From superstar to punch line
It’s official. Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant literally has become a joke.
It happened Monday during Jay Leno’s monologue on “The Tonight Show” after Bryant landed himself in yet another melodrama during the weekend – this time by saying former Lakers teammate Karl Malone made a pass at his wife, Vanessa.
As Leno cracked: “If you’ve ever seen Kobe play, you know there’s nothing he hates more than making a pass.”
The latest mess that Bryant has created would be merely stupid if it wasn’t so sad. There’s something painful about watching a man who once seemed to have the perfect job and the perfect life systematically destroy himself a controversy at a time, especially when all of them are his own making.
Some of the incidents Bryant has been involved in have been relatively minor, such as this latest tempest with Malone. Some of Bryant’s troubles have been gravely serious, such as the sexual assault charges that were brought (but later dropped) against Bryant by the Eagle, Colo., woman who still is suing him in civil court.
The day Bryant was formally charged, he sniveled and claimed to be guilty only of the “sin of adultery, but not the crime of rape.”
At this point, it hardly matters if it’s hubris or sheer unadulterated rage that is making Bryant behave badly, although my guess is it’s rage.
Bryant has been cast as the villain who blew up the Lakers’ title teams. For months before that, Bryant had to make that perp walk by the TV cameras into the courthouse in Colorado for his sexual assault trial. Now his decision last Sunday to lash out at Malone – the one friend he had among the Lakers’ stars last season – smacks of someone who sees himself as a victim rather than a man in a free fall of his own making.
Bryant’s mouth has embarrassed him and others before. When police visited Bryant the night the woman reported the alleged sexual assault, Bryant chirped like a canary. He fretted that his wife would be furious. (He later bought her a $4-million, eight-karat diamond ring.) He allegedly told police that he had been unfaithful before, and suggested that he should’ve done what then-teammate Shaquille O’Neal allegedly did. “Shaq would pay his women not to say anything,” he told police.
You can imagine how that went over with O’Neal, who also is married and now plays for Miami. Their sniping has been at a low-level hum ever since, with their Christmas Day grudge match on national television looming as a potentially ugly piece of business. With each passing day, the Lakers franchise seems to be paying dearly for selling out completely to Bryant.
The day Bryant was charged with sexual assault, the Lakers became the first sports team in memory to allow an accused rapist to use their team facility for his news conference. That was repugnant. The Lakers also helped pay for Bryant’s charter flights to and from his Colorado court appearances so he’d be back in time to play games.
By last summer, it was entirely predictable when Lakers owner Jerry Buss chose to keep Bryant and say goodbye to O’Neal and coach Phil Jackson.
Usually, the confluence of sex, power and greed makes for a riveting story. But only when it’s make-believe. Even in the NBA, a league in which players look more ridiculous and belligerent and out of touch by the day, Bryant has vaulted back atop the heap and proven he lives in an even odder moral universe than brawling Ron Artest or potty-mouthed Latrell Sprewell.
The exchange that Malone had with Kobe’s wife never should have become public – except Kobe, cast once again as a bad guy, couldn’t keep his mouth shut.
For once, both sides agree on what was said: At a game Nov. 23, Vanessa Bryant noted the cowboy boots and jeans Malone was wearing and said, “What are you hunting for, cowboy?” To which he replied: “I’m hunting for little Mexican girls.”
So far as anyone has admitted, that was it – until an uncomfortable Vanessa, who is Latina, told Kobe about it immediately after the game. Kobe called Malone and angrily said, “Stay away from my wife. How could you? What’s wrong with you?”
Malone immediately offered to apologize to both of them, which he did. For Bryant, that wasn’t good enough. Increasingly, nothing ever is.