ESPN Responds to Kobe Bryant’s “Idiots” Remark
The annual player classification rating, otherwise known as #NBArank, identified Kobe Bryant as the 40th best player in the NBA. Expectedly, soon after it hit social media like a Santa Ana wind hits brush, #NBArank’s reputation was crushed in the firestorm by the millions of Kobe-philes who look upon their hero as a legend, a man who has cheated death, an athlete continuing to resurrect himself, the most popular sports figure in a city that spans five hundred square miles. They laid out their wrath as they often do- and this is the important part- because they see themselves as the gatekeepers to the Kobe Bryant life force. It is not just dirt on the grave they abhor. They cannot stand the grave itself, its very existence, or anyone alluding to it.
Oct 16, 2014; Anaheim, CA, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) is defended by Utah Jazz forward Jack Cooley (45) at the Honda Center. The Jazz defeated the Lakers 119-86. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
But Royce Webb, Director of Analytics for ESPN, did exactly that, the dirt on the grave thing. Because of the ensuing uproar, he had an opportunity rarely bestowed upon anyone in analytics. For a certain generation, math nerds were the kids in the front of the class who made us feel stupid. There isn’t a lot of understanding, on the practical side of things, of what they really do. So the player rankings that narrate Royce Webb’s work are, to the rest of us, abstractions. Really, no one cares past the first five minutes they are released. Unless there is a screw up.
There was, if only in perception, a screw up. Kobe is great. You are not. How dare you.
When Kobe called ESPN ‘idiots’ it was at the end of the day. Hours had passed since Kobe’s army let loose on Royce Webb and True Hoop as prejudicial, stupid, unfair and having an agenda. Last year, Kobe said, when speaking of ESPN’s rankings, the (voters) needed to be ‘drug tested’. But being called an ‘idiot’ is a low bar. Drugs are a temporary inconvenience of the brain of which there is recovery. Idiocy is the incapacity to add one plus two. You’re born that way.
You know the saying about getting lemons and making lemonade. That was the protocol here. It was the rare chance to make a very specific case to those outside the Sloan Analytics Conference. Royce Webb could enlighten thousands on the science and math of his profession to the non-math nerds among us so we could get a feel on how players are evaluated through the prism of analytics.
But instead, his follow up was an egoist article titled, Did #NBArank overrate Kobe?
It was, from what I could tell, and I read it four times, intended to make a point about respect. But the thing is, in the social psychological world we live in, respect attaches itself to achievement. The two are not inseparable nor insoluble. And there is a price to be paid for an absence of respect, a slaying, if you will, if a figure that is as public and as popular as Kobe Bryant, is rebuked and scorned.
So in that sense, when Royce Webb says, “we shouldn’t be forced to ‘respect’ Kobe any more than he earns our respect”, he is saying he shouldn’t be forced to examine his past history. Because, that is what you earn. Your past achievements. Your luxuries. Your glory. Your failures.
Webb wrote that when you say you respect someone it often means you are lying. “We don’t like the truth so we lie and call it ‘respect.’” But that is not respect, lying. Respect, at its core, is honoring and at the very least, it involves a circuitous navigation of one’s past.
Oct 9, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Klay Thompson (11) shoots against Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant (24) during the first half at Staples Center. Mandatory Credit: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports
Peculiarly, Royce Webb’s article delegitimizes the very thing he is trying to shine a light on, the truth, as he sees it, about what a player is. In the absence of usage rates and efficiency ratings, Webb fed us this. Kobe was “boorish” and “insulting to teammates”. Kobe has instilled fear into the Lakers organization, passive-aggressively bullying them into a bloated contract. Kobe should have been amnestied. (Uh, check the facts. Metta World Peace was amnestied. Only one per team.) In defending the ranking there was no mention of the back to back injuries Kobe Bryant suffered, only a vague reference to his age. There was no groundwork laid as to what the math says about this unprecedented comeback. There was no laundry list of the Elton Brands of the world, or the Dominique Wilkins who came back to work after rupturing their Achilles. Or Isaiah Thomas who just quit. Or Chauncey Billups who played two more seasons after rupturing his Achilles.
He didn’t offer any measurement of how Kobe in 2012 put up career numbers in all categories. Webb referred to that period as “the good old days” even if it was just two years ago.
Don’t misunderstand my point. Royce Webb has every right to soak his disdain and wrap it up in a math silhouette. He can howl like a dog about what Kobe Bryant is not, has never been, will never be, until his face twists and turns blue with asphyxiation. But all it amounts to is the same pejorative disdain of talk radio guy. It fits in with the bar crowd, his tirade. It’s antithetical to the analytics crowd, of which he is the director.
In his article, Royce Webb concluded Kobe Bryant was done as a winning player but left out why. And how, specifically? My favorite was, “the current version of Kobe is not much of a NBA player.”
Of all the things Royce Webb wrote, that was the most idiotic of all.