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I'm sure this is a South Park analogy... which is a little unfair to Kanye... but definitely has merit and applicability. Kobe does seem to have this completely deranged narcissistic view of reality, kind of like Tracy Jordan in 30 Rock who sees everybody as a different version of himself. He trash talks it up when he his team is up, but when he gets beat it is almost like he was House in the season finale (not to ruin it if you haven't seen it but I totally called that shiznat, not that impressive I know), and this other reality is created. He really believes he is better than Jordan, he really believes that he is universally loved, he can't believe it when the citizens of Philly boo him at the All-stars. On a side note, I feel like the Laker's team has embodied and personified Kobe's view of reality as their collective view of the game. They have Kobe's swagger and his smug face down... but they don't have his basketball perception of reality. This is why Kobe is a great basketball player, basketball is the only reality he actually understands and appreciates. All the greats have this ability, Ghandi and MLK had this understanding towards life, Ali towards boxing, Tiger towards golf, Lee towards fighting, Aristotle towards the metaphysics, and Napoleon towards war. The Lakers don't have this, what many call a natural inclination or as fans dub it, the magical "killer instinct." This is why it is so important to keep this game close or be ahead, because only Kobe knows how to deal with that. The rest of them fall apart when they get behind (which doesn't happen often, to their credit) or it is close. They depend on Kobe to carry them and then when they are ahead, bombs away. Take games 2 and the last home game for example. When they went off on a tear game 2, everyone shot with confidence and Kobe could feed off that and throw down the daggers. However, when our second unit clawed back, Ariza and Farmer were less trigger happy and started dumping it to Kobe. They had the same good shots but they were passing it up... this is where we capitalize. In the 4th quarter the other day, the scenario is flipped and they were well behind, they played loose again. They didn't care if they missed shots, and hence their role players were allowed to just play. Gasol finally made some decent post moves and the shooters were firing any good shot they got. This is our advantage I think. Giving them little breathing space and make it a hand to hand combat scenario with Kobe. Our double-teams in game 4 were great, Hayes was quick enough to jump up against Kobe and recover, Artest played physical defense on him at times. Don't allow this team to ever feel loose or trigger happy, and this series might just be ours. Sorry for the digression, you probably should have just skipped over all of this. Hey Kobe... do you like fish dicks? It's amazing... -V
lol, this wasn't meant to be a South Park reference (but I do remember hearing about that episode now that you mention it)...it's their attitudes that seem to be similar. I'm a fan of Kanye's work and don't mind Kobe's attitude (he's the best, he knows it, so what), but I did lose some respect for him after watching all his dirty antics throughout the years.
