Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Vinnie Goodwill on Kobe's 81-Point Game: A Night That Changed Basketball Forever | 01.27

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Vinnie Goodwill on Kobe's 81-Point Game: A Night That Changed Basketball Forever | 01.27 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The Right Time, a WAVE original.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Beaumontie Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
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  Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesdays. We got my
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: man Vinny Goodwill in from ESPN. What's going on, brother?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Man, what's going on? At least I don't have the
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: title of Bo's Biggest Hater.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Nah, nah, you don't, man, because you don't do that.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: That's not your inclination. That's not in your spirit, and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: it's not in your soul.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Nah, it's not, but I figured given today's topic, for
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: whatever reason, this thing makes people lose their minds.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is interesting. So, you know, we do
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: a Time Machine Tuesday. Now, every Tuesday, we're going to
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: look back at something that has gone on in sports
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and the world. This we are looking at as I
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: want to make sure we got this date right. On
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  Speaker 1: January 22nd, 2006, Kobe Bryant put up 81 points, including
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: 55 in the second half over the Toronto Raptors. 81 points.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: The significance of the 81 is it is the second
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: highest point total of all time. behind Wilt Chamberlain. And
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: what I think is interesting about that, like the Chamberlain part, Vinny,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: is that There's so many NBA records that are like
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the highest except for Wilt, where we just have a
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: host of things where if you get to be the
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: closest person to Wilt, then it's like, oh, okay, good enough.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But normally when that happens, it's like Wilt did it
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: eight times or Wilt did it five times and then
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: somebody else. Wilt only scored 100 one time. That's the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: only time that Wilt went over 80. This is the
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  Speaker 1: second highest point total of all time in one game
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: and three I think one thing that's interesting about it,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and there's so many levels that we could get to
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: about it. In fact, let's build up to the moment, right? Like,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: let's build up to the game. And I think building
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to the game requires going to 2003. A couple things
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: happened in 2003. One, the Lakers three-peat ended, right? You
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: follow the end of the Lakers three-peat with the additions
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of Gary Payton and Karl Malone as the Lakers went
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to make One more run. Kind of an understanding that
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: this is going to be Shaquille O'Neal's last year with
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the Lakers and probably the first year that Shaq was
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: not truly great anymore was probably that season. That is
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: also the summer of Kobe being charged with rape in Eagle, Colorado.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: 0-4. That is the ultimate super team didn't make it
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: happen situation in the history of the NBA. I'd say
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: even more so than the net situation with Kyrie and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Kevin Durant. and James Harden, because they were just kind
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of in and out. There was a pandemic that was
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: in the middle of it. It was a lot. This
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: one right here, we live with the stress for all
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: 82 games. The Lakers were the centerpiece of basketball coverage,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: and we watched it not look good, and then we
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: watched Derek Fisher hit the miracle shot against the Spurs,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and it looked like they were going to turn that around,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: and they beat Minnesota, and then the Pistons, who from
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: a distance seemed like they would be no match, You
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: folks in Detroit, I believe, call that the five-game sweep.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, that is the term right around these parts. Yeah,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: it's both.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And it was, by the way. It felt like a
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: five-game sweep, but the Lakers won that one game in overtime,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: and then the Pistons just kicked their asses.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like, look, the crazy thing is, like you said,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: 2003 is a great starting point because, remember, that was
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: the shack. I get hurt on company time. I recover
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: on company time. He came into camp really overweight and
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: just didn't start, right? And that was where you got
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: the glimpse of Kobe being able to carry a team. Remember,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: he had that 40-point streak. I want to say in
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: January of 03, he had like 12 straight games of
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: 40 points. He had the one game, I think, against
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Seattle where he had 12 threes. Now, y'all, I think
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: we have become desensitized about what 12 threes looks like.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: But in a non-three-point shooting league... Getting 12 threes when
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: you have the complete offensive game that Kobe did and
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Kobe had, like that was amazing. And then, like you said,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: the precursor to everything in 04, Karl Malone trying to
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: get his one ring, Gary Payton at that point trying
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: to get his one ring. It was so weird because
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: remember in the preseason of that year, Shaq, I think
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: they were playing in Hawaii, and Shaq wanted that extension.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Screaming at Jerry Buss.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Screaming at Jerry Buss to pay me because you dunked
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: on Jerome James or somebody? That was so... It was
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: very clear in hindsight. I didn't feel like it was
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: clear in the moment, but it felt clear in hindsight. Man,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: this was going to be the last year of any
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: of that. Kobe was going to be a free agent.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Those guys were old. And it led up to everything
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  Speaker 2: that we're getting to in 2006, which is Kobe as
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: loan act. pulling all of these feats off by himself,
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: but it's going nowhere in a team construct. And what
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: does that mean to him?
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Right, because look, Shaq knew. Look, when they were not
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: going to extend him with one year left on his contract,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: or wherever they were, come on, man. They told you,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: and he knew it, right? And that led to that
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: level of drama. We find out in the course of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that season that Kobe talked about Shaq when he was
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: talking to the police. Um, we had that like it
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  Speaker 1: was who there's never been anything more dramatic, at least
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: in my life in terms of like it was the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: perfect combination of modern media coverage, plus the glamour franchise
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: of the NBA, plus maybe the two biggest names in
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the NBA, plus you add these legends, plus you have
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the Phil Jackson thing, but they got their doors blown
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: off in 04. Shaq gets traded to Miami. Phil Jackson
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: gets fired. Payton's done. Karl Malone retires because he suffers
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the first injury of his whole career because good gracious,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: that man was durable. All those things happen. Lakers go
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: through 0-4-0-5. Rudy Tomjanovich is the coach. They let go
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  Speaker 1: of him in the middle of that year. Kobe's hurt
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: for much of that year. I think he got sick.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I think Rudy got sick. Yes, he did. He did.
