One thing seems to be pretty consistent regardless of industry: in order to be successful at the highest level, it takes a ridiculously lopsided lifestyle, at least to a certain extent. According to Kobe Bryant, that is no different in the NBA.
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He offered this quote to ESPN’s Jemele Hill Saturday night:
Kobe is asked about not being a great friend all the time.
— Baxter Holmes (@Baxter) June 28, 2015
His response: "Friends come and go but banners hang forever."
At first sight, you think: “Awesome! That’s what it means to be a Laker!”
But after a bit, I kinda thought: “That sounds really sad.”
It’s great that Bryant has lifted this Lakers organization into the pantheon of great sports franchises throughout the world, let alone here in the states. That he sacrificed friendships in the process is pretty striking, though.
Put it this way: one of television’s most hated characters in today’s culture is the nagging wife who harps on her uber-successful husband as all he tries to do is give his family the lifestyle he thinks they deserve. That’s one way to look at it, at least.
The flipside of that coin is: well, how much wealth must one family accumulate to make the sacrifice of the father (or bread winner, whoever that might be) worth it? How many yachts can one possibly need and can they ever replace the family time lost along the way.
Kobe’s quote speaks to all of this. The vast majority might look at that as yet another example of what it takes to achieve the levels of success Kobe has in his career, which is perfectly fine. Others (and I count myself among this contingent) might wonder if Kobe might regret that later in life. Both sides have legitimate and logical perspectives on this.
And yet, at the end of the day, Kobe might simply be playing to crowd with this quote as he’s become extremely adept at, as his career comes to a close. One just has to hope he can turn that painfully competitive switch off when it finally does.