You’ve just scored 81 points in an NBA basketball game, the second most in the sixty-year history of the league. In the process of obliterating a longstanding franchise record of one of the most storied organizations in the history of professional sports, you’ve quite literally carried your team to a 122-104 victory, inspiring 19,000 people to rise from their seats and laud you with a rousing ovation. Only Wilt Chamberlain, a man of unthinkable legend, has ever done what you just did. You’re currently existing in a surreal universe far beyond the top of the world. You’ve been congratulated by coaches and teammates, taken a shower, spoken to the media, and finally gone home to reflect on the greatest night of your basketball life. What do you do next? According to Kobe Bryant — the man who actually did this — you don’t watch the game.
That’s a verified account, not a parody. Upon further investigation, I discovered that Bryant had actually mentioned this in an interview published by ESPN on the 17th. In that interview he very briefly explains why he’s supposedly not chosen to review the historic game he played exactly seven years ago tomorrow.
“To this day I’ve never seen that game. I don’t feel the need to watch it. What am I going to learn? I don’t watch those tapes. If I’m watching film it’s usually for an upcoming opponent.”
Personally, I find this more than hard to believe. Kobe Bryant — the man whose introversion, narcissism, and obsessive passion for the game have been as well documented as his feats of basketball greatness — has never, not even once, seen the single greatest game of his life? Nah, I definitely don’t buy that. Not for a second. As a matter of fact, I’d be surprised if there isn’t at least one television in each of his mansions that plays the 81-point game on constant loop.
Love the quotes, though. The way Kobe downplays the game by so matter-of-factly stating that he’s never bothered to check it out simply because there’s nothing to learn from watching himself torch the lowly Craptors is just vintage Bryant.
