Jack’s Blog

When the question of who is the better player: Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, the results are usually easy to predict.  The older generation picks MJ, while today’s younger fans say Kobe.  When each makes their case, the obvious bias always shines through.  “The players now are better than those from Jordan’s era (as if he played in the ’50s).  That’s why I think Kobe is better.”  “Michael has six rings.  Until Kobe has that many, there’s no argument.  It’s MJ.”  Can you guess which speaker is older?

In an attempt to keep everything as equal as possible (which is never going to happen when comparing teams or players from different times - even times as close as these are), let’s look at a number of intangible categories since comparing stats is too mundane.

#1 Each player has a focus all his own.  Game’s on the line, who takes the last shot?  MJ then, Kobe now.

#2 Each has a versatility to his game - power dunker in the earlier years, maintained/s ability to go to the hole; neither can be ignored behind the three-point line and both them have fantastic mid-range games (a trait in its own right that separates them from most of basketball’s other “superstars”).  Both are primarily 2 guards,  each can take over the point if necessary.  Yet each has an unstoppable post up game.

#3 Each demanded/demands to guard the opponent’s best offensive player and was/is a shut-down defender.

#4 Each has shown no hesitation to get in teammates’ faces in order to elevate their games and each made/makes his teammates better.

#5 Each has personal flaws (this just in - as spectacular as they are on the court, they are human).  MJ has a reputation as somewhat of a womanizer and a heavy gambler.  While Kobe doesn’t have the gambling rap of MJ, Michael was never subjected to the public humiliation of Kobe’s “post-Colorado” press conference.

#6 As marketing icons go, MJ might own a higher business acumen (has his own brand), but Kobe’s younger and has the identical global appeal Michael did at that stage of his career.

#7 Each has won multiple championships, Jordan 6 (MJ is 6-0 in title series) to Bryant’s 4 (Kobe’s 4-2), BUT Kobe’s career is not yet complete and, if championships is the end-all barometer, what if Kobe ends up with 7?  Is he automatically the better player?  It’s not that simple.

#8 Each had incredible discipline when it came to personal work ethic.

#9 Interestingly enough, the fact I don’t hear when this debate is raged is that both were coached by Phil Jackson, a remarkable coincidence when comparing two players.  Nowhere else is this the case.  Russell-Chamberlain?  Mays-Mantle?  OJ-Sweetness-Sanders-Smith?  Howe-Orr?

As far as differences, Michael went to college (and was mentored by Dean Smith), whereas Kobe’s education was growing up in a foreign country and is the son of a former NBA player.  MJ was an immediate starter; Kobe began his career coming off the bench.

As a math teacher, I understand that answers and solutions mean the same, so when someone wants to know if there’s an answer (solution) to the “Who’s better” question between Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, I refer them to Marcel Duchamp’s quote:

“There is no solution because there is no problem.”

For those who think life would be perfect if only they had all the money they needed, they ought to ask themselves if they’d switch places - and bank accounts - with Alex Rodriguez.  The way this works is you don’t just get the money, you have to subject yourself to the questioning of a couple hundred media members who are waiting for you to slip up (like circling vultures) - on something you did eight years ago.  Do you think, even for a nanosecond, you could recall everything you did, including the illegal stuff (which you’d more likely remember because it probably has been weighing heavily on your conscience), eight years ago?  Wouldn’t you be a little afraid you’d misrepresent a little item since it was so long ago?  Especially knowing the media and all the skeptical fans will pounce on it, exclaiming, “Aha, now we’ve got you!  You said it was injected but what the clubhouse boy said was he saw you something in pill form.” 

You may not know who the clubhouse boy is, or was, and, honestly can’t even recall there being a clubhouse boy in those days.  Perhaps what he saw you take was a couple of Exedrin.  Maybe there wasn’t even a clubhouse boy; it’s just some poor schlub exercising his Andy Warhol 15-minute rights (or was it Woody Allen - see, I told you some things are hard to remember).  In this case, there are A-Rod supporters who will believe “the greatest all-around third baseman/shortstop” no matter what anyone says.  In the other corner, there’s the anti-A-Rod Society, believers in the reason he plays is for stats but, yet, can never come through with the clutch hit or home run like other truly great ones do(oh, Derek Jeter comes to mind).

The people who Alex Rodriguez needs to speak directly to are those who are neutral, on the fence, people who want to see real proof that something wrong actually occurred and want to decide for themselves whether A-Rod cheated and, if he did, what percentage of his career did the cheating affect?

In his first mass media appearance, he certainly seemed remorseful and came across honestly (unless you’re in the “haters” club, in which case, if he had produced video of every second of his life from the time in question, you’d claim the video was doctored).  One problem I had with his explanation was his mentioning of “his cousin.”  Not once did he give a name.  This struck me in the identical manner O.J. Simpson, in the book, If I Did It, introduced a character named “Charlie.”  For every other person in the book, O.J. gives first and last name (over and over) - except for “Charlie,” striking readers (or listeners, as I happened to be) that this no-last-name character was a convenient, and imaginary, friend.

The old philosophy used to be “Deny, Deny, Deny” but with all the checks and balances and the information superhighway, this defense has, for all intents and purposes, been rendered utterly ineffective.  It seems as though the best way to go about a negative, unfortunate or even illegal story on you is to follow the wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.” 

The book on OJ Simpson, at least the one deciding his future, is now complete.  It ended tragically, with a jury and a judge deciding the former Heisman Trophy winner should spend up until his 70th birthday (at a minimum) in an orange jump suit with others just like him - and nothing at all like him.  Here is a guy whose life was full of winning moments and meeting dignitaries, now reduced to one final defeat and a life of meeting people at the opposite end of the human spectrum - or worse, not meeting anybody, but rather spending up to 23 hours a day by himself.  He was a star on TV, now he won’t even own one; has gone from being idolized to being vilified; people used to argue vehemently he was one of, if not the best, running backs in the history of intercollegiate and professional football, now the argument has turned, with equal vehemence, to whether he is one of, if not the slimiest, creatures in history (if, in fact, he did murder two people, one of them his ex-wife and mother of two of his children - and displayed more remorse for himself and what happened to him in Las Vegas than he did over the death of his ex-wife and kids’ mom), basically experiencing a life style change that could be described as moving from alpha to omega.

Is it my imagination or has his public perception swung to the point where a far greater percentage of people today think he is guilty of double homicide than did shortly after those grisly murders took place?  Or is it that his supporters still believe, but have simply stopped talking publicly about it?

I worked as associate head basketball coach at USC from 1991-95 so I was working for the Trojans when the dastardly event took place.  Boy, did I ever experience a different perspective!  If I heard one person who worked or went to school when the Juice was playing for SC, tell how he or she couldn’t believe he could have done something that horrific because of how hard he cultivated his image shortly after his NFL career (TV broadcasting, commercials, acting), I heard twenty.  People just refused to believe it.

They’d cling to every scrap of evidence that may have shown his innocence - the main one being, if the victims had their carotid arteries slashed, there would be blood everywhere, that OJ would have to be drenched in blood, not a droplet here or there.  This man was an honest-to-goodness icon.  

And now he’s just a con.

He’s a case of his own success overtaking the reality that, no matter how big you get, there are still societal rules we all have to live by.  He certainly could have used Norman Vincent Peale’s belief that:

“The man who lives for himself is a failure.  The man who lives for others has achieved true success.”