CN: This review touches on the details surrounding Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault case and settlement. While it does not go into graphic detail, those who are sensitive to sexual assault can skip this review.
And so I conclude Roland Lazenby’s trio of books on great Lakers guards. First Magic Johnson, then Jerry West, and finishing up with Kobe Bryant.
This is by far Lazenby’s best one and though it struggles with some of the same issues his others do (trading insight for access, taking shortcuts at important moments), it’s still a well-written tale on the fascinating life of Kobe Bryant, up to his final NBA season.
If you want detail in Kobe’s development and growth as a person and player, you’ll likely find it here. However, there are a few caveats…
-Lazenby completely glosses over g5 of the 2000 first round against Sacramento (Kobe’s coming out party as a pro) and g7 of the 2002 WCF against Sacramento (one of the best basketball games ever played). I don’t get it.
-His latter years are examined in batch form. Which I get, the Lakers sucked. They weren’t interesting. But what else was going on as Kobe faced his basketball immortality?
-At this point, I’ve read enough about the sexual assault case that few details were new to me. However, rather than take a more critical view of Bryant’s behavior as Jeff Pearlman did in Three Ring Circus, Lazenby chooses to both side it. And that just made me feel gross. Obviously, the attitudes of some have changed since #MeToo but the whole thing was unsettling and Lazenby really didn’t address it head on, just loading details, innuendo, and sentiment. Even with its resolution, the case loomed over Bryant’s image for the rest of his life. I didn’t need to read about it on every third page but there’s a healthier way to address it and again, as he often does, I think Lazenby took a shortcut.
Overall, it’s probably as good as we’re gonna get on Bryant unless Vanessa decides to write an in-depth Tell All. I would read a sequel that deals with his post-basketball career and untimely death. I was never a big fan of Kobe Bryant but it’s tough to deny he was a fascinating individual.