Asher: Bryant's farewell a case of nostalgia trumping logic

Wednesday night my Facebook page was flooded with my friends wondering if they should watch the Golden State Warriors try to win an NBA-record 73 regular season games, or see Kobe Bryant’s last game. I didn’t see a hard choice: Regardless of what Bryant has meant to the NBA and the Los Angles Lakers, he’s far from innocent in the Lakers’ three-year spiral from top-tier team to cellar dweller.

For the record, I didn’t see Golden State get its 73rd win of the season following a 125-104 victory over Memphis, nor did I see Kobe score a meaningless 60 points in LA’s 101-96 win over the Utah Jazz. I was watching old episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” with my girlfriend.

Bryant’s final game, and most of his final season, was a clear case of nostalgia running wild. Why should anybody be interested in seeing if Los Angeles will finish at 15-67 or 16-66? This has been the absolute worst season the Lakers have ever had, and Bryant’s role can’t be ignored.

Matthew Asher

For those of you too young to remember, Shaquille O’Neal signed with the Lakers during the 1996 offseason and Los Angeles acquired Kobe from the Charlotte Hornets after trading Vlade Divac. It wasn’t until Phil Jackson became the coach of the Lakers in 1999 when Kobe won his first of five championships, but had trouble sharing the spotlight with O’Neal. Following a Finals loss to the Pistons in 2004, it became a “Shaq goes or Kobe goes,” and O’Neal left.

Fast forward to the 2012-13 season and everybody knew the Lakers was Kobe’s team. This was the last season he played to the best of his abilities. Thanks to his ridiculous minutes per game while a weakened Lakers squad was chasing a playoff spot, Kobe ended up tearing his Achilles tendon with two games left in the regular season and LA was promptly swept out of the playoffs in the first round.

That year Kobe made about $28 million. The next season Kobe made $30.5 million, but only played in six games, meaning he earned about $5 million per game played. During those six games the Lakers only won two and Los Angeles finished 27-55, which at the time was their worst finish in an NBA season.

With Kobe’s health clearly in question from there on, did Kobe decide to help out the organization that he had played for his entire career by taking a huge pay cut to save the franchise, like Tim Duncan did with San Antonio? Not really. In his last two season, Kobe earned $48.5 million while LA’s win total declined both seasons, winning just 38 total games in his final two seasons and just 65 total in the final three.

For the record, 65 wins was the Lakers’ total regular season wins back in the 2008-09 season when Bryant won his fourth NBA title.

I understand that with 20 years in the NBA Kobe has carved out a name as one of the best players ever, but when you consider that since his injury Los Angeles has only won 36 percent of its games, is it really something to care about when Los Angeles clearly kept Kobe simply because of name recognition? With Kobe earning about $106 million out of his $323 million (according to FoxSports) career NBA salary earnings in the last four years it seems like he only continued to play for the money rather than letting his team rebuild in the future.

I wish him well in whatever future endeavors he’s pursuing but seeing a broken-down player being praised by a Hollywood crowd in a pointless game certainly wasn’t a way I cared to see him end this endeavor.

Matthew Asher covers sports for the Portales News-Tribune. He can be contacted at 575-356-4481, or by email:

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