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  Speaker 1: He got sick, but they also.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Wasn't... They weren't bringing him back, but he got... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Frank Hamlin, I believe, replaced him, which was the precursor
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  Speaker 2: to Phil being back.
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  Speaker 1: You are correct. And I was thinking, the wheels came off,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: and there was no bringing Shaq back. But Phil Jackson, like,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: you know, when you're dating the owner's daughter, things get awkward, right?
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: When you coach a team and you're Phil Jackson... That's
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: a whole show to itself that we don't talk nearly
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: enough about, which is the weird dysfunction of Phil Jackson
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: existing with the Lakers. But they fired him in 04
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and brought him back in 05. In between, he put
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: out a book where he says that Kobe is uncoachable,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: and now he has to coach Kobe again, except he's
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: coaching Kobe. And I would like to take a brief
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: moment to pull up some names of some players who
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: played on the 2005-2006 Lakers. I could also do this
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: with the 2004-2005 Lakers if I wanted to, but let's
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: just go to the team for the season that we
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: are talking about. I am going to sort this list
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  Speaker 1: by minutes played, right, or minutes per game. Kobe Bryant
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  Speaker 1: was first in minutes. Lamar Odom was second. Lamar Odom,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: very good NBA player.
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  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 1: Third in minutes is Smush Parker. Fourth is Kwame Brown.
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  Speaker 1: Fifth is Chris Mims. We're getting to Devin George, Luke Walton,
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  Speaker 1: Brian Cook, Sasha Vujicic, Laurent. Andrew, a rookie Andrew Bynum. Guys,
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  Speaker 1: this team was Kobe and the Pips. Kobe and the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Funky Bunch.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: If we keep it in a buck.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: This was Kobe was out there for Dolo and what
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it was. And then created was the best of Kobe
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: and the worst of Kobe all at once.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 1: Yep. If you put LeBron James on that team, especially
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: that era of LeBron James, you put LeBron on that
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: team and LeBron is going to figure out how to
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: get some dudes, some shots, get them into the places,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: they're going to seem like better basketball players than they
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: ever seemed like. That's not the Kobe Bryant approach to basketball.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. I will say this. I don't know
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: if LeBron takes those guys to 44 wins. Was that
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: what they had?
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: 45.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: 45. That's a feat in that particular version of the
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: Western Conference.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Well, so the trick bag in that discussion is the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Western Conference variable because we saw LeBron take a roster
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: somewhat similar to that to the NBA Finals.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: I would venture to tell you that Larry Hughes and
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Zajunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden are better than Smush Parker.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Lamar Odom, as talented as he was, was inconsistent as hell.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: And Andrew Bynum was a rookie who showed modicum of
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: flashes and Chris, I would say, I think, yeah, I
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: get what you're saying, but I do think that Cavs
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: team had solid coaching and a good defense. These dudes
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: were just dudes that were just kind of happy to
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: be in the league. Yeah.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: They had a lot of those in Cleveland too, right?
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're wrong, but I think there's room
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: on both sides in the discussion. But the bottom line
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is Kobe Bryant was not looking at these guys thinking
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: to himself, I got to figure out how to get
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: more of him, out of him. That's not how he
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: did things. He looked at them and was like, how
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: about y'all give me the ball, all right? Kobe averaged
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: 27 shots a game that year. No one else averaged
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: more than 11, right? Triangle? What is a triangle? What
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: are you talking about?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Well, this is why the last few years were so
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: important is because Kobe felt like I'd spent all this
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: time sacrificing in the name of Shaq, in the name
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: of this team, in the name of winning. And then
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: we add on, you know, Gary Payton and Karl Malone.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: You want to get them acclimated. And I have to
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: take fewer shots and everything else and, you know, the
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: whole thing.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: it's my time to go for Dolo. Now it's my
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: time to show y'all that I'm really good. Because at
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: that time, and you can remember this, Bo, I don't
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: know what side of this you sat on, if you
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: sat on this side, but at that time, there was
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: reasonable discussion amongst reasonable basketball minds. Who's better, Tracy McGrady
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: or Kobe Bryant? I bet you that ate Kobe Bryant
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: up inside. Completely ate him up inside. Also add to
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: the fact, that there was this young kid in Miami
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: named Dwayne Wade who was coming up playing next to
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Shaq and playing for more high stakes basketball. So if
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Kobe knew this team, lack of a phrase, ain't shit,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go out here and get my numbers.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: And I think that's the only thing in general for
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: this season. Now, the next season, I think it got
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: a little tiring. But for this season, he hit those
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: young legs. He was mentally free, shall we say. And
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: he could go out there. And score 50, 60. Like,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: it wasn't just the 80 that year. That man, legit,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: this might have been the single greatest scoring season since
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Jordan in 87, right?
