Tragic that Philly fans never fully embraced Kobe
PHILADELPHIA >> The toughest thing to do in sports is to make people doubt that something great can really be happening. In 1996, in and around Delaware County, it was happening, whether the basketball fans of Philadelphia were ready for it or not.
The act was being performed by Kobe Bryant at Lower Merion High, and it was real. It was game-to-game display of speed and leaping, of passing and defense, of acrobatic moves and fundamental competitive spirit. And for anyone willing to accept what seemed impossible, Bryant was proving that then, not later, that he was a better player than any employed by what would be the 18-win 76ers.
Better. Better than every one of them. Markedly, consistently better, at every basketball skill, with every competitive instinct.
For some reason, and a weird one it was, too many fans would become deniers. At some level, that was understandable. It was even a small tribute to their basketball knowledge, which had been and always will be plentiful in and around Philadelphia. How, just how, could a high school player be better than grown, millionaire, professional adults?
With that, one of the most unfortunate group-think decisions in Philadelphia sports history began to coagulate. There must be a mistake, is how it went. Not only is it impossible for a player to be that advanced at that age, but, well, Lower Merion is just a Central League program with a history of moderate success. And, well, he is really just a small forward, not a guard. And, well, he can dunk, but he would be overwhelmed by the pros.
There was even some thought, and from some responsible basketball minds, that he would be best served to spend a few years at a higher-major college, all the better to refine his game. That’s how too much of the Philadelphia basketball illuminati viewed what was happening as Bryant led Lower Merion to the PIAA championship.
The defiance was rampant, and it would continue for years if not decades, with take-sides and invent-avillain determination. For that, and for reasons they would roll into false causes, that was unfortunate. It was unfortunate because Kobe Bryant, the 18-time
NBA All-Star, the fourth-leading scorer in the NBA history, a five-time world champion, a Hall of Fame superstar, should have been embraced as a Philadelphia basketball legend. He was not. And as of Sunday, when Bryant died in a fiery helicopter crash near Calabasas, Calif., there would be no more time to make that peace.
Bryant often tried to connect with his hometown. In many appearances during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in Philadelphia in 2002, he wore a Sixers jersey, No. 23, with the name “Bryant,” on the back. It was a replica of the one worn by his father Joe Bryant, the former Sixer. His reward: He was booed throughout the game.
The Never-Kobe-ers, embarrassed at how they didn’t comprehend what was once bubbling right off City Line Ave., always flaunted reasons for dismissing a world-wide phenomenon. He was too cool. He rejected, among other programs, the Big 5 schools to leap right to the NBA. Worse, he did so at an elaborate press conference. Rocking sunglasses. He escorted a popular entertainer to his senior prom, attracting the paparazzi. He orchestrated a draft day maneuver that would land him not in Charlotte, which technically made him a lottery pick at No. 13 overall, but in Hollywood. How dare he?
Yet it was not that draft day move that most bothered the fans. It was that the Sixers had made the choice, and a reasonable one, to stay at No. 1 overall and select Allen Iverson rather than trading down for Bryant and other values. With that, Philadelphia fans would have what was perceived as an over-achieving, smaller player with a Philadelphia edge, while Los Angeles wound up with the over-ego-inflated high school player on all those tabloid covers.
Sports rivalries happen that way. And Bryant-Iverson was a keeper. The Sixers were wrong, not that wrong. Like Bryant, Iverson wound up in the Hall of Fame. Yet there was a driving irony that the Kobe deniers could not escape. For it was Bryant who proved to be the legendary, dedicated worker in the Philadelphia tradition, while Iverson was being revealed as willing to skip practices and get by on his celebrity status.
Philadelphia fans so wanted Bryant to fail and
Iverson to succeed that they couldn’t even accept that both were becoming legends. It was an attitude that peaked when, before the 2001 NBA Finals, Bryant was heard to predict the Lakers, not the Sixers, would win, and that he would cut the hearts out of Philadelphia fans. Though it was exactly the kind of attitude Philadelphia fans craved, it would become a convenient rallying point for their continued intolerance.
Eerily, it was just Saturday night at the Wells Fargo Center, when maybe, just maybe, a thaw could have begun. With James about to move past him and into third place on the all-time scoring list during a loss to the Sixers, the newest Lakers star scribbled tributes to Bryant on his game shoes. There was even some talk, though none too serious, that Bryant might be a surprise guest at the game. Who knows? Perhaps James and Bryant and the fans and even Iverson, who was in the house, could have shared a bonding moment.
But Bryant was not there. He was in California, preparing for a helicopter trip … and for one final flight that would be so, so difficult to believe.