Before Twitter, back when you needed a college email for Facebook, before women took creep photos on iPhones, before LeBron’s hairline disappeared, before the blogging boom and new age media took over, I was around writing stories, hoping one day more than just me and my mom would read the site.
I am very proud of my older work, like I said it was before the new age media blogging boom, so it was written in a much more magazine feature style.
I had some classics, that only people who have followed me for a long time know about. One of those articles was written on January 14th, 2007. In my mind, it doesn’t seem like a long time ago until I realize everything that has happening over the last six years.
I need you to try to remember what was going on in 2007 with Kobe and the Lakers. This was after Shaq left and won a title with the Heat the year before. This was before Pau came and the Lakers went to three straight Finals (winning two). This was right at the end of the Smush & Kwame Brown Years for Kobe, where he was in his prime, but the players around him weren’t.
But, I saw the potential of things to come and how certain things were falling into place, so I wrote an articles titled:
“Jack Bauer: The Evolution of Darth Kobe Bryant”
Please ignore the 2007 design, we didn’t have all these fancy templates we use now.
It is one of my favorite articles of all time, reminds me of when online media wasn’t flooded by 10 million sites and social media. When you could write in peace without someone threatening to kill you and a bunch of male groupies annoying the hell out of you.
The premise of the article was like Jack, Kobe was evolving and eventually would figure things out (which of course he did).
But, with the announcement that “24” is coming back for a limited run in 2014, it got me to thinking how Jack and Kobe careers have mirrored each other over the years.
Jack didn’t always do the right thing, didn’t always rub people the right way, but in the end you knew if there was a battle that had to be fought, he wasn’t going to shortchange you with his effort. He was going in guns blazing and let the chips fall where they may.
Kobe is the same way, you can argue about his shot selection or how good of a teammate he is, but in the end, if the battle needs to be fought, no one is going to work harder and put more time in to win. There is no question, if Kobe is going down, it will be guns blazing.
Jack has been on the run since the “24” series finale in 2010. I thought it was a fitting end because Jack couldn’t have a happy ending, he couldn’t just settle down, he was always chasing something or being chased. It was simply how he was wired.
When Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles, it felt like a series finale, because you wouldn’t expect Kobe to go out gracefully. He went out shooting over a triple team while playing an insane amount of minutes for someone who has been in the league for 17 years.
But, just like Jack is back and I always had this feeling in the back of my head that “24” would make a return at some point, Kobe will be back because he is chasing something and something is chasing him.
He is chasing that sixth ring, while his legacy is chasing him. The book on Jack Bauer and Kobe Bryant are almost closed, but I am ecstatic they both will be back in 2014 to do what they do best…
SHOOT