Narratives

The power of dominant narratives to shape our understanding of events are on full display during the NBA Playoffs.  For the Lakers, Kobe is known as a "closer" and Gasol is known as "soft."  We interpret what we see in the games through this lens and cherry pick moments to reinforce these narratives - whether they be true or not.  The media reinforces these narratives by repeating them over and over ad nauseum.

The Lakers-OKC series provides a perfect example.  Last night's game 4, Gasol makes a costly turnover at the end of the game, costing the Lakers the game.  Lakers fans are irate - simply more evidence of Gasol's "softness."  Kobe goes so far as call out Gasol in his press conference.  He doesn't use the term "soft," but he may as well have.  Nevermind the fact that Kobe did the exact same thing in game 2, costing the Lakers the game and then credited Durant for a "risky steal."

Also nevermind Kobe shot 2-10 in the fourth quarter taking terrible shot after terrible shot.  Perhaps if he passed the ball to Gasol and yelled at him to shoot during the game, one could believe what he said in the press conference after the game about Gasol needing to shoot more.  We all know Kobe doesn't believe Gasol should shoot more.  Had Kobe made some of those ridiculously poor shots, he wouldn't be calling out Gasol.  No, the plan for Kobe is to take bad shots, if he makes them, it reinforces the narrative of him as a closer and if he misses them, it reinforces the narrative that his teammates are "soft."  It pays well to be Kobe.

You can't blame Kobe entirely for this situation.  The media plays into it.  You can't tell me these guys aren't aware of the constant evaluation of their decisions.  Durant himself said after the game, he knew he would be criticized for his 3 pointer at the end of the game had he missed.  They know.  They read the papers.

Kobe is not a good closer and Gasol is not soft.  These are completely untrue narratives and I know, because I've been watching the Lakers for a long time.  Kobe is subpar in the clutch.  The stats prove it.  Now that the Kobe-defenders can no longer deny the stats (or point to a single game winning shot in the past 4 years of playoffs), they cite that "everybody's stats go down in the clutch."  Well, not Chris Paul's.  Not Michael Jordan's.  Not, you know, "clutch" players, which they steadfastly claim Kobe is.

Kobe is a great player.  A great competitor with incredible endurance, work ethic, a perfect basketball 2 guard body, a great streak scorer, and the best bad shot maker I've ever seen.  He can play good defense when he decides to.  You know which other guys are similar?  Paul Pierce and Dwayne Wade.  But neither of them are considered Kobe level because of two reasons:  the carefully constructed narrative and the 5 rings.  (and Wade's injuries)  But you know who else has 5 rings?  Derek Fisher.  Robert Horry.  The first 3 rings were Kobe playing second fiddle to Shaq and the last 2 rings were because of Mr. Soft, Pau Gasol.

Kobe is a great player, but not one the greats because he's a bad teammate, a bad passer, and does not play well in the clutch.  He makes bad, selfish decisions.  I would argue the big shots he's made throughout his career are simply from statistical volume.  If you take 100 potential game winning shots,  you are going to hit some - maybe even 30-40 - although that would be a low percentage.  In fact, in the end, the most impressive thing about Kobe will be simply volume.  In the same way Cal Ripken is known mostly just for the hitting streak, Kobe will be known mostly just for the volume.  Because this is his real achievement.  Not being clutch, not being a killer, even though everyone insists this to be the case.

Let's look at the last two championships, because it is this time period which created the idea of Kobe as a killer and one of the greats and somehow created the idea of Gasol as this soft player, despite him being the reason for the Lakers winning.

In 2006-7, Kobe was the leading scorer in the league and the Lakers were a 7th seed in the playoffs, losing in the first round to the Phoenix Suns 4-1.  This is what Kobe had built by forcing Shaq out of town after their humiliating defeat to Detroit in the Finals a couple years before.  In mid 2007, the Lakers got the gift that helped cement Kobe's legacy and made them relevant again:  Pau Gasol, a top 15 player in the league to compliment Kobe.  That year, 2007-2008, they went to the finals against the Celtics, who had put together the "big 3."  Kobe got outplayed by Pierce and Gasol got beat up down low and the Celtics blew them out in Game 6.  For some reason, this is where Gasol got the soft label, by taking a 7th seed caliber team to the NBA finals and getting pushed around by Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins - guys who make their money pushing around dudes.  But no one called Kobe soft by being outplayed by Pierce in these finals.  See, the thing that real leaders do is shoulder the blame and share the credit.  The thing that "heroes" and politicians and hucksters do is take the credit and lay off the blame elsewhere.

