RIP Kobe Bryant

Who the hell is rhat?

 

First commissioner of the NBA. Basically the founder of the league.

 

Born in tsarist Russia. Member of both Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and American Hockey League Hall of Fame.

Negotiated first TV contract. Slapped lifetime suspensions on 32 players who were involved in point shaving scandal in 1951. Take that, Kennesaw Mountain Landis.

 

Honest question - what would have been the proper way to keep the issue alive instead of "let it go"? Every mention of Bryant in any game story or feature or column includes a parenthetical noting that he was once arrested for sexual assault? Ask Bryant about the case every year at the All-Star Game? I'm not being smart - genuinely curious. Who are the reporters who were responsible for makings sure the issue wasn't let go? The Lakers beat writers? The national NBA people? Journalists aren't society's moral gatekeepers. It'd be one thing if Bryant was convicted. But it isn't our job to ensure he serves more penance than he already has.

 

And another thing: Why do people have to keep saying that Hell and prisons are full of rapists? Can't we just "let it go"?

 

Some people could have written, contemporaneously, that scoring 60 points in his final game is a fitting closure to one of the great scorers in a generation. But that doesn’t erase the non consensual sex scandal that occurred in the middle of his career.
There could have been more consistent reminders that excelling at a sport doesn’t help one escape full responsibility for his admission of non-consensual sex.

much like there are few reminders when Steve Kerr discusses politics now that he was a pussy and a coward about Hong Kong and China.

 

It insists upon itself

 

What

in the fuck

is that

 

I can't fucking believe I have a daughter and she's seven and I never wore a hat identifying myself as her father so that people would understand just by looking at me that I am proud to be her father. I am a fucking failure. I will beg her forgiveness in the morning.

 

It's crazy that we just called fathers of girls Dads before Kobe.

 

They will now be called Kobes.

 

This world is fucking ruined. Kobe Bryant Worlds Great GirlDad. Kyrie Irving Smart. Donald Trump POTUS