ESPN Page 2: Leave the scowl at home, Kobe - By Tim Keown

Unlike LeBron, though, Kobe can't let his game speak for him. He has to accentuate everything with the facial expressions and the dismissiveness. It's not enough for him to beat someone; he feels compelled to belittle that person in the process.


The fact is that it is Kobe's personality.

I really am not a Kobe Bryant fan. I'm a New Jersey Nets fan. I want the Lakers to lose actually...I think Artest and Battier is the coolest combo I'veseen.

It's not always about being a fanboy...I disagree with the article. Kobe's "scowl" is not phony. He is competitive.

Underline all you want...I disagree with you and the author.

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Originally Posted by travman24

What the hell does a face have to do with anything?

Bill Simmons = fail

Smh at how people reach soooo much to hate on Kobe. Lebron too.

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Originally Posted by got shoes

He doesn't do that. Every player does that.

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Originally Posted by JordanXI45

I respect Kobes game but this article is dead on TRUTH. Only Laker fans will deny it.

Jordan made the whole world love him. Kobe can't get anyone outside of Los Angeles to give him respect.

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Originally Posted by XAleXShaneX

Originally Posted by got shoes

He doesn't do that. Every player does that.

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This is the simplest way to explain how I feel.

He "mimicks" Michael Jordan? I guess that's what happens when you grow up watching Michael Jordan.

He is "cocky"? So are most basketball players.

The author managed to infer a million different things about Kobe Bryant from a discussion on the bench with Pau Gasol, that he never heard.

I get it...sometimes you meet people and there is just something that is annoying about them.

It's the same thing for athletes.

I don't see what the author sees, and if you disagree with me...that's fine.

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its a lose/lose for him if he tries to be funny and joke around he being forced and phoney/ if he tries to be competitive and scowl after baskets he being forced and phoney....


people just have to realize the kids intense and competitive on the court get over it
i agree with this also.

I don't think people would like Kobe for the most part, regardless of what he did.. i'm not sure where that comes from though, but there is somethingpeople fundamentally don't like about this guy - and i still trace it back to the Kobe/Shaq thing for most of the kobe haters. I think it just became amatter of one or the other for most people, and it was a lot easier to take Shaq's funny antics to Kobe's seriousness at the time, and people don'twant to move past that side-choosing they made back then. Perhaps...

I'm just theorizing there.. i really don't know, that's just when I sort've started noticing the Kobe hate get turned up around the world.. andlike the last guy said, he really can't win now. He'd be getting this article written about him for however he acted right now, because people justflat out don't like this guy anymore.

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Originally Posted by Mister Negative

Originally Posted by XAleXShaneX

Originally Posted by got shoes

He doesn't do that. Every player does that.

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This is the simplest way to explain how I feel.

He "mimicks" Michael Jordan? I guess that's what happens when you grow up watching Michael Jordan.

He is "cocky"? So are most basketball players.

The author managed to infer a million different things about Kobe Bryant from a discussion on the bench with Pau Gasol, that he never heard.

I get it...sometimes you meet people and there is just something that is annoying about them.

It's the same thing for athletes.

I don't see what the author sees, and if you disagree with me...that's fine.

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Um i see your reading comprehension is pretty low my friend

The article about the Spike doc was written by a completely different person about a completely different subject

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Mister Negative:

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How is it that Ska is like the only Lakers/Kobe fan that is grounded in reality?

Not at all. There are plenty of Lakers fans on here that you can have reasonable discussion with, whether the topic is pro-Lakers, anti-Lakers,pro-Kobe, anti-Kobe, pro-LeBron, anti-LeBron, or what have you.

Yeah, there are Kobe stans and Laker stans, but there are also Bobcat fans who honestly think in their mind that next year, the Bobcats will be in the Finals.

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Originally Posted by CP1708

What's a Bobcat fan?

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TennHouse2:

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its a lose/lose for him if he tries to be funny and joke around he being forced and phoney/ if he tries to be competitive and scowl after baskets he being forced and phoney....
Somewhere in the middle is 'Don't be what you think you need to be to repair your image or be marketable. Just be yourself. And don'tmake it such an obvious point to let everyone know how unbelievably amazing and spectacular you are and how no one is on your level; just pay the game the wayyou play and we'll all see how spectacular you are and that VERY few people are on your level.'

But I'm just restating what was said in the article.

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After Bird made four straight baskets with Rodman guarding him, he ran over to Chuck Daly and asked "who's guarding me, Chuck? Is anyone guarding me? You better get someone on me or I'm gonna go for 60." Then he'd continue the banter the next time he got the ball with Rodman inches away.

"I started talking a little trash to him," Horace Grant recalled, when the Celtics were the defending champions. "I'm saying, 'You're not going to score. You're not getting this basket. I remember him then telling me exactly what he was going to do to me. He says he's going to fake me left and then he's going to shoot a right-hand hook over me. And then he goes and does it and scores."

On a West Coast trip in 1986, Bird told the entire Dallas Mavericks bench that after the time out, Ainge would inbounds the pass to DJ, who would hit Bird in the corner where Bird would step back and take a three. "So you got that?" Bird queried the bench. "I'm gonna stand right here. I'm not going to move. They'll pass me the ball, and the next sound you here will be the ball hitting the bottom of the net." And that's exactly what happened. Bird winked at the Maverick before heading back down to the other end of the court.

When the Indiana Pacers put rookie George McCloud on Bird in the closing minutes of a game, Bird yelled over to the Pacers bench, "Hey, I know you guys are desperate, but can't you find someone who at least has prayer?"

Longtime NBA radio announcer Ted Davis, now the voice of the Milwaukee Bucks, told the Milwaukee Journal the best trash talker he had seen was Larry Bird. "You never knew it because you couldn't see his lips move," he said. "He had no lips."

After Craig Hodges won the NBA All-Star Game Three-Point contest in Bird's absence, Hodges was asked if the victory was tainted because Bird hadn't participated. "He knows where he can find me," was Hodges retort. Told of Hodges' challenge, Bird replied, "Yeah, at the end of the Bulls bench."

Knicks' forward Charles Smith remembers when Bird barked "Sorry, Charlie," as he released a long, last-second shot to win a game. "That kind of a thing makes you want to jump on a guy," said Smith.

Heat forward Glen Rice said, "When Bird started lighting you up and talking trash, that's hard on you. It's like driving a stake through your heart."

The year after Bird greeted fellow three-point shooting contest participants by asking which one of them would finish in second place behind him, Dale Ellis told the press that Bird didn't have much to say this year. "There was no need to talk this time," Bird replied,"we all knew who was going to win."

Bird even precipitated a fight with Julius Erving by repeating a single phrase over and over. The phrase? 42-5, or the number of points each had scored during an easy Boston victory.

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