I Never Figured Out What To Do With Kobe Bryant

Shots like those were remarkable. But if Lakers fans are honest, a large swath of them will tell you that exactly what made Bryant great also held him back from being the greatest. Perhaps no one until Stephen Curry was better than Bryant at making the difficult shot. But unlike Curry, Bryant’s desire to hit the shot held back his ability to more completely and selflessly take over a game. Bryant was a truly great passer, at moments comparable to Magic Johnson and LeBron James, but he often limited his ability and intellect in that regard in favor of the harder-fought path: also known as chucking a three with a defender in his face. 

For every game-winner, there were many more attempts that rimmed out at the buzzer as his open teammates helplessly watched on. Lakers fans watched helplessly, too. In fact, one of the most consistent sensations of the Kobe era was watching as Bryant stubbornly held the ball near the end of the game, everyone in the building knowing he was more weary of passing than missing. It is for that same reason that Bryant’s 6-24 performance in Game 7 of the 2010 NBA Finals continues to generate such laughter now. Bryant badly wanted to win, but only if he was able to do so on his terms. 

Lakers fans have loved many players during Bryant’s career, a list that includes but is not limited to men like Rick Fox, Robert Horry, Derek Fisher, Luke Walton, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol and Shannon Brown. But what Bryant received from fans could be more accurately described as respect. He could be appreciated, but not entirely understood — the same hyper-competitiveness that made him worthy of adulation also making him unrelatable. Bryant was forever calculating, both on the court and in crafting his image — the closest thing the NBA will ever see to Michael Jordan in so many ways that it sometimes felt as if No. 24 deprived himself of leaving a legacy independent of No. 23. 

None of Bryant’s on-court imperfections, however, truly get at why I struggled so deeply with rooting for him as I grew older. Nor do his battles with O’Neal, or his mind games with lesser players. The truth is, I was happy to take Bryant as he was on the court — ball-stopping, ball-hogging, fear-inducing and all. I was willing to live with his faults if it meant I got him in those moments when he was at his best. But what I could never figure out, no matter how much I tried, was how to reconcile Kobe Bryant the basketball player with whatever happened in that Colorado hotel room on June 30, 2003. 

Lakers fans don’t like to talk about that period between July 2003, when the sexual assault accusations first surfaced, and September 2004, when prosecutors dropped the case after the accuser decided against testifying. It has understandably become something of a taboo in Lakers circles, forgotten in favor of better memories. Bring up the case around Lakers fans now, and you’ll soon enough find yourself listening to talk of semen — specifically semen other than Bryant’s that was found on vaginal swabs taken from the woman during an examination shortly after her accusation. That semen is the go-to among many Lakers fans who want to clear Bryant entirely of wrongdoing and justify their own ability to root for him, unambiguously and forever.

We don’t know what happened in that room, and we never will. But do know some things. We know that the accuser’s blood was found on one of Bryant’s clothing items, and that it likely wasn’t a result of menstruation. We know that a bellman at the resort where the alleged assault occurred wrote in a police statement that the accuser cried as she told him “Kobe Bryant had forced sex with her.” We know that Bryant himself came to “understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounterAnd we know that Laker fans cheered Bryant for his ability to play well while he flew back and forth between California and Colorado for the court’s proceedings, no one knowing whether or not they were cheering on a rapist. 

Those truths were uncomfortable then, and they are uncomfortable today. The way that the trial ended didn’t allow for resolution. People just had to move on, left to choose between guessing and forgetting what happened. For some, that turned into a harsh and ugly denial, heavy on victim-blaming by way of the aforementioned semen traces and the accuser’s civil suit, which ended in a settlement of an undisclosed amount. For others, there was simply a silence.

I couldn’t realize it then, but for me, the lack of resolution meant I couldn’t entirely go back to only worrying about Bryant’s small number of on-court imperfections. Bryant’s case was, in a real way, my teenage self’s introduction to rape, and it left me confused and unable to return to rooting for Bryant without some small bit of reservation. That might not be fair to Bryant, who was never found guilty of anything, but unlike the many people who are unambiguously celebrating Kobe today, I never figured out how to feel otherwise. And it looks like I never will.