J-Speaks: Kobe Passes Michael

Ever since he entered the NBA out of high school nearly twenty years ago, Los Angeles Lakers’ All-Star guard and NBA champion Kobe Bryant’s game, mannerisms and competitive approach to the game have been compared to Hall of Famer and NBA champion Michael Jordan. In many ways they are similar and in a number of ways they are very different. For many that have followed Jordan going back to his North Carolina days feel he is the best among the two and always has been. Some who have followed Bryant from the beginning feel he is the best among the two. While that debate may never be settled, one thing that is set in stone is Bryant’s place on the all-time scoring list, which he moved up a week ago at the Minnesota Timberwolves.

This past Sunday night at the 5:24 mark of the second quarter, Bryant sank two free throws giving him nine points in the contest and surpassing the player he had always been compared to Jordan to become the third all-time leading scorer in NBA history.

“Step aside MJ, ‘The Mamba has moved right on by you,” were the words of Time Warner Cable Sportsnet Lakers’ play-by-play analyst Bob McDonald said after Bryant’s second free throw moved him into third place.

Only Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at 38,387 points and Karl Malone at 36,928, both of whom played for the Lakers have scored more points than Bryant in the NBA.

When the moment happened, the game was stopped and Bryant received congrats from his teammates and from some of the Timberwolves players, who were just entering the world when Bryant began his NBA journey straight out of high school in 1996. T’Wolves owner Glen Taylor presented Bryant with the ball and the crowd at the Target Center gave Bryant a standing ovation. 

Bryant finished the night with 26 points to go along with six rebounds. His point total in his Hall of Fame worthy career stood at the end of the Lakers (8-17) 100-94 win over the T’Wolves (5-18).

What made the moment even more special is that it took place where the Lakers called home for the first 12 seasons of the franchise before to Los Angeles, CA in 1960 and the rest they say is history.

“It’s a huge honor. So much work to get to this point. It’s unbelievable. Time has flown by,” Bryant, who scored 10 points in the final five minutes to seal victory for L.A., said to Lakers’ sideline reporter Mike Trudell after the game.

In a statement given to the Associated Press about Bryant passing him, Jordan, owner of the Charlotte Hornets said, “I congratulate Kobe on reaching this milestone. He’s obviously a great player, with a strong work ethic and has an equally strong passion for the game of basketball. I’ve enjoyed watching his game evolve over the years and I look forward to seeing what he accomplishes next.”

On twitter, Hall of Famer and NBA champion Earvin “Magic” Johnson said Bryant, a 16-time All-Star was a top-five player in NBA history.

As mentioned earlier, both of these great players have a lot of similarities. For starters, both of these players did not starting winning championships, Jordan with six and Bryant with five, until Phil Jackson came into the fold. Under his coaching, both players learned the importance of making their teammates better. They both learned to take pride in playing with maximum effort on the defensive end and more than anything else they saw the game through a different prism.

It was about practicing hard day in and day out. Taking pride in doing the little things like watching film, working hard in the weight room and making sure that each of their teammates understood that in order to be great, they had to eat it, sleep it and breathe it every day during the season and in the off-season.

The great example of that is what occurred last week when Bryant in a practice a week ago prior to playing the defending world champion San Antonio Spurs.

Bryant during what he felt was a lackluster practice lit into not only his teammates but GM and former Lakers’ player Mitch Kupchak. In a profaned-laced tirade, Bryant called his teammates soft as Charmin. 

It worked because the Lakers in one of their better efforts of the season beat the Spurs in their own building on national television 112-110 in overtime a week ago.

Although he shot just 7 for 22 from the field, Bryant had 22 points to go along with nine assists, five boards and four steals.

The rest of the team picked up the slack as guard Nick Young had 29 points off the bench going 9 for 14 from the floor and his six three-point in the closing moments of overtime gave the Lakers the victory.

Jeremy Lin had 14 points and eight assists off the bench. Carlos Boozer and Jordan Hill posted double-doubles of 14 points and 13 rebounds and 14 points and 10 boards respectably. Wesley Johnson scored 13 points and five boards for the Lakers.

“Look, we can criticize my style of leadership all day long,” Bryant said to reporters after the thrilling victory.

“You can sit there, and it’s uncomfortable, it’s whatever, but I’ve been doing that since high school. We play this game to win championships, and I have five of them. It’s worked pretty well throughout my career.”

I am sure that Jordan has pulled that same move many times. The one Bryant did was one that was caught on tape.

One other similarity between Jordan and Bryant along with the coach they were able to reach the mountain top is the fact they each had a partner in crime on the court that helped them reach those proud moments.

Jordan had fellow Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen who went through the tough times when they could not get passed the Detroit Pistons of Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer and the late great head coach Chuck Daly back in the late 1980s to their two three-peat title runs in the 1990s.

