As expected, the National Basketball Association remained transfixed in grief yesterday. The 12 teams that had matches on tap continued to mourn the loss of Kobe Bryant, honoring him in a variety of ways. The most common had them deliberately absorbing eight- or 24-second violations on their very first possession, in obvious reference to the numbers he wore throughout his 20-year career. Meanwhile, the Lakers — for whom he toiled in all his outings, and who then recognized his efforts by hanging the aforesaid numbers in the Staples Center rafters — wound up too shell-shocked to play, asking for, and receiving, approval to suspend a scheduled tiff with the Clippers.
That the NBA, loath to disrupt its timelines, agreed to the request reflects the impact of Bryant’s death on those whose lives he touched. News of the tragedy reached the Lakers late on their flight back to Los Angeles from Philadelphia, and raw footage of them disembarking from their private plane underscored the difficulties they faced in dealing with the loss. LeBron James, who had just overtaken him for third in the career points list and whom he congratulated in social media and over the phone, was particularly disconsolate and hard-pressed to process the development.
All the grief counselors the Lakers made available to players and employees aside, there can be no easy way to get over the vacuum Bryant’s untimely passing has created. The team was in such a depressed state that it went silent on Twitter until it announced the suspension of its game and saw fit to “thank you all for the tremendous outpouring of support and condolences.” Parenthetically, James, predisposed to making his sentiments known on social media, has stayed quiet. Sorrow has taken on all forms, and shown itself to have myriad faces.
Bryant was larger than life, and is now transcending death. Fans moved by the turn of events believe fate should now set them up for a fitting recovery. Perhaps James, Anthony Davis, and Company will be sufficiently motivated to lead the Lakers to a championship in his fallen brother’s name. It remains to be seen whether they, indeed, get to adopt the #mambamentality en route to a title. It would make for a fitting denouement. Yet, he was less about the result than the process. It’s certainly why all and sundry deem him to have gone too soon. He still had much to give, and his uncompromising giving of himself was as much a means as an end. Now he can’t, and, sadly, nobody else can in the way that he did.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and Human Resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