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think when you consider the pace
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: of play of 2006 basketball, I can make an argument
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: that maybe it was more impressive though Jordan shot at
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: a much higher percentage in that season. But that... I
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: think that Kobe legitimately believed that him taking all that
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: shots was the best chance they had to win. Like,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I think on one level, yeah, he wanted to get
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: his shots off. But also, what is his compelling argument
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: for giving the ball to, wow, Aaron McKee. Well, he
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: only played 14 games for them. Von Wafer, whoever it is, right? Like,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: why would I give them the ball? And in response,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I don't have a great answer for that, right? He
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: also had what actually may have been more impressive than
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the 81-point game. And that was the game earlier that
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: season against Dallas where he scored 62 points in three
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: quarters and the Mavericks scored 61 in three quarters. And
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: he didn't play the fourth quarter.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I think we have to put this into proper context,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: especially considering what the NBA looks like now and what
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the NBA has looked like post-2015, right?
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Not just the three-point shooting, but the pace of play.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: The average, I believe, in 2006, and I had to
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: look this up, the league average was 97 points a
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: game that year. Like the previous NBA Finals, which was
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Detroit-San Antonio, which was a slugfest, I believe the game
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: seven score was 81-74. Yeah. And then the next year,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Kobe does that, granted completely different circumstances than everything else.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: But just the fact that, like you said, pace of play,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: offense was not prioritized. It was only the second year
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: of Steve Nash's seven seconds or less with Mike D'Antoni.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: And that didn't really catch on. Like, we look at
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: it now and say, yeah, since Phoenix started playing and
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: everybody did that. That really wasn't the case. There was
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: a lot of resistance to that because Phoenix didn't get
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: to the finals and they were really bad defensively and
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: everything else. So we were kind of sitting at this
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: from a league standpoint. this middle ground where the advanced
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: stats hadn't yet caught up to, you know, the skills
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: and the eye test and everything else. And Kobe just
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: out here saying, I'll take every loan till you got
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: for me. I'll take everything. I will take it all.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: And nine times out of ten, it was because he
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: could make them all. But that was the problem. He
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: could make them all, so he took them all.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he was making them all, but he could.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: And it is... I find generally speaking, the 06 season
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to be a touch polarizing because Kobe fans believe that
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: to be his best season. And it's kinda, I would
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: say his best season. I mean, you shot 27 shots
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: a game, right? So there's going to be some sheer
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: volume at play when talking about that. And On one level,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's appropriate to blame him for the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: fact that those teams didn't win. But I also don't
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: think that what he was doing in that case was
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: playing winning basketball. Like, I don't think the 06 version
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: of Kobe was better than the 03 version of Kobe.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I don't think any version of Kobe was better than
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: the 01 playoff version of Kobe. I don't think that
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: version of Kobe was better than 08, 09 Kobe. Like,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: that era of Kobe. That was just the one where
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: he got to take all the shots.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Well, the crazy thing is that's what– like Kobe fans
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: have this weird relationship with him in relation to like
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the rest of us, I guess, because they look at
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that as, like you said, the magnum opus. If you
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: put a greater team around Kobe, Kobe's averaging 35 and
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: getting to the finals. None of those two things ain't
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: happening quite like that. Like 01 Kobe was a freak
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: because he got after it. Like he got after it
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: on defense. He got after it as far as playing
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: next to Shaq and maximizing what that was and what
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: that was going to be. Like, that 0-1 Lakers team
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: might be the single greatest team we've ever seen. And
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: to me, that goes up to... At its peak.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: That playoff. That's what I mean. The fact that they beat...
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I think every team they played won 50 games in
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the playoffs. And I think seven or at least six teams...
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: And the West won 50 games, and they smoked every
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: one of them. They gave Sacramento 48-17 in the clincher,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: gave the Duncan-Robinson Spurs. They embarrassed the Spurs in the
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Western Conference Finals. I think games three and four, they
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: were up like 30 points by halftime. It was a
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: laugher of how ridiculous they were making the league look.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: So for people to say, oh, yeah, this is Kobe's year,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: I think they view this as the year Kobe should
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: have won MVP. I don't view it that way at all.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Like Shaq thinks he should have won that MVP. I
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: don't think that's the case. Kobe thinks he should have
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: won MVP. I don't think that's the case at all.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I think by and large, those are nowhere near the
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: egregious ones. But like you said, nowhere near what we
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: consider Kobe Bryant as complete basketball player either.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: But when he was on in that year, you could
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: get 62 and three quarters. And when he was on
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: in that year, you could put up 81 on the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Toronto Raptors. And shout out to Jalen Rose, because you
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: would think that he gave all 81 of those to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Jalen Rose with the way the internet is taking control
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: of that game and narrative. Hey, man, let me tell
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: you something about that game. And you watched it. You
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: just got through watching it. Brother, everybody got a piece
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of that 81.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: It's like, Oprah, you get a bucket. You get a bucket.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: You like everybody. Moe Pete, my man Moe Pete from
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Michigan State, he ate a lot of those. More than
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Jalen Rose did. He ate a lot more of those
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: buckets in his grill than Jalen. Jalen got some work too,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: but it wasn't, Jalen didn't even take half of that.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: But when you get 81.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think some important things to note about
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: this game. Number one, this was a close game after
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: three quarters.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: No, number one, the Lakers were down 17 in the
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: first half.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Yes. Right. This was not one where they were just
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: blowing their doors off from the beginning and it was
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: stat hunting. No, the path to victory was Kobe getting
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: these buckets.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: And not just that. Kobe had to bring them back
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: into the game. I think they wound up getting it close,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: like right before halftime. they were still trailing by double digits,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: but it was like reasonable. It might've been like 14.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Now 14 now feels like four, but back then 14
