Sports has an interesting way of being analogous to life. When in the midst of a debate or conversation, I’ve found that an effective way to get a point across so that it is understood the way you intended it to be is to use sports examples that serve as anchors to your message. What better way to explain how fucked up a your job is, and how that fucked-up-ness is a result of top-down chaos (more on that at a later date), than by citing a dysfunctional sports franchise as a case study for the expression of your plight? So it wasn’t surprising to me when I came to the revelation that my status as a Kobe Bryant fan wasn’t merely a representation of my sports heritage, but a reflection on generational change as well.
I have never been a LeBron James guy. At no point have I found myself rooting for his success. In fact, I’ve pretty much always found myself rooting for his failure. I only have admiration for him as a pioneer in the movement that has seen players grab the mantle of superstardom and take the power away from greedy owners. This aligns with my belief in individual agency and the fact that people in positions of power – whether it’s in business, sports, or the labor force – are able to acquire generational wealth off the backs of hardworking people without having to provide adequate incentive, pay, or appreciation. I’ve always believed that hardworking people should be able to wield more authority in relation to those in power because, well, it’s their health, their bodies, and their ingenuity that facilitates the wealthy being able to become as such. Therefore, any representation of the “worker”, so to speak, being able to obtain that power for him/herself and having that serve as an example of how such an occurrence can be emulated has always appealed to my sensibilities. From a basketball standpoint, however, the thought of him winning anything churns my stomach. But why?
My subjectivity with regards to LeBron has always perplexed me. Why do I dislike him so much? On the court, he appeals to all of my basketball sensibilities. He plays the game the “right way”. He is the antithesis of the direction that the NBA has moved in which places a premium on 1 on 1 perimeter guard play, ball-dominating guards and a complete disregard for running anything resembling an actual offense. Whether it’s James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony or Derrick Rose pre-injury, the exalted players in today’s NBA dominate the ball and play individual hero ball, ridding their teammates of the ability to contribute to their team in any meaningful way outside of them serving as placeholders on the court, waiting for the superstar to pass them the ball out of a double-team to take an open jumper. It’s disgusting. Sure, James Harden stirring the pot is fun to watch when the ball goes in the hoop, but it will NEVER win you a championship.
LeBron is not that, though. As cliche as it sounds, he does make his teammates better. One can argue that it can be tough to play with him if you’re used to being a player who is capable of generating his own offense, but if that’s the case, I’d say just adapt to playing with him and find a happy medium. He is more than willing to give up the rock and let others go to work, and at times when someone else has it going, a la Kyrie Irving, LeBron almost becomes a role player in those instances, feeding off of someone else being able to play at a high level. Playing with LeBron no doubt makes the game easy for everyone else, and despite the fact that I can make these statements with conviction, I still can’t stand him!
Conversely, Kobe Bryant is my all-time favorite player, and to say that Kobe’s game and LeBron’s game are diametrically opposed is a gross understatement. Outside of Michael Jordan, who was a little bit before my time, I have never seen a more gifted basketball player than Kobe. His uber talent and the fact that he has a ridiculous work ethic has always served as a source of inspiration for me. Plus, he is an asshole, and as unpopular as being an asshole may make you, I do believe that in order to be the absolute best at anything, you have to be an asshole (in moderation, of course). To achieve greatness, I believe there has to be something in you that says, “I am better than you, so get the fuck out of my way and I don’t care if you don’t like it.” Kobe has that attribute in spades.
As an aside, Kobe gets a bad rap for shooting too much and being a bad teammate. When he was winning championships and working within the framework of an actual offense (the triangle), he was an efficient player and got along just fine with his teammates. Losing exacerbates false narratives and winning cures everything, but I digress. The point remains that I simultaneously pray for Kobe’s success and LeBron’s downfall, and for the longest time I couldn’t understand why.
Initially, I grounded my stance in the notion that I was a soldier fighting the good fight against the media machine. It’s always easy to blame the media, and I am certainly no exception to this dynamic. I have always been resentful towards LeBron, not because of him per se, but because of ESPN and my belief in the idea that there was an overt agenda being pushed to have him regarded as the best player in the NBA at a time when I believed such a title still belonged to Kobe. In my estimation, Kobe didn’t cease to be the best player in the league until after 2010, but let ESPN tell you, and LeBron has been the best player in the world since he stepped foot onto an NBA court. On top of that, it sickens me to listen to talk radio shows and watch SportsCenter montages that pit LeBron against Michael Jordan in a conversation to determine who is better, completely disregarding the existence of Kobe when not only is Kobe the only player who is remotely comparable to Jordan, but LeBron hasn’t even eclipsed Kobe in terms of all-time greatness. All of the LeBron-centric messaging has put me into the anti-LeBron camp and I’m fine with that. But even after resigning to the fact that ESPN has played a heavy hand in my views on LeBron and Kobe, that still felt too hollow of a rationale for why I can’t stand to see LeBron succeed. There must be a deeper reason behind it.
I then began to notice commonalities between those who harbored the same sentiments as my own. By in large, two things rang true: First, the opinion that LeBron was better than Kobe, and that Kobe’s place in NBA history had indeed been supplanted by LeBron, was strangely becoming the prevailing wisdom in debate circles that I was involved in. Second, said opinion was overwhelmingly shared by members of younger age groups. Those who thought like me were typically my age or older. Sure, there was cross-pollination of the opposing viewpoints here and there, but by-in-large, each side of the isle was comprised of very similar age demographics. This could not be a coincidence.
