Leave Kobe Alone

Today has prompted a lot of anger out of me due to the way that the greatest basketball player in the entire world has been recently treated. It all started with this yesterday when "The Logo," Jerry West (called that cuz the NBA logo is actually his silhouette) said that Lebron James had surpassed Kobe as the best player in the NBA. I took it as a way for Mr. West (a former Laker himself) to motivate Kobe into having a great rest of the playoffs. Then came game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against the Denver Nuggets, who just so happen to have one of those young players from the "Lebron Draft," Carmelo Anthony (from here on just Melo, much cooler). I won't go into the actual game, cuz you can look that up yourself. But in a nutshell, both Kobe and Melo went off. Stat line: Kobe, 40pts-6reb-4ast.....Melo, 39pts-6reb-4ast. As I watched this game I did not even notice that Kobe was on pace for 40, because all the announcers talked about was Melo dominating the game. That is until Sportscenter notified me (what would I do without you SC :))

Now that we got the background out of the way, here is what angered me. Even in a time when Kobe carried his team, outscored the other teams best player, and D'd up a guy much stronger and physical than he, he gets negative talk (even the picture is negative). This should be a time that Kobe is praised for taking his team through a rough game where everyone else struggled, but instead they begin to talk about how Kobe showed "slight signs of fatigue, such as the ball hitting the front of the rim even on some shots that went in." I mean....they went in right? He hit numerous FT's down the stretch to close the game. And I know from my playing days that it is tougher to make FT's when you are fatigued. So get off his back, he has enough people that he carries there anyways. Game 1 was won by the LA Kobes over the Denver Melos, and that's the way the NBA goes.