The NBA has never really seen anything like what Kobe Bryant is doing right now. After shooting 7-for-26 in a loss to the godawful Sixers last night (he shot 4-of-17 from three, for chrissakes!), Kobe’s season statistics are just about the grimmest thing you’ll ever see. He’s currently shooting 30 percent from the field, 20 percent from deep, and scoring 15 points per game. Somehow, his usage rate is holding at 30 percent, just a tick below his career average. This isn’t a man playing basketball, this a man trying to chew his way through mountain while refusing to acknowledge that he doesn’t have any teeth.
And yet, Kobe’s having a great time! After last night’s abomination he had a jovial press conference that was full of more joking and grinning than all of Kobe’s previous pressers combined. The dude who has never been anything but a basketball psychopath obsessed with the pursuit of perfection is suddenly laughing and saying shit like this:
I don’t really know what to make of this. Either Kobe has finally learned to relax a little bit, or he’s fallen completely into madness.