Kobe, Kobe, Kobe

One of the things that amazes me about the NBA is the sheer blind devotion of Kobe fans.. I mean, listening to these guys, you'd think that the man had singlehandedly cured cancer, discovered infallible and permanent treatments for male pattern baldness and erectile dysfunction, written the greatest rock song ever together with Bono and the Edge, and managed to satisfy the entire Vivid stable of porn starlets at the same time, in a single evening. You know the fans I'm talking about, Friedman.

Now don't get me wrong, I love to watch the guy play, and if I had to choose a single player to go one on one for the fate of the planet, he'd be on my shortlist along with Kevin Garnett and Lebron. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given that Tracy McGrady is set to start in the All Star game, on the basis of fan votes.

But Kobe fans remind me so much of Stevie Ray Vaughan fans (and if you've ever been to Austin, you'll know what I mean), that my response is pretty much the same. Love the guy, but dude, I've listened to Hendrix and Albert Collins, a *lot*, and I gotta tell you.. it was *much* better the first time around.

And as with Hendrix, while I have great reverence for the guy, I don't consider Michael Jordan to be the greatest player ever. Imho, Bill Russell is the greatest.

It's partly because of the 11 rings in 13 years, including 8 in a row, but it's mostly because of the way Russ changed the game by introducing psychological warfare into professional basketball, and because of the way he was able to blend his game on the court with those of his teammates. You only have to see the way he played Wilt (who imho was the 2nd greatest player of all time, and the greatest individual force ever to play the game), suckering him to score a lot of points but inefficiently, thus making Wilt lose the game, while at the same time making him feel he'd actually played a great game.

If Russell played today, taking advantage of all the advances in sports training, conditioning and nutrition, I'm almost certain he'd be a better rebounding and blocking, and much meaner version of Tim Duncan. Especially if he played for a sympathetic and smart coach like Greg Popovich or Phil Jackson.

What does this have to do with Kobe? Well, there are two things that annoy me about the NBA. The first is the insistence on teams who win the NBA championship to call themselves World Champions (and that's a rant for another time); and the second is the insistence on most Kobe fans insisting he's the MVP basically because he's the current player who's most Jordan-like, and because he's a consistently high scorer. Any moderately good player can get great numbers on a bad team.. I mean Gilbert Arenas entire career is based on that notion.

When it comes down to it, how do we define the MVP ? Numbers, skills, best player on best team ? In all these categories, Kobe falls short of other players.

For me, the key for an MVP is what he does when he has good teammates, just like Bill Russell. Is he willing to sacrifice his own opportunities and stats to his teammates, so that he able to make their life easier, blend in and plug the gaps in their games and skill sets so that the team wins. It's why Kevin Garnett is the front-runner for MVP this year, and Kobe & Lebron are not.

However, while his 12-25 shooting this evening, and his 8-22 on Tuesday vs. Memphis show that Kobe's not quite ready to do the right thing yet, his 7 assists do point to him moving in the right direction for his team.