The next year, with Garnett injured, Lamar Odom playing better and Andrew Bynum becoming a decent player, the Lakers were far and away the best team in the playoffs and won the championship without much competition.  In fact, their only really tough series was against a Yao-less Rockets team with Artest and Aaron Brooks.  They easily defeated a Magic team that got hot in the series against Cleveland.  This was hardly a case of Kobe dominating in the clutch or Gasol being soft.  It was a case of technically superior basketball team to their opponents winning handily, much like the Shaq-Kobe wins of years ago.

Now the next year, the 5th ring, 2009-2010, is where Kobe starts to become a legend.  This was an epic rubber match, the aging Celtics vs. the Lakers.  Game 7, if I remember, came down to the Celtics losing their starting center - Perkins - and Gasol and Bynum dominating the paint while Kobe shot 6 for 24.  Gasol beating Garnett, essentially, to seal what?  Kobe's fate as being clutch and Gasol's fate of being soft?  How does that make any sense whatsoever?  I just looked up the stats:  Gasol averaged more points than anyone else on either team in the entire series, except for Kobe.  He averaged 11 rebounds a game and no else in the entire series averaged over 8.  Bynum averaged 7 points and 6 rebounds a game.  This is soft?  Showing up in the NBA finals after being beat up two years ago and avenging the loss and winning 2 rings?  Isn't that what Jordan did to the Pistons?  What Magic and Bird did to each other?  Did I miss something here?

And then there was last year, with the disappointing sweep by the Mavericks.  Let's not kid ourselves what happened last year, the Mavs played out of their minds.  They made everyone look stupid.  Looking at the stats - Gasol underperformed - 12.5 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists a game.  Kobe underperformed as well - 23 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists.  Of course, I imagine Gasol was matched up against Chandler or Dirk whereas Kobe was matched up against Jason Kidd or Caron Butler.  I think I'd take the latter, wouldn't you?  But is this really evidence of Gasol being soft or Kobe being clutch?  It seems like neither.

So I guess what I'm challenging is ANY reasonable evidence pointing to Kobe being clutch or Gasol being soft in the past 4-5 years - and there just isn't much.  Is anyone considering Dirk or Jason Kidd soft for their performances in the playoffs this year?  It has to be equally disappointing to Gasol's last year.  But everyone says "they won a ring."  Well guess what?  Gasol has two.  Yes, he won them playing 2nd fiddle to Kobe.  There is no question Kobe decided to take the alpha dog spot because he knew no one would consider his rings as relevant as Jordan's so long as he was under the Shaq shadow.  But no one talks about Pippen going soft when he didn't win without Jordan or when he later joined Portland.  It just seems insane to think about Gasol as this guy who is soft or doesn't show up.  It is bias against European players.  If I were the coach of the Lakers, I would run plays for Gasol in the 4th quarter.  But the coach of the Lakers can't do it because Kobe won't listen and will simply demand the ball for himself.  Otherwise, how can he reinforce the narrative?

UPDATE:  In one of the most preposterous developments of the reinforcing the "Kobe is a closer narrative," now the talk radio folks give Kobe credit for "having the guts to take the shots."  So it actually doesn't matter whether Kobe makes shots to cement his tag as a "closer," now Laker fans celebrate Kobe for simply taking them.  Think of this illogic...it would be like celebrating Joe Montana for throwing incomplete passes at the end of games because "he tried," or celebrating Derek Jeter for striking out because "at least he went up there swinging."  When I bring these things up, people call me a "Kobe-hater" to imply I am irrational for disliking Kobe's shot selection and decision making.

UPDATE 2:  Luckily, this is only basketball, so on a certain level who cares about the narrative.  But I think it's important to remember how the media constructs and reinforces narratives for more important things, like wars and elections and news and other things that you know, actually effect our lives.  Stories get highlight when they reinforce a narrative and disregarded when they contradict the narrative.  We are seeing this now with the Trayvon Martin case.  We obviously saw it in the Duke Lacrosse case.  We saw it in the congressman Giffords shooting where folks were blaming Palin, we still to this day see it when talking about the War on Terror and George Bush and Iraq.  It's actually quite scary and enough to make one quite cynical about the news in general.  The recent JP Morgan case seems to an attempt to reinforce this idea that we need more regulation -- which perhaps we do -- but I actually see no problem with a company taking a big risk and losing $2 billion dollars.  That is their prerogative.  I would recommend firing the people involved and not letting them work in the biz again and look at JP's risk management systems.  And I wouldn't put my money with them, although I'm sure they're not sweating that possibly.