It was at this moment that I realized what was actually happening. In past societies, revolutions were always the result of the powerless many who were rose up to overthrow the reign of the powerful few who maintained a gripping chokehold upon the current state. Far be it for me to compare myself to a past society on the cusp of a progressive takeover, but my hardened resistance to the notion that LeBron is not better than Kobe is representative of my position as a member of an older generation that is slowly but surely becoming the minority. I am effectively giving way to the youthful revolution! The youthful revolution that no longer includes me amongst its number!
Now, that is not to say that I’m old. By no means do I no longer consider myself to be relatively young. As I pen this piece, I still have the luxury of not being a member of the 30 club, although it’s fast-approaching. It does however signify that I am no longer a member of the youthful tour de force that is directly representative of most relevant cultural phenomena, including music and sports. I am now noticeably older than a substantial number of professional athletes and musicians. It has now become rather weird for me to idolize sports stars and rockstars because, well, I’m older than they are and it would be a little strange and, frankly, pathetic to look up to rich assholes who are a good five to ten years my junior. I’m not sure if this epiphany is as impactful to others as it has been to me, but I nevertheless find myself astounded at the fact that I have reached the point in life in which my opinions on who is better – Jordan Vs. Kobe, LeBron Vs. Kobe, Jay Z Vs. Biggie, Jay Z Vs. Lil Wayne (I seriously get sucked into this one sometimes) – have become not about my ability to adequately substantiate my claims, but about the fact that I think what I think and others think what they think because we are respectively products of our generations. There can never be common ground found between the two sides. I think what I think because I’m older, and everyone else thinks what they think because I am not their age anymore.
Younger people today don’t think that LeBron is the best player ever because they know their history inside-out and have thought things through thoroughly enough to make a claim backed by reason and logic. Rather, they think LeBron is the best player ever simply because they’ve grown up in the LeBron era. Now, I still think they’re completely insane, and anyone who tries to tell me that LeBron is better than Kobe is going to be met with a thunderous and dismissive backslap; but I do nevertheless now understand why they maintain such a ridiculous position. That understanding has enable me to begin to make the mental preparations necessary to transition to a new chapter in life, and I write this in the hopes that others can gain a similar understanding and make the transition for themselves because it is a very pivotal step in life that is unavoidable, one way or the other. The agist sector of American society is real and in effect, and if you become too preoccupied with extending your youth in a not-so-graceful fashion, you’ll soon find yourself as the old guy/girl in the club still trying to figure shit out. Nobody has time for that.
Depending upon your viewpoints on life and how much you’ve been able to accomplish with respect to success and knocking items off of your bucket list, this can be a startling and somewhat depressing realization. That’s the bad news. The good news is that is also gives you clarity. It gives you an opportunity to focus and take inventory on what’s important to you and how you can move forward to finally being financially, socially and emotionally free of burdens. This is what my hardened stance in the belief that LeBron is a bum and Kobe is the 2nd G.O.A.T. has afforded me. Sure, I’ve still got a helluva lot more work to do, but I wouldn’t be writing this piece if it weren’t for my ability to obtain that clarity.
At 28, I’ve reached the age in which multiple generations beneath my own are also of-age. This is insane considering the fact that I can remember minute details about my childhood ranging as far back as kindergarten. Crazy as it may be, however, it’s also necessary to be able to understand when a phase in your life has ended so that you can mentally and emotionally equip yourself for a new chapter. Fear of failing at life and society-induced agism issues aside, I have begrudgingly arrived at the destination of adulthood. I can no longer think of myself as kid, and being “young” is almost completely contextual as it applies within the fabric of how young you are in comparison to those who are older than you. Kobe and LeBron have helped me to realize where I stand in terms of my demographic and how appropriately removed I am from youth movements. If there is anything to take away from this, it would be that if you find yourself clinging to truths that you’ve held close for a long time, and those truths are in direct opposition to the majority view, it might just mean that father time has saw fit to usher you into an era of new beginnings.
The Kobe Vs. LeBron debate is one that I’ve always found fascinating. What many people seem to miss, however, is the fact that the debate cannot be had in real-time because Kobe and LeBron simply hail from different generations. The only accurate Kobe Vs. LeBron that we can have is one that pertains to all-time greatness and career legacy. Nevertheless, this is the one lesson that I do think Kobe Vs. LeBron dialog can teach us. What do you think? Voice your opinions in the comments below and let’s keep Consciousness alive!
Javis Ogden is a Miami native turned current Tallahassee transplant and the founder and chief contributor to Conscious Approach. He has worked as a creative content specialist since completing his graduate degree in Integrated Marketing at Florida State University, and he aspires to be a cultural critic, screenplay writer, ½ of the ESPN First Take debate panel, author, or whatever his short attention span will allow him to be inspired by at any given moment. When he isn’t pursuing freedom, you may be able to find him on an indoor basketball court. He is always in search of his muse. You can help him find it by following him on Twitter @JavisOgden, Instagram @JVWins, Facebook /JavisOgden, and snapchat JavisOgden.