I found out Kobe Bryant had scored 81 points when my friend Chris, who lives a flight of stairs away, instant messaged me an incoherent mess with the number '81,' the word 'Kobe' and exclamation points for effect.
All I could think was, 'NO [EXPLETIVE] WAY.'
Yes, way.
And it's not that Chris is illiterate or anything. And I'm generally not all that profane. We were just excited.
Did he take 65 shots? Was there overtime? Was Larry Flynt guarding him? Or even worse'Steve Nash?
Turns out the answer to all four questions is 'no.' He took 46 shots and made 28. Every point was in regulation. He had'with the accompaniment of absolutely no asterisks that might detract from his performance'scored the second-most points in history behind only Wilt Chamberlain, who scored a tidy 100 in 1962.
Wilt was famous for allegedly scoring 20,000 times off the court and 31,419 on it. But none of those 30,000-plus points were as impressive as Kobe's 81 Sunday night. Here's a math fact for you: The average height of a professional basketball player when Wilt played 40 years ago was 5'4'. Yet he stood 7'1'. I'm not kidding. It wasn't fair.
Every writer of his era (guys like Frank Deford) used to refer to 'The Big Dipper' as a Paul Bunyan of sorts in reference to his overwhelming physical advantage on the court. Nowadays, the image of him dominating those midgets is so ingrained in their minds, they are convinced he actually is a constellation and/or has a big blue ox.
Really, all he did was combine his limited skill with the intimidation that his imposing frame caused. We all want to say we witnessed the greatest player ever when he played so that we never feel out of touch with the game we love or love to watch. But forget that mythical man with sideburns, daisy dukes and a legendary libido'Sunday night, from just about everywhere on the court, Kobe scored at will (somewhere, there is an Eagle, Colo., joke that feels left out).
Another example of people being convinced they witnessed the greatest simply because they witnessed it: people who think Michael Jordan could fly. I thought so too when I was kid, but there are at least 10 guys who could jump higher and hang longer than he ever could.
But you know what excites me the most about this? He's going to do it again. He won't have a decent supporting cast for the rest of the season, so he has to take the shots and his hopes of ever being perceived as a good teammate have begun to wither. He hardly knows what to do with all the sympathy cards from Peyton.
And for everyone who let Kobe's personal life distract them from hisplaying ability'which has never wavered'perhaps Sunday night was a wake-up call.
I'll capture the sentiments of said 'haters' by paraphrasing Curtis Jackson, in honor of how Scoop Jackson might try to explain this curious phenomenon:
Damn, Kobe. In high school you was the man, Kobe.
But by now you've all seen the highlight. He still is.
