The Ongoing Crucifixion of Kobe Bryant

Sometimes, a star burns so bright that there is an instinct among the masses to grab and tear at it in hopes that they too will become illuminated. Such is the fate of L.A. Lakers guard Kobe Bryant, who has been vilified by former teammates, the sports media and unruly fans in every way imaginable.

For example, when Bryant scored a whopping 62 points against the Dallas Mavericks, he was criticized for resting the fourth quarter. When he poured in a jaw-dropping 81 against the Toronto Raptors– good for the second-most in any game in NBA history – the pundits pointed to his high shot count and paltry assist total as proof of his selfishness.

At the time of the Shaquille O’Neal’s trade to Miami, Bryant’s detractors were quick to tell us that he was nothing without Shaq. And when he continued to play at a high level after the big man’s exodus, they blasted him for being unable to lead his team to victory (never mind the coaching changes, the mediocre supporting cast or the fact that O’Neal, playing with the ubertalented Dwayne Wade in Miami, couldn’t secure a title either). It seems that there is nothing that Bryant can do right, which should say more about his critics than it should about him.

First, a caveat: Bryant probably is, as Phil Jackson claimed in his book, a difficult player to coach. Jackson would know, having coached the likes of Dennis Rodman in the past. But when offered the chance to coach Bryant a second time, Jackson took the cash and came out of retirement. So let’s not mistake ‘difficult’ with ‘Terrell Owens-level cancer’ just yet.

Bryant is also a selfish player on the court, which would make him no different than many others in the league. Allen Iverson had the same reputation, even while putting up 30+ points a game. Now that A.I. has learned to pass, he no longer gets bashed by the critics. But the 76ers aren’t contenders anymore than the Lakers (and possibly even less so). The moral here: if you can put up points and you’re stuck with mediocre teammates who won’t help you win, then forget trying to make them better and start shooting the lights out.

So why are people so down on Bryant? Some blame him for putting pressure on Lakers management to ship Shaq out of L.A. This, they claim, exacerbated the Lakers’ fall from contention. The facts, however, point to other culprits. At the time of the trade, Jerry West, the architect of those Lakers championship teams, was long gone and Phil Jackson had recently thrown in the towel. Gary Payton was unhappy, Karl Malone was contemplating retirement and the draft prospects were bleak. In other words, the team was already falling apart.

Shaq also played as big a role in the trade as Bryant did, if not a bigger one. After all, it takes two to have a war of words and the animosity Bryant had toward him was more than reciprocated. Shaq was also seeking an extension at the time and willing to raise hell if he didn’t get one. Given his inability to stay healthy, the Lakers didn’t want to give him anything long-term (they did, however, throw a generous short-term offer his way, which he rejected). Plus – and this is far too often dismissed as idle chatter on his part – the big man actually demanded a trade. With or without Bryant, he would have been gone. Trading him when they did at least enabled the Lakers to get something of value (Lamar Odom) in return.

Of course, when they aren’t blaming him for the Shaq trade, Bryant-bashers will point to his off-court behavior: namely, sexual assault allegations. And while these allegations are to be taken seriously, it would appear that a double standard is at play. Bryant is not Ruben Patterson, the Portland Trailblazers forward who attempted to rape his child’s babysitter and has a reputation as a violent thug on and off the court. Nor is Bryant NFL players Ray Lewis and Leonard Little, both of whom have been implicated in various forms of homicide and both of whom, inexplicably, have better reputations than Kobe.

Perhaps the number one reason why Bryant is vilified is that he no longer fits today’s “new” NBA. Bryant came into the league in the mid-to-late 1990s, a time when individual prowess reigned supreme. A whole generation of brash young players wanting to be the next Michael Jordan stormed the NBA, and the league, the fans, and the media were there to stroke their egos. This was the era of the marijuana-toking Portland Jailblazers, led by technical foul king Rasheed Wallace. This was the era when high-flying Vince Carter and Big Dog Glenn Robinson could make All-Star teams despite having no defensive commitment and no sense of team chemistry, respectively. This was an era when outright headcases like J.R. Rider could still find employment on the basis of sheer scoring ability alone.

And in this NBA, Bryant fit perfectly. Coming directly from high school, he was young, inexperienced, a touch immature, but God was he talented. Most who revile him now were perfectly happy to buy into him then. Everyone was too busy anointing him the next prodigy to point out his shortcomings. If you take a snapshot of Bryant in 2000, you would see a player destined to be among the greatest who ever played the game.