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: felt like you still got to have some Herculean feats
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: to get a win. Then in the third quarter, because
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: he had 27 at the half, which seemed like an
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: astronomical number. Then they were like, man, Kobe may need
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: 50 to get this win. 50 might not have done it.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? It might've been only 81.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: And then he started taking over. even more in the
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: third quarter where they took the lead, but it was
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: still reasonably close. like once you get and I don't
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: know how you feel about this Bo once somebody scores
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: 60 why would he pay why would he pass the
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: ball I don't care if you up 20 at that
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: point you go for it luckily for Kobe and luckily
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: for us it was still a reasonably competitive game to
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: the last five minutes But when you get hot like that, no,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: go ahead, dog. You got it, big dog.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Shoot every time. You got it. And everybody knew what
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: time it was. And it wasn't like the last game
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of his career where that was different, right? This was simply,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: we know Kobe's going to get the ball every time.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: And he's going to get in these buckets. Like, he
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: was still messing around. Like, he dribbled. I remember one
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: play clearly from watching the game that night where he
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: dribbled into the baseline and was trapped. And the game
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: is over. And he just called a timeout. Because we
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: just get in these buckets, man. Everybody was invested in
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the fact that greatness was happening right now.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: This wasn't a manufactured moment. This was... hey, man, this
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: dude is getting it. We're not going to let him
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: get buckets. But we recognize, like, the Lakers understood. This
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: is what it is. And even if they didn't understand
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that was what it was, that was what the fuck
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: it was going to be. Because there's no way in
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the world that Kobe was going to be playing like
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that and then be like, no, no, no, no, no.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and run the offense right fast. Not again.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Remember, the Dallas game, which was a month before that,
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: where he had 62 and the championship contending Dallas Mavericks
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: had 61. He could have went for Dolo in that
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: fourth quarter. And I'm not sure if that was a
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: national TV game. It might have been a Sunday game.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. I can't remember it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: But there was more of an impetus in that one
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: to go and embarrass the competition because And he was like,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: you know what, if I done sacrificed already, no, I'm
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: going for this one. Like, and the crazy thing for me, Bo,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: is when I think of 81, I don't think of
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: that being the most impressive game of Kobe's career. I
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: just think of that being like the most Kobe game
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: of Kobe's career. Like if Kobe were to, if someone
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: was to ask Kobe, and I'm sure somebody has, like
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: what game best encapsulates everything that you are, he would
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: probably either say, that chalk fest of game seven and
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: against the Celtics, you know, where he shot six of 24, because,
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: you know, we romanticize that now. Or he would say
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: the 81, because that's just what he was all about.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: And I got no problem with that.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I think another level of it was, this is pre-
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: It is after high-speed internet really starts moving into homes,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: really spreading, but before the immediacy of the smartphone and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the immediacy of social media, people had a strong access
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: to this game. But as I recall, on Eastern Time,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: it was like a Sunday night. I don't recall this
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: being a nationally televised game.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: It wasn't.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And there was kind of a slow creep of information
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: spreading amongst people like, hey, Kobe got 30 at halftime.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Or Kobe's got 29 at halftime. Like people gradually finding
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: out what was happening. And then it's like, OK, so
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: if you really about the NBA, even if you don't
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: have the league pass, you got like the sports package
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that lets you get the Fox Sports game. or whatever
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: it is, like a Lakers game. You could always get
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: a hold of a Lakers game one way or another.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: There were enough ways to pirate them if you wanted to.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So there was a widespread access to this game, and
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: it felt like everybody was going to say they were
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: watching it, but it's not possible that they were all
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: watching it, right? But we all kind of got there.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe not all at the same time. Maybe not the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: whole way, but we all kind of got there, and
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I think there's something that adds to the legend of it.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Like the legend of the Wilt 100-point game is that
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: nobody saw but the people who were there. but there's
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: something to the legend of it that these different games
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: and things would happen at points. Like you remember... and
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: social media was a bit more around for this. Like
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: when Johnny Flynn played them six overtimes.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: You gradually found out that it was happening. It was
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: one of those Wimbledons where there was a stoppage in
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the middle of it, but the match went on all
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: day long, and everybody gradually found out it happened. This
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: kind of had that quality, and so now once it
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: gets to the end, we're all there, and everybody's there
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: for the same reason. We're here to watch Kobe get buckets.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, it's funny. The memory just came to me, Bo.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: I was in college at the time. I got a
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: hold of some Piston tickets that night. Not quite nosebleed,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: but just got a hold of some tickets, right? They
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: were playing the Rockets and Tracy McGrady. And I brought
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: my cousin. I'm like, yo, let's go to the Piston game.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: He's like, all right. And he was a big Kobe fan.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: And he was like, yo, as long as we get
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: back in time for me to get on this league
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: pass to watch Kobe. I'm like, all right, cool. That's
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: a late game. Mac scores 41 that night. I'm like,
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: oh man, we got to see a great game. T-Mac
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: scores 41. Nobody in the league is going to get
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: more than 41 that night. That's what I was thinking.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Kobe said, double that. And
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I remember my cousin watching the game and I didn't
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: find out until the next day. I went home. At
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: the time, I worked at a bank as one of
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: my college jobs. So I had to be up at
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: like eight in the morning. And I just like took
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: it to the crib, went to sleep. And I was like, okay,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: I got school. I got work in the morning. The
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: next day, I'm just calling my cousin on the way.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: And I'm talking about what we saw with the Mac.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: And he was like, hey, dog, that ain't what happened
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: last night. I'm like, what are we talking about? He
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, you don't know. He was like, Cope
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: scored 81. I felt like, you remember Do the Right Thing?
