Kobe Bryant announces retirement

Effective at the end of the season. So we've got about 60 more 1-for-14 performances to look forward to. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Oh, and he announced it on The Players Tribune.

Kobe announces he will retire after this season

 

Manky are you here? As far as Kobe has fallen, I don't think he is worthy of being a part of The Players Tribune. What do you think?

 

I thought our style for retirements was "Kobe Bryant: HOF?"

He better be careful with the raping, former athletes don't have immunity.

 

Oh, Drew. (cum-stained shirts is a #greatbandname)

http://deadspin.com/fuck-off-kobe-1...ource=deadspin_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Edit: Maybe Deadspin should fuck off for its lack of SEO headlines. Idiots.

WARMS THE COCKLES, does it not? So many memories of campaigns past. I remember the first time I took my children to see Kobe on a Nutella label. But wait! There’s a story behind that logo. And by story, I mean “brand identity clearly written by a 35-year-old copywriter.” Here’s Kobe regurgitating all the proper talking points to the AP:

“Hero and villain, it’s a mixture of both,” Bryant said in the interview with The Associated Press. “People are so complicated. It’s never one thing or the other. It’s always a mixture of both things. Certain moments can define you as one thing. Monday, you may be a villain. Tuesday, you may be a hero. It’s always an up-and-down thing.”

So true. One day, you’re throwing cum-stained shirts at a police officer. The next day, you’re buying turkeys for starving orphans. Everyone is complicated like that!

 

Durant: Media being too mean about Kobe shooting 30 percent and often, not talking enough about his greatness: Durant on 'idol' Kobe: Media mistreating him - Definitely costing him a scholarship.

 

I haven't kept up with the NBA for years going on decades and even I think the media, a hugely weird all encompassing term with little meaning, has held a weird half grudge against Kobe Bryant.

It is often interesting how a bunch of white guys decide which one young black guy is okay, while another is deserving of their occasional scorn and the other becomes a thug.

 

They could live with the raping, but when he ran Shaq out of town, that was too much.

 

I kind of thought things were always OK for Kobe until he had some issues with a lady in Colorado. From there, things got really tangled. His place in history is also obviously highly dependent on a variety of factors. He obviously clashed with Phil Jackson and Shaq at various points, and it's pretty hard to argue that he's currently justifying a roster spot on anything but his legacy. Pelton on ESPN.com had an article with a headline saying he wasn't Top 10 of all-time, which was obviously meant to be clickbait-ish, but he's probably somewhere in that 10 to 20 range for me as well.

 

In hindsight, both Shaq and Kobe seem like pains in the ass to deal with, for different reasons. But so was Michael Jordan, and Lebron seems pretty passive aggressive at times too. The grilling Kobe got at the time didn't seem any worse to me than the focus on any superstar player, but admittedly, I was around 17 to 22 at the time, and on the East Coast, not following the Lakers every day. Also, I'm a Celtics fan, which I'm sure has no factor at all.

 

To me, he's the second-best SG of all time behind Jordan. He's top 10 overall, too.

Probably 8-9ish, right behind wherever Tim Duncan lands. Definitely ahead of Shaq.

 

Like when Bill James would do his player rankings, I think it's easy to say, "Oh, he's definitely Top 10!" But then when you try to rank players...

Win shares has Kobe at #18, but behind some guys of questionable peak value as compared to Kobe (Reggie Miller) or guys without championship pedigree (Malone, Stockton). It also has Bill Russell at #19, since it tends to undervalue defensive contributions. But its Top 10 is Kareem, Wilt, Malone, Jordan, Stockton, Duncan, Dirk, Garnett, Artis Gilmore and Oscar Robertson. The next 10 are LeBron, Shaq, Doctor J, Moses Malone, David Robinson, Barkley, Miller, Kobe, Russell and Hakeem. Magic and Bird are in the 20s because of the (relative) shortness of their careers. - NBA & ABA Career Leaders and Records for Win Shares | Basketball-Reference.com

To me, Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Jordan and Duncan are all clearly better than Kobe. LeBron probably is too, barring a catastrophic injury. So, that's six guys right there. From there, I think it's defensible to have him anywhere from #7 to the 20s, depending on how much you value his postseason performance and team chemistry stuff, both of which obviously have a ton of variables to them.

 

I'm not really claiming any expertise here, nor do I really understand what a win share is, but my top 10 would read something like this:

Magic
Jordan
LeBron
Wilt
Russell
Oscar
Bird
Duncan
Kobe
Kareem