Breann Lujan-Halcon
blujanha@uwyo.edu
April 12, 2013, it was game 80 of 82 of the season, after hyperextending his knee in the first half Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles in the fourth quarter of a home game against the Golden State Warriors. He made two free throws and didn’t check back into a game for nearly eight months. To Lakers fans, to Kobe, that’s when the countdown really began.
Pre-Achilles Kobe always hit the buzzer beater, his clutch was always on, but post-Achilles Kobe is throwing up air ball three’s and bricking his jumpers. He was never the same, and he knew it. So when he officially announced retirement it was like a sigh of relief after getting kicked in the stomach.
An era is ending this season. The Los Angeles Lakers are losing their identity.
For many of us, for me, I don’t remember a Lakers team without Kobe Bryant. I grew up coming to know Kobe as the face of the Lakers. You don’t go to the game to watch Robert Sacre clap on the bench, you go to watch Kobe pump fake, pump fake and shoot a jumper fade away over the poor guy trying to guard him.
Pre-Achilles Kobe averaged at least 25 points per game since 1999. Last season, Kobe averaged 22.3 points and the Lakers missed the playoffs for the second year in a row, for only the seventh time in Lakers history. The chips have been stacked against him, all signs have been pointed toward him hanging it up, but that doesn’t mean we were ready.
Retirement has been a shadow bigger than Michael Jordan comparisons, a shadow that crept up when his Achilles tore, when his rotator cuff went, when he fractured his knee that sidelined him the entire 2013-14 season. Retirement started calling when suiting up meant sitting courtside in Gucci.
Now that the announcement is out, Bryant has officially written his goodbye to basketball via The Players Tribune, players and fans are crying out their sincerest goodbyes. The Staples Center is probably picking out a statue to put up as we speak. Celtics fans are writing “I hate you but-” goodbye letters, teams are making tributes; I’m waiting for Charles Barkley to put his foot in his mouth.
“They say you never truly know what you got ’til it’s gone,” penned a Celtics fan via Tommypoint.com. “So before you go, I just want to say thank you for being far more than just a great basketball player. To an entire generation of NBA fans, you are basketball. I can’t believe I’m saying this… but I’m really going to miss you.”
You love the guy or you absolutely hate his guts, but he is arguably the biggest basketball superstar our generation has had the pleasure to watch. Wednesday night, Bryant snapped the Lakers seven-game losing-streak and scored a season high of 31 points, you can count on Kobe to go out with a bang. This is the last goodbye. Thank you, Mr. Bryant, for the last 20 years of eat-your-heart-out basketball.
