The Los Angeles Lakers are down 0-2 against the heavily favored Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2012 NBA Playoffs. Only 14 teams in league history have battled back from such a postseason deficit.
What the Lakers must have to make that improbable comeback a reality is not a dominant Andrew Bynum—it’s a clutch Kobe Bryant.
What happened at the end of Game 2, there is not any other way to put it: Kobe choked.
But does that mean, all of a sudden, the Lakers don’t want the ball in his hands at the end of the game? No way.
After Bryant’s poor final two-minutes, Twitter ignited with a single theme: The same people that trash LeBron James for choking are not trashing Kobe! Hypocrites!
The fans that reacted in that manner don’t have a clue. And the reason why they’re clueless coincides with why Kobe is more important to an LA revival than Bynum.
Analogy time…
If you regularly eat lunch at Chipotle—the food is enjoyable—and one random day they screw up your order, are you going to relentlessly criticize them? No, it’s just one order. On the flip side, if you’re low on cash and head on over to Taco Bell who has repeatedly shown you poor customer service and they do it once again, you’re going to gripe far more than when Chipotle slipped up.
Bryant is proven in the clutch. His resume is undeniable. He—for the sake of this argument—is the Chipotle of crunch-time performers.
Like Kobe, LeBron consistently maintains his reputation—only as a choke artist. So when James shows you poor customer service, I mean, chokes again, naturally, the reaction to his failure is more passionate. He did it again as opposed to, it’s just one order.
Bryant’s name is prestigious for a reason: he is not a one-trick pony t...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
