Kobe Bryant Not Phased By ESPN’s Ranking
- Updated: October 17, 2014
According to Baxter Holmes of ESPN.com Kobe Bryant is not phased by ESPN.com’s ranking him the 40th best player in the league.
Bryant’s grin grew from ear-to-ear as reporters confronted him about the ESPN rankings that emerged earlier in the week.
“I’ve known for a long time [that] they’re a bunch of idiots,” Bryant said yesterday after the Lakers’ lost 119-86 preseason to the Utah Jazz.
Playing 28 minutes, Kobe Bryant scored a game-high 27 points on 10-of-23 shooting from the floor and 7-of-13 from the free throw line.
Although it is nice to finally have Kobe back on the court, it has been a long time coming. When Bryant suffered from an Achilles injury that ended his 2012-13 campaign, ESPN.com still ranked him at 25th. Even then he called the ranking “silly” and “laughable.”
Kobe retaliated and silenced nay-sayers by changing his Twitter avatar to the numbers “1225”; 12 being the place the Lakers sat at in the Western Conference and 25 the ranking ESPN.com so kindly awarded him.
In the 2013-14 Bryant suffered a left knee injury cutting his on-the-court time again, playing just six games.
Baxter Holmes reports:
“But this season, after falling 15 spots, Bryant said he wasn’t going to use the ranking as motivation — not like a year ago.
“I tend to use things as motivation that tend to be in the realm of reality,” he said, still smiling.
Did last year’s ranking bother him more?
“Honestly, all jokes aside,” Bryant said, shedding his smile, “it really doesn’t bother me too much. I’m going to do what I do regardless. God willing, I can stay healthy, and if I wind up proving a lot of people wrong in the process, that will just wind up being collateral damage.”
Prior to the Lakers loss to the Utah Jazz head coach Byron Scott put his two cents in.
“I think he probably gets a kick out of it,” Scott said. “I do too. …. I would just hate to be one of the guys that doubted him. I get to see him every day, so obviously I’ve got a different opinion of him. I think everybody in the league respects the hell out of him. There’s no doubt about that.
“I just look at it and I kind of smirk. Like I said, I see him every day practicing. I see how hard he works and I see how where he’s coming from to this particular point after the injury, and I know he’s going to get stronger. I think he’ll have the last laugh.”
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