Kobe Bryant is known as one of the better players to ever grace the hardwood. He is also known as one of the least self-aware athletes to ever enter the sports landscape. It is because of this lack of self-doubt that Jelly Bean Jr. has long been successful in the NBA. Say what you will about him, but Bryant believes there is not a person in the world better at basketball than him and he is out there trying to prove it with every hurl of the basketball toward the hoop’s general direction.
Well, that lack of self-doubt might be no longer. Reportedly, during an interview in China this past summer, Kobe admitted some issues that even he will recognize. The story was uncovered by Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News.
"“As I sit here with you now, I’m telling you now I’ll come back 100 percent,” Bryant said in a recent appearance in China. “But I don’t know if I’m sure. I have moments and days where I doubt myself….“The people who say they will never come back from this injury, to me, that says if they had this injury, they would quit,” Bryant said. “That’s what it means to me. If they sit here and look at me and say I can’t do it, that means if it happened to you, you wouldn’t do it. I have to show them just as much as I show people who support me that this can be done and I can come back from this. By me coming back, it shows the people who doubt me to reconsider what’s possible.”"
There are a slew of things you can take away from this. One being about Kobe finally opening up, being honest and showing us a human side. There does happen to be another thing we can take away from the interview. The more likely scenario, really. Kobe Bryant loves the Chinese press more than he loves us chubby American reporters, bloggers and columnists.
I can see it now. Tomorrow morning we will all put on our picture-boxes to see Skip Bayless calling Kobe Bryant a secret communist.
Hooray narratives!