We can forgive No. 24 if he's not up on his 20th-century Welsh poetry, but you'd have thought the famous opening stanza from Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" would have some special appeal for a superstar now facing the twilight of his basketball life.
Do not go gentle into that good night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Bryant, whose competitive fire has always burned hotter than anyone's, isn't doing any raging at the moment—not if we're to take his measured demeanor and newfound candor seriously.
In an interview in China during a Nike Rise press tour, Bryant was subdued. And if you squinted hard enough, you could see hints of something strange in the way he spoke and carried himself: a sense of acceptance.
Make no mistake, Bryant maintains a focused manner. He seems confident. But he's no longer bristling at the concept of his own decline. In fact, he's confronting it.
"I can say I want to be able to jump as high as I used to. I want to be as fast as I used to," Bryant told reporters. "But no; I don’t jump as high as I used to. That’s okay. I’m not as fast as I used to be. That’s okay, too. I’ll figure out another way to do it."
There's resolve in those comments, but they're missing that destructive, crush-all-doubters vitriol we're so used to seeing from Bryant.
Where's the rage, Kobe?
Its absence lends an unfamiliar quality to the upcoming season—one we haven't felt for nearly 20 years. For as long as Bryant has been in the league, he's exuded a sense of invincibility. Now, he's showing a vulnerability that belies what could be a fundamental change in his makeup.
Age and injury have forced Kobe to face reality.
A self-admitted "70 in basketball years," ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