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: And he's like, man, I'm not from Boston. I'm from Brooklyn. Oh, man,
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: that's what I started like. That's what I was like.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Come on, man, you lying. And the word of mouth,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: I think, was almost even more wild at the time
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: because you had to do a double take. If you
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: didn't see the game, if you didn't watch SportsCenter that
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: night and someone told you the next day, Because there
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: was no Twitter, because there was no way to immediately
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: verify that.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you just missed out.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: You swore. No, no, not only did you miss out,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: you didn't believe it. You thought somebody was lying to you.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Right. That's what 81 is. All right, coming up next,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: we got more on this and, you know, how this
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: kind of sets up this next stage in the career
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: of Kobe Bryant. It's the last call for football on FanDuel.
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• 28:27
  Speaker 1: All right. Back with Vinny Goodwill talking about the night
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: that Kobe scored that 81. And it's still crazy. 81.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Like that number. And I think the 81 will hold
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: in a different way. in large part because this is
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: before the proliferation of this three-point shot in the ways
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: that we've seen it, right? Like, Luka Doncic has had
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: a 70-point game. Donovan Mitchell has had a 70-point game.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Devin Booker's had a 70-point game and lost. We can
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: run through, like, there are now guys that have put
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: up some of these numbers and, I mean, good for them,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: but it ain't this.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: It don't feel the same. It don't feel like it.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: It doesn't feel the same. And what Kobe was that
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: people of, I would say, you and I are like
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: on generational cusp, but I'd put us together for purposes
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of this discussion. And I think our basketball sensibilities put
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: us in the same place. Um, the scorer versus the
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: shooter is a big thing here, right? Now you have
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: guys like Steph Curry, who is an ungodly combination of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the two, but what Kobe Bryant was Carmelo Anthony is
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: somebody who fits in this archetype. We can go to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: guys like Adrian Dantley, um, squarely in the archetype of
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a scorer i know how to get buckets the way
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the game has changed because the nba decided about 15
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: 20 years ago that it wanted to be more of
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: a ball movement league more of a team basketball league
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: which was It was truly necessary given the way that
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the game had kind of bogged down before they made
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the rule changes. But what you had were guys that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: give me the ball and I know how to get buckets.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: It was a footwork game, a sleight of hand game,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: your pump fakes, your ability to conserve your dribble, all
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: of these things, right? There is an art to scoring
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: that isn't always the most efficient when we talk about
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: basketball and team success. but has its own very particular
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: beauty when watching it purely as an aesthetic. And a
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: guy getting 81 points in the form that Kobe Bryant
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: got those 81 points, it's going to be hard for
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: anybody to put up buckets in a way that feels
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: like that ever again.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: He took 33 twos in this game. He only took,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: he was seven to 13 from three. But he only
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: took 13 threes. And if someone gets on a heater,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know how many threes Donovan Mitchell took or
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: Luka Doncic took, but if someone gets on a heater
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: like that, the numbers reversed. You're taking as many threes
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: as possible just to maximize the numbers as opposed to
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: maximizing the opportunities. That's why I think Bo is so
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: very difficult for players or for people, viewers who did
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: not see him, to understand why Allen Iverson was indeed
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: a thing. Because they're like, man, look at the shooting numbers.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: He didn't shoot that well. But there's a relentlessness to
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: the way that players had to play back then. Like,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: appetite was the biggest thing, in my opinion. The number
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: one thing that had to be a quality about scoring
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: had to be appetite, had to be want to. Because
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: you look at a guy like Jerry Stackhouse, and Stack
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: was a shooting guard, but he wasn't a shooter by
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: any stretch. But he could get to the bucket easily.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: He could get his shot. He could get to the
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: line like he used and maximize all the ways that
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: there is to score. And he wasn't necessarily limited to, oh,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: since I'm not a shooter, that means I can't be
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: on the floor. I can't be effective. Kobe was a
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: guy that was when I'm hot, I'm on a heater,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: get out the way. But any other time, there's not
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: a spot on the floor that I can't create a
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: shot from. And there's not a spot on the floor
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: that even if you double team me, that I can't
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: get up a reasonably effective shot that maybe, excuse me,
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: maybe just maybe might go in. And that's the stage
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: of basketball in 2006 that we were aging out of.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Maybe not fast. It was a slow burn. But we
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: were starting to age out of that because I think
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: the rules came into play before the 0-4-0-5 season. But
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: it just took a long time for basketball to catch up.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I want to say, I think it was before the
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: 03-04 season. The thing I know is this. It was
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: when Steve Nash was still in Dallas.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, that was 03-04 then.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: You can go look at Steve Nash's stats, and you
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: can look and find exactly the year that everything changed
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: with the rules. It was immediate in Steve Nash's numbers.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: But the other thing was, and I think that this
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: gets lost, is that getting buckets was a lot more
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: hazardous back then right this is not the 80s where
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: dudes could literally clothesline you and get called for a
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: common foul it wasn't that but a big part of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: why you had to have a mid-range game back in
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the day that isn't discussed by the dorks is that
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: these cats are taking your head off if you go
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: in too far right this is another element of it
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: that that's part of why you had to have a
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: three-level game it wasn't possible back in the day to
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: have a situation where the heat map is showing all
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: these threes and all these layups because somebody was coming
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: to get you down there, right? Some dude who wasn't
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: even actually very good at basketball. He was just there
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: to stop you from getting buckets.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Kurt Thomas. And I'm not saying Kurt Thomas isn't good
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: at basketball because Lord knows I don't want to run
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: into him and get into no problems. Like having to
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: spend a lot of time at Madison Square Garden. You
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: never know who's going to be on the jumbotron that day, right?