Bryant had Shaquille O’Neal in the early stages of his career and they went from underachieving to making it to the Finals four times in five years winning back-to-back-to-back titles from 2000-2002. The Lakers made three straight trips to The Finals from 2008-2010 and winning two straight titles led by Bryant and Pau Gasol, who is now with the Bulls.

Maybe the biggest similarity between these two players is the fact that they played for ownerships that were not always on the same page with the coaching staff and the players.

Coming into the 1997-98 season, there was a lot of question was this the last stand for the Chicago Bulls as constituted. Pippen was looking for a big contract extension, which he felt he deserved. Jackson and owner Jerry Reinsdorf had tough working relationship at best despite winning five titles in seven seasons.

Despite all the uncertainty, the Bulls had a remarkable regular season going 62-20 and earning the No. 1 Seed in the Eastern Conference. Jordan won his fifth Most Valuable Player Award.

In the postseason, they defeated the then New Jersey Nets 3-0 in the first round. They defeated the Charlotte Hornets in the Semifinals 4-1. They found a way to get past the Indiana Pacers lead by Hall of Famer and current NBA on TNT color analyst Reggie Miller and head coach Larry Bird in seven games.

In The Finals, Bulls met up with the Utah Jazz and the Hall of Fame tandem of John Stockton, Malone and head coach and former Chicago Bull Hall of Famer Jerry Sloan.

Many thought that this time around the Jazz would defeat the Bulls this time around, especially since they had home court advantage. After winning Game 1 over the Bulls, Jordan and company stole Game 2 and routed the Jazz back in Chicago in Game 3 96-54 and a tight Game 4 to take a commanding 3-1 series lead. The Jazz against all odds found a way to win Game 5 83-81 to send the series back to Utah 3-2.

Stockton in the late stages of Game 6 hit a three-pointer to give the Jazz an 86-83 lead. Jordan moments later scored on a driving lay-up to cut the Jazz lead to one and then moments later stole the ball from Malone. He then managed to hit a jumper from the foul-line area that gave him his 15^th and 16^th points of the fourth quarter, 45 points in the game and the Bulls and 87-86 lead with 5.2 seconds remaining.

A three-point attempt by Stockton moments later fell short and the Bulls won the series in six games for a second straight season, their six title in eight seasons and their second three-peat. Jordan was named Finals MVP for the sixth time in his career.

That summer, the team traded Pippen to the Rockets. Dennis Rodman was not re-signed and key players like Longley and Steve Kerr, who hit the game-winner in Game 6 of the 1997 Finals was dealt and Jackson was not re-signed being replaced by former Iowa State University head coach Tim Floyd.

After the Lakers won their third straight title, the team was uneven the next season beginning 11-19. They managed to turn things around and finished 50-32. After defeating the T’Wolves in the opening round of the playoffs, the Lakers lost to the eventual NBA champion Spurs in six games.

The team retooled during that off-season bringing in the likes of Malone and Hall of Famer Gary Payton to go alongside O’Neal and Bryant. They finished 56-26, earning the No. 2 Seed in the West. They defeated the Rockets, Spurs and T’Wolves in the 2004 Postseason, but fell apart against the Pistons in The Finals in five games, losing all three in Detroit as the Pistons captured their third championship in franchise history.

In the next two seasons that followed, Jackson did not return as head coach. O’Neal was traded to the Heat, where he along with Dwyane Wade helped them win the title in 2006.

Upon his exit, Jackson wrote a book about the 2003-04 Lakers season, in which he criticized Bryant and called him “uncoachable.”

Things changed one-year later when the organization brought Jackson back and after missing the playoffs for just the fifth time in franchise history going 34-48, the Lakers made it back to the postseason and lead their first round series with the Phoenix Suns 3-1. Unfortunately, the Suns won the final three games to take the series 4-3.

The next season, the Lakers played to a championship form again and the acquisition of Gasol put them back into the championship mix. They went 57-25 in 2007-08. They defeated the Nuggets, Jazz and Spurs in the first three rounds. They fell in six games to the arch rival Boston Celtics in The Finals 4-2.

The Lakers in 2008-09 went 65-17, finishing atop the West again. They defeated the Jazz, Rockets and Nuggets in the postseason to win the West for a second straight season. The Lakers captured their 13^th NBA title by defeating the Orlando Magic in The Finals 4-1.

The Lakers finished the 2009-10 with the best record in the West for the third consecutive season. In the playoffs, they defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Jazz and the Suns to win their third straight Western Conference title.

In The Finals, they faced the Celtics for the 12^th time. Trailing for much of Game 7 and Bryant having a rough go of it offensively, the Lakers somehow erased a 13-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win the game and capture their 16^th NBA championship overall, their 11^th in Los Angeles. Bryant captured MVP honors for the second straight year.

