Why Kobe Bryant deserves the NBA Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role

While the world goes gaga over the Hollywood Oscars, I bring to you the NBA version of the Oscars. I will be using the same categories as the Oscar awards, and adding basketball variables to them. For instance, for Best Actor in a Leading Role, the nominees will be those who have led their team this season – either personal success or team success is valid. In addition, there has to be an element of acting in it. The Oscar for best actor goes to the one who displays the most wide ranging set of emotions in a controlled manner. For the NBA’s Best Actor in a Leading Role, we don’t really need a list of nominees. No other player has had to play so many roles under such a bright spotlight this year than Kobe Bryant.

There is no question that Kobe has led the Lakers this season. He is scoring with increasing efficiency, he’s just had two consecutive games where he scored 78 points combined while shooting better than 60%, and he’s also embraced the role of a playmaker. In addition to his playing chops, Bryant has had to display a wide range of acting roles this season, which make him deserving of this award.

Pushing Dwight

First, he’s had to assume a clown stomping act to weed out some of the saccharine cheerfulness of Dwight Howard. It took a lot of stomping. The dull thump you hear is not your heartbeat, as your mom would have you believe as she tucks you in your bed. It’s the sound of Kobe’s foot stomping out the giddy, Disney, tee-hee-ing, out of Dwight Howard. Its quite an act to put on, but that’s not all that Kobe’s had to role play. He’s also had to play doctor to Howard to make him play through his injury.

“Dwight worries too much about what people think,” Bryant said. “I told him, ‘You can’t worry about that. It’s holding you back.’ He says, ‘OK, OK, OK,’ but it’s always hovering around him. He just wants people to like him. He doesn’t want to let anyone down, and that gets him away from what he should be doing. Howard has never been in a position where someone is driving him as hard as I am, as hard as this organization is. It’s win a championship or everything is a complete failure. That’s just how (the Lakers) do it. And that’s foreign to him.”

“I want to play. I mean, why wouldn’t I want to play? But at the same time, this is my career, this is my future, this is my life. I can’t leave that up to anybody else because nobody else is going to take care of me. So, if people are pissed off that I don’t play or if I do play, whatever it may be, so what? This is my career. If I go down, then what? Everybody’s life is going to go on. I don’t want to have another summer where I’m rehabbing and trying to get healthy again. I want to come back and have another great year. That’s what I want to do.” Kobe said “We don’t have time for (Howard’s shoulder) to heal. We need some urgency. An injury is something that you have to balance out and manage.”

In response to Kobe urging him to play, Howard said “That’s his opinion, that’s it. He’s not a doctor, I’m not a doctor. That’s his opinion.”

When you are paid millions of dollars, it’s your obligation to suck it up and play through injuries, especially if the organization has committed itself to you. Kobe is famous for having played through multiple injuries, multiple times. “He might not say it, but try to hold a microphone with a torn ligament, let alone shoot it and make sure you get a follow through. That’s a bear. That’s a bear,” said ex-coach Brown of Kobe playing through a wrist injury. All Kobe would say was “It’s a pain in the ass. It is. It’s just one of those things you have to do. When I wake up, it hurts. When I come in, you get treatment. You got to do what you got to do.” Just suck it up and play through it. You would be hard pressed to find more polar opposite personalities than Kobe and Dwight. One is a stone cold killer on court who wants to win at all costs and the other is a competitor with a compulsion for joking around.

Getting Nashty

This is like the plot of a buddy cop movie. Two hard nosed tough guys who have been at loggerheads forever end up teaming up. And I’m not talking about Howard and Kobe here. Kobe Bryant’s dynamic with Dwight Howard may be seen as more of a buddy cop thing, but to me it resembles that movie where an embattled warrior has to put up with a clowning joker because the joker holds the key to the promised land. If only he could stop kidding around long enough to use it. I don’t think there is a movie like that, but by the end of the season some director who lounges on the sidelines at Staples Center might just pick up on this.

The buddy cop plot stands for Kobe and Nash. “The truth is I’m a bit old school,” Nash had said on June 25. “For me, it would be hard to put on a Lakers jersey. That’s just the way it is.” That’s the way it was but Nash has come around since then. “He’s been a thorn in the Lakers’ side for most of this decade,” Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said. “We’re happy to see him wearing purple and gold.”

For the better part of the last decade, Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash have been going at it in the regular season and the playoffs. And now they have to play together. “We didn’t talk about the past at all,” Nash said of conversations with Bryant. “We only talked about moving forward.” On some possessions down the floor, those two may lock eyes and have a flashback of the old enmity. But Kobe has made nice with it. He said that Nash spoke to him before committing to the Lakers. “He wanted to know if I’d be OK with it because he knows how competitive I am and obviously the history we’ve had. But I said, ‘Our bond coming in the league together in ’96, especially he and I, because we weren’t necessarily highly regarded coming into that draft. That bond is much bigger than the rivalry we had with Phoenix.’” The reason Kobe has cited for his bonding with Nash is that they came into the league together as underdogs. Not exactly a rich backdrop for a deep friendship but they will take what they can get. Both players are playing a part and acting a bit to mask some of the old animosity which lingers still.

Honourable mention for Best Actor- Metta World Peace

When we talk of Best Actor we need to consider the former Mr. Ron Artest. No one else in the history of the NBA has ever attempted such a transformation. From the poster bad boy of the league to literally representing World Peace. Part of the reason why Ron Artest changed his name to Metta World Peace must have been a lingering thought in the back of his head telling him that this would be the setup for one of the greatest oxymorons of all time. “World Peace pulls down the shorts of Paul Pierce.” Or “World Peace gets hit by a beer can. World Peace climbs into the stands. World Peace punches a fan.” Can you just picture Metta laying on his bed and chucking to himself at the dichotomy of his name and his actions? He probably hoped someone would design a t-shirt of him which says World Peace and has him decking someone.

Its like the wolf dressed up in grandma’s cloths and chirruped to the Red Riding Hood in a growling voice “Ah these elbows and punches are just to bring us closer.” Anyway, World Peace does not come close to having to play the leading role with success which Kobe has played this season. And for that, I award him with the Best Actor in a Leading Role award, for whatever it’s worth. It will truly be a cinematic of Hollywood proportions if the Lakers can make this season a success, and then we can give the Lakers the award for Best Drama. A mere shipwreck of a season is not very Oscar friendly. To win, Kobe has to assume the role of the closer and he’s been doing that forever. It remains to be seen if he can live up to his guarantee that the Lakers will make it to the playoffs.