Kobe Ballhog Or Messiah

Kobe Bryant:

Hero or Ballhog in the world of "Infor-tainment"

By

Farid Khan

May 7, 2007

Kobe Bryant is a second generation basketball player and is the son of former NBA player Joe "Jellybean" Bryant. Kobe is more talented and more famous than his father who played in the late 70's and early 80's. Kobe was born in 1978 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. After his father's NBA career ended in the early 80's Bryant's father moved his family to Italy where Kobe's father played for four years in the LEGA league. Kobe grew up in Italy and in Italy the major sport was soccer however Kobe played basketball and eventually when his family moved back to the United States he enrolled Lower Merion High School, PA. Kobe Bryant had an excellent high school career in which he became the all-time leading scorer in Southeastern Pennsylvania schoolboy history with 2,883 points, breaking the marks of NBA legend and Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain (2,359 points) and former St. Joseph's player Carlin Warley (2,441 points) (http://www.nba.com/playerfile/kobe_bryant/bio.html). In addition, Bryant led his high school team to a 77-13 record in his last three seasons and was a four-year starter. He was also received various Player of the Year awards for his senior year in high school. After a successful high school career Bryant decided to go straight to the NBA instead of going to college. This is when Kobe Bryant rose to national prominence because he had a decent SAT score of 1080 which would have allowed him to go to any college he wanted on a full scholarship but instead he chose the NBA. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_Bryant). In 1996, he was drafted 13th to the Charlotte Hornets but was traded to the Lakers for center Vlade Divac.

Thus began the career of Kobe Bryant of in the NBA. In his early years he came off the bench and saw limited playing time. As his career progressed he became a starter and then a side kick to Shaquile Ð''O Neal during their three-peat championship runs at the beginning of the century. At the end of the 2004 season the Lakers traded Shaquile Ð''O Neal and Kobe Bryant became the cornerstone of the Lakers franchise and also one of the most talked about sports personalities because of the controversies that surrounded the departure of Shaq. In addition to the Shaq controversy was his alleged sexual assault case that made headlines for year and half but the case was later dropped.

Kobe Bryant, Love Him or Hate Him. He is without a doubt the best player in the NBA at the moment however; he is also one of the most controversial figures in the sport of basketball. The man is criticized in the media as a ball hog and incapable leader who can not make his teammates better. Almost everything that Kobe Brant does on the court is scrutinized and analyzed by sports analysts on show like Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption (PTI). These shows either show him as the hero of the Lakers franchise or a ball hog who hasn't delivered any championships to the Lakers since the departure of Shaq. They do this because the main goal of shows like these are not to inform sports fan of stats about Kobe Bryant but instead the goal of the show is "infor-tainment", which is not a real word but it means relaying information while entertaining at the same time.

Around the Horn is a daily half an hour sports talk show on ESPN and airs at 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. The show is hosted by Toni Reali and filmed in Washington, D.C. The show consists of a panel of four journalists from around the country who talk about 10 sports topics during the show. Some of the notable panelists include Jay Mariotti, a columnist for Chicago Sun Times, Woody Paige, a columnist for the Denver Post, JA Adande, a columnist for LA Times, Bill Plaschke, a columnist for the LA Times, Tim Cowlishaw, a columnist The Dallas Morning News, and Jackie McMullen, a columnist for Boston Globe. On a single show they only have four panelists and Toni Reali leads them through a discussion of each of the topics and gives each panelist points along the way. Reali can also mute the players for ten seconds if they start to repeat themselves or their argument becomes unclear or incoherent. The panelists can loose points in the following way: getting a mute, bad puns or references, changing the subject and for poor arguments.

The show consists of four rounds and begins with an introduction by Toni Reali where he says "Welcome back to the show of competitive banter" or "Welcome back to the show that scores the argument." and then he introduces the panel for the day. The panel is given chance to introduce himself and in the introduction good jokes can lead to addition of points before the show officially begins. After that the first round known as "The First Word" begins in which the panelists discuss two current sports headlines. After the first round is over there a horn is played and then the second round begins which is "Buy or Sell" after a quick commercial break. In this round Reali gives three different concepts also derived from sports headlines and asks the panel to buy or sell the concept. After this round is finished there is the "1st Cut" and the panelist with fewest points remaining is eliminated leavening behind 3 panelists. Then again there is a commercial break after which the third round "Out of Bounds" begins in which the panel discusses one indirectly sports related topic and this is usually the most serious time of the show. After this round there is the "2nd Cut" in which again the panelist with the fewest remaining points is eliminated. Thus two panelists are left and they face off in the "Showdown" in which two or three topics are discussed. Each topic is given 30 seconds and both panelist share the time to give a good argument. Whoever wins the 2 of the three topics wins the "Showdown" and is declared winner of the show. After that the winning panelist is given 30 seconds known as "Facetime" in which the winner can talk anything he wants regarding sports.

Around the Horn frequently picks Kobe Bryant as one of topics in one of the four rounds. In most instances the topics deal with the success or lack of success of the Los Angeles Lakers which is due to the play of Kobe Bryant. Kobe Bryant is either viewed upon as a messiah or the ball hog that can not make teammates better. This year during March Kobe went on 4 game 50 points or more scoring spree which elicited great comments from