Where is KG in Kobe's Milestone Monday?

• By: The Professor
• On: 2/1/2010 11:56:00 PM

Related: The Professor Boston Celtics Los Angeles Lakers NBA 



• View Comments : 8

On Monday two of the greatest players of All Time were passed on the scoring list by two of the greatest players of this generation that happen to play on their same teams.  So how come as you’re reading this sentence, you only know one of these stories?

Kobe Bryant passed Jerry West on the scoring list to become the highest scoring Lakers player of all-time.  But if you watched any sports at all in the last two days you already knew that.  Sportscenter had a big All-Time Lakers scorers countdown on Sunday, then on Monday they led the broadcast with a huge montage on Kobe’s history before dedicating the entire first segment of the show to Kobe passing the Logo.  As of 2:00 AM Eastern on Tuesday morning, the ESPN home page has a big picture of Kobe Bryant with the headline “New Standard”.  If you click on their NBA page, that same picture of Kobe is front-and-center with the headline “Milestone Mamba”.  Under the headline are 4 different stories about it, including two with video.  On the right side of the page there are headlines, with the first being “Kobe becomes Lakers scoring leader in loss”.  Two Bullets down there is another headline that says “Celtics end skid by rolling Wiz”.

This same pattern holds true on Foxsports, CNNSI, CBSSportsline, and Yahoo.com.

The only problem I have with this is that on the exact same day, a guy by the name of Larry Bird (perhaps you’ve heard of him?) was passed on the All-Time scoring list by Kevin Garnett.  You know, one of (if not the) greatest Celtics of All Time surpassed by a guy currently doing the jersey proud.  I get that Kobe scored all of his points in a Lakers uniform while KG scored most of his for Minnesota, so I can see how this would be a bigger story for Lakers fans than for Celtics fans.  But for coverage intended for basketball (or sports) fans in general, I don’t see why one of these events gets the full-court press while the other is swept under the rug.

I mean, am I the only one that sees all types of obvious symmetry here?  The two greatest teams in the sport, who happen to be mortal enemies, seeing historic individual milestones on the same day?  The best players on the last two NBA champions each passing an iconic legend FROM THEIR SAME TEAM on the same day?  The two godfathers of preps-to-pros for this generation?  Kobe could easily be the Mr. Clutch of this generation, and he passes the original player with that designation…meanwhile, the old Mr. 20-10-5 all around forward gets passed by the new Mr. 20-10-5 all-around forward?  And did I mention, by some fluke, this happened ON THE SAME DAY?  Just for icing on the cake, Bryant and Garnett both set the marks on a fast-break dunk as a teammate (Jordan Farmar and Tony Allen...both reserve guards) gave up a layup to allow their teammate to get the glory.  None of this is notable?

I really just don’t get why the limelight isn’t spread a bit more evenly here in two stories that (to me) seem so obviously paralleled.