In the years that have followed though, Lakers have gone from the top of the NBA to the bottom.

In the next two postseasons, the Lakers lost to in the Semifinals to the eventual West champion Thunder and they fell in the first round to the eventual Western Conference Champion Spurs. 

A big part of that is the fact that players like Steve Nash, Dwight Howard and Gasol did not function well together. Nash since coming over from the Suns in a sign-and-trade three years ago has been hampered by injuries.

Ever since Jackson has left the sidelines, his replacements in Mike Brown and Mike D’Antoni were unable to take the Lakers to championship heights and the task of getting back to just being respectable is up to former Laker champion Byron Scott.

One of the big differences between these two players is the styles they played in.

Jordan and the Bulls were winning their titles and they did not have that traditional dominating center. In this period of time the Knicks, the Bulls biggest rival in the 90s had Patrick Ewing. The Charlotte Hornets had Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning. The Houston Rockets had Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon. The Spurs had Hall of Famer David Robinson. The Orlando Magic in the middle of the 90s had O’Neal. In the Bulls titles, their big men in the middle were either just role players or players at the end of their careers like Bill Cartwright, Cliff Levingston, current Bulls color analyst Stacey King, former Piston John Salley, Luc Longley, James Edwards, Bill Wennington and Robert Parrish.

On top of that, the Bulls point guard during those title runs was Pippen. His ability to run the team was something different and his size and lateral quickness gave opposing lead guards nightmares when trying to bring the ball up to run the offense. Just ask “Magic” Johnson, who had to deal with Pippen during the 1991 Finals, where the Bulls won four straight games following a Game 1 setback to take the series 4-1.

Bryant had O’Neal and Gasol, which gave the team the ability to play inside along with the principles of “The Triangle” offense of ball movement and player movement. They also used their ability to make shots from distance with the likes of Brian Shaw, now the head coach of the Denver Nuggets; Robert Horry, Tyronn Lue, current Knicks head coach Derek Fisher, Shannon Brown, Ron Artest, now Metta World Peace.

Maybe the biggest difference between Jordan and Bryant is the fact that Bryant will finish his career with the Lakers while Jordan did not.

Back in Sept. of 2001, Jordan announced his return to the NBA with the Washington Wizards.

While he played in just 60 games that season because of torn cartilage in his right knee, Jordan still lead the team in scoring at 22.9 and assists at 5.2 during the 2001-02 season.

The next year, Jordan played in his 14^th and final All-Star game in 2003. He passed Abdul-Jabbar as the all-time leading scorer in All-Star Game history, a record that eventually broken by no other than Bryant.

Jordan was the only Wizards player to play in all 82 games that season, starting in 67 of those 82. He averaged 20.0 points, 6.1 rebounds 3.8 assists and 1.5 steals per game. At age 40 during the season, Jordan scored 20 points or more on 42 occasions; 30 points or more nine times and 40 points or more three times. 

It is these two seasons that make you wonder what could have been if Jordan, Pippen, Jackson and some of the other cast had remained together in Chicago after 1998.

In a lot of ways, Jordan and Michael are similar. Both had the aforementioned Phil Jackson as their head coach. Both had a Hall of Fame sidekick to help them in Pippen, O’Neal and Gasol respectably. More so than anything, both new how to control the crowd, control the game and control the moment. When they were on the court, they gave the fans at home and in the arena their money’s worth.

Both players are also very different. The most Jordan ever scored in a game is 69. Bryant’s highest scoring mark was 81, the second-highest point total in NBA history. Jordan played in era were the power of the league was in the East. Bryant played at time and still does where the power of the NBA is in the West. The biggest difference between these is the fact that Jordan was a professional athlete that did not take a public stand against any injustice, which is very understandable. Bryant like many NBA players of today have no problem standing up and bringing attention to anything that the public feels needs to be put on notice.

A great example of this is that Bryant and many star players like Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James, Brooklyn Nets guard Deron Williams showed solidarity with many New Yorkers and many across the country by wearing T-Shirts bearing the phrase “I Can’t Breathe,” in support of the grand jury’s decision not to indict NYC Police Officer Justin Damico, the person whose chokehold of Eric Garner killed him.

While the debate between who is better between Jordan and Bryant will go on forever and while many might feel one is better than the other two things are for sure. One, we do not have a Kobe Bryant without a Michael Jordan and Bryant has scored more points in his career and the third most in NBA history and Jordan has the fourth most.

Information, quotes and statistics are courtesy of 12/14/14 7 p.m. contest between the Los Angeles Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves on Time Warner Cable Sportsnet with Bob McDonald, Stu Lantz and Mike Trudell; 12/15/14 1:30 a.m. edition of NBATV’s “Gametime” with Rick Kamla, Rick Fox and Brent Barry; www.espn.go.com/nba; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan;en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Bryant; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner.