The only question to ask is not why, but why now?
Kobe Bean Bryant already has millions of dollars, 22 50-point games, 12 seasons of service in the league, 10 All-Star appearances, three rings, two scoring titles, two best-selling jerseys and a signature sneaker from two different shoe companies. (I’ll have to turn that last sentence into a Kobe By the Numbers piece as the day wears on.) What can a legion of bloggers led by the Pied Pipers over at Hardwood Paroxysm write about Bryant that’d be worth writing at this point? What good are a couple more thousand words devoted to KB24 flooding the Internet all at the same time?
The 21st Century has replaced the clichéd opening of “If you look up (blank) in the dictionary it's defined as …” with “If you Google (blank) you get X amount of results…” While it’s certainly a cliché, it illustrates a point: If you Google “Kobe Bryant” you get 4,280,000 results in a mere 0.11 seconds. Four million. That's more results than there are people in the city of Los Angeles, where Kobe calls home. So again, with Bryant already having more Web fodder about him than just about anybody outside of Britney Spears, why is it now that we take a break from blogging about facial hair bets and YouTube videos and trade scenarios to add more to the dense pile of Kobe clutter that’s already out there?
Because today is about love.
Kobe doesn’t get much of it. Those of us who support him spend more time arguing against Kobe haters than just sitting back and enjoying him for the player he is.
I’m tired of that.
Yeah, I know Kobe is a polarizing figure. I get why he’s not everybody’s cup of tea. He complains about every call, he is a “volume” scorer, he would have naked fingers if it wasn’t for Shaq, he’s nothing compared to LeBron, he’s even less of a player compared to Michael, and on and on and on.
Well, today, for 24 hours at least, it stops.
Today we heap him with enough love to write the lyrics of a Beatles song or base the plot around for a Hugh Grant movie.
Today his arrogance can only be seen as confidence. Today he’s not obsessed with basketball, he’s dedicated to his craft. Today the impossible shots he makes are works of athletic art, not questionable decisions. Today he’s an expert motivator, not a critical teammate.
Today we celebrate the mini ‘fro, the alley-oop to Shaq against Portland, the through-the-legs Slam Dunk Contest clincher, the 81, the 50-point streak, the OT forcer and game winner in the same game against Phoenix, the All-Star game MVPs, the food poisoning in Sacto, the Oakleys on his head at his press conference announcing his decision to go from preps to pros, the prom with Brandy, the slam against the Wizards at UNLV, the posterizing of Dwight and Yao …
It’s all part of the story. It’s all part of the love.
The picture accompanying this post pretty much sums up how I think about Kobe: The Troubled Genius. The brash young talent feeling like the weight of the world is on his shoulders because he knows what he’s blessed with, and he doesn’t want to short change those blessings.
It’s a responsibility that many of his peers ignore. It’s hard to stay hungry enough to put in that extra set of 5 a.m. wind sprints when you have a personal chef that will cook you anything your heart desires when you’re actually hungry.
But as much as Kobe stays accountable for doing his talents service with that insane work ethic of his, his personal drive actually ends up helping out the whole NBA.
The saying goes that a team is only as good as its strongest link, well a league is only as good as the standard of competition set by its strongest link. By just being who he is, Kobe gives other players a glimpse of how good they can by if the adopt the same devotion to the game as Kobe.
With his commitment the playing the game as my motivation, I’ll try to match the same single-minded focus on today, March 11, 2008, a.k.a. Kobe Bryant Blog Day.
The goal is 24 posts in 24 hours to honor KB24. That doesn’t necessarily mean my fingers won’t stop typing for 1,440 minutes. Some hours you’ll get three posts, some you’ll get two, some you’ll get none. There’ll be video. There’ll be stats. There’ll be photos. There’ll be prose. I’ve even been known to write song lyrics from time to time.
This is post No. 1. An intro, certainly, but also an answer. Why take today to blog about Kobe when seemingly everything worth saying about him has been said before? Because we love him.
And why do we love him?
Well, today we get to be like the kids in the old Apple Jacks commercials:
We just do, OK?
Full Kobe Bryant Day Archive:
Post 1: Welcome to Kobe Bryant Blog Day Post 2: What I've Written About Kobe in the Past Post 3: Kobe in Video - Top 10 Plays of the Season Post 4: Kobe in Photos – All-Star Jerseys Post 5: What if the Hornets Never Traded Kobe Bryant? Post 6: Kobe in Video – Top 10 Career Dunks Post 7: Kobe in Photos – Galleries Post 8: Bryant’s Career – 1996-99 Post 9: Kobe on YouTube – Top Eight Commercials Post 10: All High School Team Post 11: Kobe in Video - 81 Post 12: Bryant’s Career – 1999-2002 Post 13: Kobe’s Bloodlines Post 14: Kobe in Video – Top 10 Playoff Plays Post 15: Kobe in Photos – Uni Watch 1 Post 16: Bryant’s Career – 2002-05 Post 17: Kobe in Photos – Uni Watch 2 Post 18: Will Kobe Win the Gold? Post 19: Kobe in Video – Honorable Mention Dunks Post 20: Best and Worst Teammates Post 21: Kobe & Shaq, Shaq & Kobe Post 22: An Anecdote Post 23: Bryant’s Career – 2005-08 Post 24: Thank You
Di mo maitatanggi ang hilig nating mga pinoy sa pagkanta, Mapa sa kwarto man o sa loob ng Banyo habang naliligo.Di matatawaran ang galing nating mga Pinoy sa pagkanta at Pagsira ng kanta.Di rin nawawala ang kantahan sa mga okasyon..Birthday, Fiesta, Pasko kahit sa lamay me videoke. 
7. One Sweet Day - Mariah Carey - No one is shining down on you from heaven and your gonna lose some friends along the way.
