Why The Game Needs Kobe Bryant...

I'ma be the first to say it.

F*CK THE SUPER BOWL...

NOT because I didn't watch it...

NOT because the underdog, "fairy tale" team like the Cardinals lost.

NOT because the Pittsburgh Steelers are the NFL equivalent to the San Antonio Spurs...

But because the night AFTER what sports fans are calling "one of the greatest games EVER", the NIGGA you LOVE to HATE (Not that NIGGA... Sorry Cube) gave all of us 61 more reasons to hate him. He outright gave the best performance in Madison Square Garden history.

Yup, KOBE...

Not Lebron who put up fiddy (50) last year...

Even KB24's IDOL, Michael Jordan put up 55...

So move over Bernard King who set the mark at 60 in 84' (Danni Dan WHAT UP?), the self-proclaimed "Black Mamba" (Kobe's nickname for himself) eclipsed it... and then left the court with 2 and a half minutes remaining with NEW YORK fans screaming, “MVP … MVP” like it was Jay's last concert all over again...

I'ma be the first to admit... I didn't like KOBE. I hated Kobe, and everything KOBE stood for. That damn smile, that jumper, the way he drives the lane... EVERYTHING.

When the Lakers lost against the Pistons in 01 to end the 3peat, who was the bad guy? Kobe. (I personally blame the whole damn team...)

When Shaq left the Lakers, who was the bad guy? Kobe.

The INFAMOUS Colorado rape trial? Bad guy was who? Kobe.

The Lakers couldn't make the playoffs to save their life the bad guy was who? Yeah... Kobe.

Everybody had something to say about Kobe. Hell, Dave Chappelle devoted almost half of his "For what its worth" comedy special about Kobe. Dave even called Kobe, the "last good black guy left".

But you can't knock the guy hustle. Yeah, he cried in front of all of us on TV when he confessed to his infidelity.

Yes, we laughed when he heard he bought his wife a whopping 3-million dollar ring shortly after that.

Yeah, we snickered when we heard he bought his wife a Lamborghini and spent just 500,000 dollars more to make it into an AUTOMATIC.

And we laughed at his attempt to rap. (I say that he wasn't that bad...)

But this dude we see today is not the dude who asked BRANDY to his senior prom. The guy who got booed in his hometown of PHILLY when he won the ALL STAR MVP. And this definately aint the guy who Shaq asked "How does my ass taste?" in a freestyle...

This the dude who put on a show last year as he won the MVP award and scoring title. The same guy who helped bring the famous 'Lakers Vs. Celtics' rivalry back. The guy who we all said couldn't pass, couldn't defend nor be a team player and proceeded to REDEEM the U.S of A in the olympics by simply molesting them other countries (Sorry Angola.)

I realized that we dont hate necessarily HATE Kobe because of who he is... We hate him because we know this nigga is THAT good. Yeah, he used to be number 8 but he chose 24 because he wanted to be better than 23. He wants to be remembered as the greatest player of his time – maybe ever – and understands that an important part of that always goes through New York.

So, KB donated 61 points to the shrine Monday night, with the greatest offensive performance the Garden had ever seen. Perhaps it was inevitable that he had to go for everything because of simply the guys who I talked about up above. Here was a perfect storm for that to happen. Kobe's sense of nostalgia meets a simmering rage over the loss of Andrew Bynum. Bryant had crashed into his teammate Saturday night, torn his MCL, and the diagnosis of a two to three month recovery ripped through the Lakers. So rather be the bad guy again to the city of Los Angeles, there would be hell to pay for the Knicks.

Across this brilliant night, long jumpers and twisting turnarounds and breathless drives – I saw a somberness to him. Maybe it was a message to his teammates, to the rest of the league, that the Lakers were still chasing a championship. Maybe he just wanted to change the story line overnight from Bynum’s knee to his own greatness. Without Bynum, Bryant’s burden grows immensely, and so, there was no joy in him. No frivolity, no jabbering with Spike Lee. He didn't even acknowledge the Knick fans who chanted for him... Bryant has become a better teammate, a better team player, but the core of WHY we hate him is unchanged: Ultimately, he goes it alone. As well as anyone since Jordan, he creates that high drama and elevates himself to reach it. He started scoring fast and never stopped. The Knicks were props. They looked as liable to ask him for his autograph as they did try to defend him.

But if he wants to win his 4th title as much as ever, Bryant will need to honor the lessons learned a year ago on the way to the Finals. He needs his teammates and they need him. Even his coach, an old Knick, was respectful of Bryant’s bid for Garden history, but seemed wary of its lingering impact on a team that has to learn to play differently again. After all these years of coaching Michael and Kobe on these trips to New York, Phil knows that resistance is futile. Wisely, he let Kobe go. He'll have to worry about coaching the rest of the team tomorrow.

So F*CK the Super Bowl... All of that hoopla about Santonio Holmes, Big Ben and the Steelers is boring to a nigga like me. Cause as a Knick fan, I quote Kobe:

“This is the last one left, this is the last one that holds all the memories.”

So while we have good guys Chris Paul and Dwight Howard and Lebron... D-Wade and others, we need to HATE Kobe. Because, Kobe can be that HERO that we and the NBA deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hate on or simply just hate him because he can take it. Because he's not our hero...

All that nostalgia, all that rage... Yeah, resistance was futile. These were 61 points... 61 reasons to stand the test of time...