bynum having to experience what Kobe did really hit home with me. You have to give Kobe a great deal of credit to have survived those days and to have even been willing to bury the hatchet with Phil and with Shaq.

If you read the book, it was very easy to understand why Jerry Buss had had enough of Phil and Shaq and was willing to bet the bank on Kobe as the future of the Lakers. I think it is obvious that Phil has learned a lot from the experience, too.

And thank God we have Tex Winter to tell it like it is. I sure hope he will continue to be part of the Lakers family. And Tex definitely deserves to be in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Tom

wiZo:

I have never seen anything that said that Wilt was taller than 7-1 but I understand what you are saying. It is entirely possible that he was taller but didn't want to publicize it because of the anti-Goliath environment that he spent his entire life in. Quite different from every guy now wanting to see their actual height inflated so they appear bigger. Maybe Mike would know as he is also a super Wilt fan. Maybe those were Wilt's measurements wearing his canvas Converses. In a pair of Air Jordans or Kobe's new shoes, he was probably 7-3. The young versus old Wilt photos are even more striking than the young versus old Shaq photos.

Regarding the Wilt comments about Kobe's 81, anything is possible involving the Big Dipper, even communication from beyond. I wonder if there are any Wilt comments about either Kobe or Shaq before he died.

Tom

D-Miles. He's got potential in this system. Not to spell Kobe. Not because he can shoot (he can't). But because he can play backside defense - come across and swat some shots. He's an above the rim type of player that can grab some boards and run the floor, get some garbage put-backs and he's definitely an ally-oop threat (something few other Laker's are).

When Radmanovich comes off the floor D-Miles can come on and bring a different look. Plus, he played his best ball when he was in L.A. as a Clip (with L.O.).

Just thinking out loud.

I actually go to the same school Al Harrington used to go to.