Is 'Father Time' really catching up with Kobe Bryant?
Kobe Bean Bryant has been averaging a career low .392% in Field Goal Percentage. He already has 50 turnovers this season with a poor assist to turnover ratio of 1.6:1. Chris Paul has the best assist to turnover ratio in the league with a ratio of 6.2:1. That puts things into perspective.
Kobe Bryant has given us 18 years of pure entertainment, but more importantly he has raised the bar. Such is his competitive attitude and unending will that even as all of his famed draft batch of 1996 retired, Kobe kept playing and not just playing for the sake of it but putting in a 36 minute shift day in day out in the grueling NBA season.
The draft batch of 1996 is probably unmatched in the NBA till date. The 2003 draft class is the only one that can possibly come close to the 1996 batch. The ‘96 batch included some of the biggest names in the recent history of NBA. Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, Derrick Fisher, Ray Allen, Kobe Bryant among others. Some names forgotten in the recent history include Marcus Camby, Stephen Marbury, Antoine Walker. Of all those stalwarts, only one remains – Kobe Bryant.
Kobe Bryant is not just playing in the NBA, as everyone else form his batch has retired or has been forced to retire, either due to injuries or due to the loss of form; he continues playing at a level that is as high as the mind can imagine off a 36-year-old man with over 46000 minutes of mileage on his legs. A serious injury to the knees signaled an end of a glorious career, but Kobe Bryant does not leave that easy. He had a contractual commitment to the Lakers and he will push himself to see it through. He will just not accept the notion of ‘father time’.
How is Kobe Bryant competing against the notion of ‘Father Time’?
‘Father Time’ is a period where players can no longer perform at the highest level. Its the very end of a career and one way or the other leads to the players retirement. At 36, Kobe definitely is at the suitable age to be relegated to the ‘Father Time’ category. But he simply is not in the Father time zone.
Kobe is in the period where a player transitions his game to suit his ageing body. That generally comes around the age of 30. That is the time when a player can no longer push himself to the extremes. He has to adapt to the changes his body throws at him. I see Kobe at that stage of his career. He can no longer go flying into the traffic. He can not drive through the lanes and put in the atrocious lay-ups. But Kobe Bryant still averages a league high 26.6 points per game.
Given that the Lakers lack a good second scorer in their roster that can provide a daily supply of 20 points or so and Kobe is being allowed 23.1 Field Goal Attempts per game (second highest in his career, behind 2002-03), 26.6 points per game is no mean feat. He became the only player to score more than 30,000 points and 6,000 assists in the NBA. And they say he does not pass.
No one in father time can average a league high in points-per-game (PPG). Someone in father time doesn’t get a triple double with over 30 points. Simply put, Kobe Bryant has once again willed himself into staying out of the dangerous father time. Lakers will not be Champions this year, maybe not in the next year either, which he says will be his last, but every time Kobe Bryant goes to the free throw line in the famed Staples Center, the crowd will chant “MVP-MVP”.
Kobe Bryant is defying the laws of nature to still excel for Los Angeles Lakers
They don’t care about his lower FG percentage or his low Free Throw percentage. A 36-year-old is playing intense 38 minutes every night, scoring more than the likes of Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James, and most importantly competing every minute of it like a teenager for a sport and a team he values above everything else.
Kobe Bryant, like many times in his career in the past, has willed himself to physically compete and ward off the notorious father time. Kobe Bryant, through his competitive attitude and mental strength has dispelled the rumours of a career that was supposed to fade after the knee injury.
Kobe Bryant is not in father time. Kobe Bryant is still the real deal. He is still the ultimate athlete. Not because he is more fit than LeBron James, because he isn’t. It is because he believes he is fitter, it is because he believes he can out-perform everyone else in the league and he expects to do it every night. Father time simply is no match for Kobe Bryant.