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: That is true. I say that to say, there are
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: guys like that who are on the roster for the
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: sole purpose of somebody come down the lane, you got
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: six fouls, you better use them. And you better use
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: them properly. As in, no soft ones, no and ones,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: make him feel it, make him go to the line,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: but make him think twice about going there. And then
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: the coaching back then was not such to take corner threes.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: That was the one spot that they didn't tell you
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: to take threes. They said don't take a three in
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: the corner because that puts you at a disadvantageous position
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: to get back on defense. So even though that's the
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: shortest three and everything else, and Kobe could have been
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: a monster at corner threes if you would have told him, hey, man,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: this is easy. The fact was you had to play
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: offense thinking about defense at the same time. So it
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: wasn't just, go to the basket, it's going to be
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: a freeway there and everything else. You had to be
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: strategic about where you took your shots from, not just
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: hazardous to your health, but also these defensive-minded-ass coaches didn't
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: want to give up a fast break on the other end.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: So sometimes a bad shot was just the first step
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: in playing good defense.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: And I think all of this also, this game is
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: a part, I think the 62 and 61 minutes was
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: another part of it, but this is the beginning of
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Kobe moving back into the good graces of the basketball public, right?
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: The general public, I think was a bit of a
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: bigger fight, but the basketball public, Hey man, I think
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: it's hard to explain to people that we were on
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: sides with that Shaq and Kobe thing. Like there were
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: not a lot of people on the, you got to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: see it from both ways. it was around the Lakers
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: and around the league. It's either you were with Shaq
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: or you were with Kobe. And to be honest, man,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: it was really hard to be with Kobe, at least
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: for the early portions of it, because Shaq was so
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: much better than everybody else was. Then gradually, Kobe got there,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: but a lot of us were slow to recognize it
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: because we still had the best of Shaq in our
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: minds when we came up with our idea of what
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: it was that they looked like. But in the end,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Shaq left the Lakers, and then the Lakers missed the playoffs.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: And then Kobe's out here with these guys, but they're
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: not really good, and the performance is not really there.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: It also seemed as if Kobe had run Phil Jackson.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Off, right?
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: That was the way that we were looking at this.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, Kobe was not being treated like
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: a three-time champion typically is being treated. Like, I think overall,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: the opinion of him was.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say if it was a net
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: negative because, I mean, there are obviously a lot of
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: people that are like, yo, this is just Kobe Bryant.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: But between that and what happened in Colorado, his Q
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: rating was down, down, down. And then he reminded us
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: that we were in it for the basketball and he
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: put up 81 points in the game.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: That was the thing to me that stands out. I
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: feel like, remember Kobe had that sneaker free agency year?
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Where he wore everybody's stuff, like the stuff that Stephen
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Curry's doing now. And then after that, he got into
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: the Colorado thing. So he was flammable. Like, you couldn't
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: touch him. You couldn't give him an endorsement deal. That
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: 05-06 season was the first time that Kobe, eight years
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: in or whatever it is, had his own shoe from Nike. Like,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: that was the Kobe 1 shoe season. And that was
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: kind of, like you said, a step in the direction
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: of welcoming Kobe back into the consciousness. And Kobe, the
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: thing with Kobe and Shaq was that Shaq knew how
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: to play the media game. Shaq was a likable big
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: dude who could disarm you and who could get you
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: on his side and everything else. And Kobe was gruff
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: and didn't let people in and liked it that way.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: So it was easy to say, you know, Biggie Tupac
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: or whatever it was, right? Like, it was legit. Either
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: you were a Shaq guy or you were a Kobe guy.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: And the guy, like my cousin I was telling you about,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: he was a big-time Kobe guy. He didn't rock with Shaq.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: He thought Shaq should have been like Tyson Chandler. Grab
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: the rebound and kick it out to Kobe. He thought
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: that back in 01. Hey, man. Hey, get it off
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: the glass. I'm telling you. Like, this is what things
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: were like Even then, and then Colorado happens, and then
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Shaq gets traded happens, and then everything else.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on, hold on. You can't leave out
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Kobe talking about Shaq to the police. That is the one,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: just like Carmelo Anthony had a hard time shaking off
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: when he punched Marty Collins and ran the other way. Like,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's the things that dudes just find to be abhorrent.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: And that was the one.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: That's the... um even if you were a kobe guy
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: that's the one thing that people kind of have a
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: hard time reconciling you know what i mean that's.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: What kobe had to get past with these dudes you
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: know what i'm saying like like like like it's gonna
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: be bad bars really love kobe as much as he
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: say You're telling me Matt Barnes thought that was okay. Hey,
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I'm sure Matt Barnes doesn't really care about Kobe. I'm
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: not saying they lying when they talk about how much
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: they like Kobe. I'm just wondering what they thought when
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: they heard about that.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, how you think that plays with Steven Jackson?
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: Like you said, Matt Barnes. How you think that plays
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: with Steven, with Captain Jack?
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Kobe had to overcome some things to get back cool
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: with everybody.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Dog. I think J.A. Adande, now I'm not speaking out
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: of turn, J.A. came to Vegas for the NBA Cup,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: and somehow this story came up. And he said he
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: went on Around the Horn one day and said, what
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless you're hanging with
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: Kobe Bryant. in the aftermath of that and then he
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: was like and after that he was like man that
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: was over the line you know what I mean you
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: know what I mean like there was points where we
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: were all collectively teeing off on can you imagine the
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: podcast back then when people got a hold of Kobe
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: talking to the cops this is in the stop snitching
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Warner brother era.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I have talked about this Nas has a song on,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's the Streets Disciple album called These Are
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Our Heroes that originally had a much different title. And
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: he lambast Kobe for snitching on Shaq.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Yes, he did.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, he did.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Like, yo, and it was like, it was, he took
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: it to a whole nother place. Like, it was bad times, man.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: But then he went and put up 81.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: He went and put up 81 times. it was like
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: a slow burn sort of thing. It was Kobe's back
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: on the Lakers, right? He still, he never left. Like,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: I think that's a very important thing to note. He
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: never left the Laker brand. So we were always going
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: to see him. He was always going to have the
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: opportunity to impress us and earn his way back. Whether
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: that was a conscious decision on his part or not,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: like who knows, but that played a big part where
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: Shaq being in Miami, that's a, Great for Shaq, but
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Miami ain't LA. You know what I mean? And then remember,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: the week before 81, if I remember correctly, was Dr.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: King Day. Lakers, Heat, NLA, and that was the game
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: where Shaq and Kobe actually made up. That was also
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: the game where Shaq gave Andrew Bynum that forearm shiver directly.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: I thought that was all Christmas.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: No, no, that wasn't on Christmas.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, I remember that happening because Andrew Bynum kind of
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: dunked on him, right?
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Andrew Bynum dunked on him. It was like peace
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: on earth. You know what I mean? Andrew Bynum dunked
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: on him. No, Shaq dunked on him first. Shaq got
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: a tip dunk, and then Bynum got in the post
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: and spun off of him, and it looked like slow motion.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: It was like, whoa, Bynum about to dunk on Shaq.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Dunked on him, looked like a soft dunk. Not soft,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: but it looked like a fingertip dunk. And then he
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: gave Shaq like an elbow, like a bump.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was January 16th.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: MLK Day.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: And that's when Shaq grabbed him and gave him a shiver.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: That was the day that Kobe and Shaq made up
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: because somehow Bill Russell got involved and Bill Russell told Shaq,
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: you can't treat Kobe like this. You got to forgive, blah, blah, blah.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: And that's when stuff started to turn. And then six
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: days later, 81 happens. Yeah. All that stuff happens in
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: the span of a week.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: But then, one and a half years later, at a
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: moment that was just before this social media thing got cracking,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: which is good for the legacy of Kobe, but bad
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: for us. That's when Kobe asked to be traded.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Ship his ass out.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: No, wait. Yeah, he scored his 81, but he got
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: tired because they blew a 3-1 lead in the playoffs.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I was going to say, you're forgetting that. You are forgetting.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: They blew it in 06. In 06, they had the
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: 3-1 lead.
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 06 lead. Play it against the Suns. Yes, play
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: it against the Suns. First round of the playoffs, 3-1 lead.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Blew it.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: And in the fourth quarter of game seven, Kobe tapped.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Didn't take a shot in the second half.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Or maybe he took one. No, he might have taken one.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: It might have been a long three. It might have
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: been one of them long logo threes. And it was clear.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: And Kobe took a lot of hell for that. I
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: want to say Charles Barkley called him out because that
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: was a TNT game. And that was prime, Chuck. And
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: I think Kobe hit like 25 or 30 at the
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: half or some ungodly number. And the Lakers were down 20.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: It was clear they were going home. It was clear
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: that when Kobe scored 50 in game six of that series,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: which I think was the best game Kobe's ever actually played,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: and they win the overtime, and Tim Thomas, gosh, it's
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: all coming back to me now. Tim Thomas scores off
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: an offensive rebound that sends the game into overtime. The
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Lakers would have closed them out, and probably Bo had
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: gone to the Western Conference Finals. If Tim Thomas doesn't
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: hit that shot, the Lakers play the Clippers in round two,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: the Clippers of Elton Brand and Sam Cassell and those dudes.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: And this story looks totally different if not for that
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Tim Thomas shot and then subsequently Kobe tapping out in
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: game seven.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like that's how 06 ends. 07, they lose in
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the first rounds of the Suns again, right? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: And that summer, Kobe asked for a trade, and it's
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: a video, and you can find it. Somebody put a
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: camera in his face at the mall, I want to
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: say at Newport Beach.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: That sounds about right.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Right. Like that's where Kobe stay over that way. And
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Kobe is wearing this red shirt and these crazy sunglasses.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: And he says, I'd rather play in Pluto than to
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: play for the Lakers. And what he really wanted was
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the Lakers would not trade Andrew Bynum in order to
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: get Jason kid to which Kobe said to get Jason kid.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I quote, ship his ass out. Unquote. Um, And the Suns,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Lakers treated Kobe much like the Rockets
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: treated Hakeem Olajuwon in 1992 when he wanted all of
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: these things and did nothing. And they stormed out and
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: were the best team in the West, then made the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: trade to get Pau Gasol, went to the finals three
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: straight years. Kobe gets those next two rings and it's
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: all the super full circle at that point. But so
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: even with the 81, 81 wasn't like a rocket ship
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: inflection point. But it began a thawing of sorts, that
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: there were still ups and downs, right? There were still
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: issues that came up. But it's hard to remember where
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: we were. Kobe's the only star I can think of. LeBron, maybe.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: But the only star I can think of where there
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: were real ups and downs along the way with him.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: A lot of them.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: You know? A lot of them.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: And think about it like this, just for more context.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: In 06, Shaq gets his ring. with Dwyane Wade. So
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Shaq gets ring number four. The next year, LeBron James
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: takes that motley crew of Cleveland Cavaliers to the NBA
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Finals while Kobe's getting knocked out in the first round. Like,
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: this is all happening and you can't separate these things
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: because Kobe's looking around and he's hearing stuff, right? And also...
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: The Boston Celtics just loaded up with Kevin Garnett and
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Ray Allen to join Paul Pierce. Like, there was, you know,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: the famous story about, you know, maybe Kevin Garnett wanted
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: to join the Lakers and didn't and Kobe was on vacation,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: whatever it was, and Kobe wanted to get traded to
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: the Bulls. Remember that?
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Like, this is all so, like, these things turn on
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: a trifle, right? If any one of these things changes,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: the plates of all of this totally changes because even
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: then the Lakers getting off to that great start Kobe
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: never actually rescinded the trade demand if you remember that
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: I remember he was asked about it and he said
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: no I still feel the same way and maybe that
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: was just his way of continuing to put pressure on
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: the Lakers to go and do something and then Jerry
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: West gave them the ultimate stimulus package the ultimate stimulus package.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: He did like what's wild to think is that The
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Grizzlies actually, in the super long run, came out okay
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: in that trade. And it was because of the throw-in
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: in that trade.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Marc Gasol.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Throw-in was Marc Gasol. The centerpiece, I feel like, were
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: the combination of Kwame Brown and.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Javaris Crittenden. Who became more famous for quasi-basketball reasons.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: I mean... Good thing Javaris Clinton didn't discover that side
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: of himself while he was living in Memphis.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: I think it's a good thing he didn't discover that
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: side of himself while he was out there playing with Kobe.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: They don't tell him what Kobe was out here saying
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: to him or anything. else um but yeah like this
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: was it was a time like there's no chance that
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: the Kobe Bryant documentary that I would want to watch
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: could ever get made at this point but 81 is
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: 81 is a time. 81 is a scene. 81 is
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: a moment. Like 81 is a tent pole that you
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: build something around.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was like you said, it was the
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: start of, I want to be like, some people may
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: view 24, like him changing the number as like the
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: start of the different version of Kobe Bryant that we knew.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: But I tend to agree with you is that this
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: 81 thing is, was a way for us to be
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: able to talk about Kobe Bryant again without the precursor of, well,
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: you know, there was also the thing that happened in Colorado.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: It's not quite like he was, this is not, I'm
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out a way to say this delicately,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: but you know how we talk about that one dude
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: who was a football player and we can't say anything
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: without mentioning the first thing first.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Right. To some degree, with Kobe, it was just like that.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: We couldn't say excellent basketball player, whatever it was. We
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: had to acknowledge the thing that was the thing. And
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: after 81, it felt like it was okay for us
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: to not have to mention that thing on the first sentence.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: It was still mentioned, but it wasn't the very first thing.
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: And maybe now we were able to discuss Kobe as
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: basketball player as opposed to pariah or what you felt
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: about him personally or if you thought he was a rapist,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: all these other things, right?
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, look, man, like I said before, right or wrong,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm not saying this in any judgment, right or wrong,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: we were in it for the basketball and he did
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: a basketball thing so impressive that the basketball thing took priority, right?
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Because the basketball things he was doing up until that point,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: they wasn't enough. You understand what I'm saying? Like, you're
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: out here playing with losers. And it doesn't look good
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: on you as you do this, right? Your arch nemesis
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: is over there winning, right? Making it happen. He did
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: a basketball thing. And that, you know, and look, it
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: takes some time before that all goes and that all builds, right?
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Like I said, this was an up and down sort
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: of scenario with him. But this right here, outside of
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: winning the championships, this is the highest that he has had.
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: And it's in the running, not necessarily yet, but If
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: someone said they thought this was the best individual performance
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: they had ever seen, I get why you would say it.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: I'm 100% with you. And here's the other thing. Let
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: me ask you this, Bo. Where do you sit on
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: these corners of Twitter that says Wilt didn't exist?
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: The Wilt Hunter gang? Yeah. Dummies. Fucking idiots. Why do
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: we make this up? That's all I'm asking. Like, why
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: did we make this up?
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Because we traveled back in time.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Whose idea was that?
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: We traveled back in time to ensure that Kobe would
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: not be number one. We put this artificial thing in
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: place so that Kobe Bryant could never have the number
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: one scoring game of all time. This is what these
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: idiots think. And I think you are like me when
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: you get into this weird place of discussing Kobe Bryant
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Or are you discussing him on, he's on the opposite
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: side of LeBron James. He's on the opposite side of
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: Michael Jordan. He's on the opposite side of this. It's
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: not Kobe. It's the people that get on your last nerves.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Very rarely it's Kobe. It's y'all.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really dumb.
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: Kobe's fantastic.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: He's fantastic. We got to get back to 81 because
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: now you got me thinking about suckers.
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: My bad.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Glad we waited until the end to call them suckers
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: because now they may have listened to the whole rest
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: of the episode. Vinny Goodwill. Check him out covering the
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: NBA for ESPN. My brother, I appreciate you.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, my man. It was fun, dog. Appreciate you.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: All right, man. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: joining us here on The Right Time. Be sure to
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: join us every Tuesday for Time Machine Tuesdays. Ryan Brumley
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: handling everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, by
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the way, we do this four times a week in general.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: But remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us,
• 53:52
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• 53:54
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• 53:56
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• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Take it easy.