But then a funny thing happened. The Lakers dynasty collapsed. Injuries and diminished production made talented-but-troublesome players more of a pain than they were worth. Teams like the Spurs and the Pistons began winning championships. The NBA, in other words, had changed.

It is debatable what lead to this transformation, but what has become abundantly clear is that it does not favor players like Kobe Bryant. The stars of the new NBA are Tim Duncan, a fundamentally skilled big man with a bland personality, Ben Wallace, a hard-working defender with little offensive game and Steve Nash, a team-oriented, pass-first point guard. All three are a far cry from the electrifying dunkmasters of just a few short years ago.

This change, coupled with Commissioner David Stern’s new get-tough stance (which has included, to date, a controversial dress code and very stiff penalties for players who venture into the stands), have resulted in making Bryant a pariah. The message to him is clear: either change your game and your attitude or you will continue to be vilified. Never mind what your scoring average is (nearly 36 points as of this posting, best in the league and a career high as well), how many rings you have (3) or how suspect your teammates are (Kwame Brown, anyone?), if you are not with the program, you’re a goner.

Need more proof? Ask yourself: five years ago, would the Pacers have benched then traded Ron Artest – an absolute demon on the court despite his attitude – or would they have tried to placate him and smooth things over?

I can’t really say I miss the attitude of the old NBA. Watching a bunch of near-30 millionaires gallivanting about like mischievous adolescents is enough to make your eyes roll and your stomach turn. But as much as it’s fallen out of favor now, that NBA was supported by Stern, by fans, by the sports media. For them to turn around now and attempt to disown it is an exercise in hypocrisy. So go ahead, boo Bryant. Call him selfish. Try to drag him down. But just remember: his celebrity is a child of your making.

A Libertarian Defense of the New Deal

From the day he replaced Al Smith as governor of New York, Franklin Delano Roosevelt has enjoyed an unparalleled cachet among progressives. Up until recently, that alone was enough to make him an object of scorn in conservative circles, but the current crop of neoconservatives has fallen in love with FDR’s foreign policy approach and “national greatness” rhetoric. That leaves libertarians and a dwindling number of paleoconservatives to sully his legacy but I, for one, find myself not entirely up to the task. FDR might have been America’s most statist president, but the New Deal legislation for which he is best remembered has some components that even a libertarian can like.

Let it be said from the start that I don’t intend this to be a defense of the New Deal in its entirety. What transpired during FDR’s reign – literally thousands of pages of regulations added to the federal register and the creation of a behemoth bureaucracy that, by and large, still stands today — is indefensible by almost any measure of classical liberalism, as is the postwar expansion of New Deal programs that followed (damn you, LBJ). I’ll further qualify this defense by pegging it to the harsh realities of the era: namely, the Great Depression. That said, while it certainly brought about an unprecedented change in governance, I don’t buy the notion that the New Deal is somehow to blame for all the socioeconomic woes that beset America in the years that followed.

First and foremost, there can be little doubt that the New Deal was preferable to a socialist insurrection. If the idea of an American-style Bolshevik uprising seems far-fetched, I invite doubters to revisit the political and economic conditions of the great depression. Faith in the free market was shot. Herbert Hoover’s ham-handed government response was derided as ineffective. A number of prominent leaders, from Huey Long to CIO boss John Lewis, were calling for reforms that were far more radical than what ultimately came to pass. FDR might not have “saved capitalism from itself,” but he certainly did co-opt these malcontents and head off the problem before it got out of control.

And yet, some still find it prudent to blast him for having given in. Conveniently, they neglect to mention what they would have done in his place. Given the public attitudes at the time, staying the course and waiting for the market to correct itself was not a politically viable option. Inaction would have only bred further unrest and utilizing heavy-handed tactics and police-state conditions to put down the unrest would have only exacerbated the problem.

Libertarians have been able to point to what should have been done before the Depression to soften the impact (namely, monetary reform and repealing restrictive tariffs), but I’ve yet to hear a satisfactory explanation as to what should have been done during the Depression itself. “Wait it out” may be the correct prescription in the long haul, but it does precious little good while people are starving.

That said, the New Deal can also be defended on the grounds that it produced better consumers. While libertarians (and Austrian School economists in particular) have attacked the notion that the New Deal ended the Depression. Fair enough (albeit inconclusive due to the outbreak of WWII). But what of the New Deal’s role in creating the middle class?

The postwar years saw the dual marvel of prodigious economic growth and expansion coupled with a system of support services that had previously been nonexistent. And, while it is likely that those who were able to make money before the Depression would have been able to do so after as well, there were a considerable number of individuals who would have had a hard time making ends meet, let alone prospering like they did.

The Depression, lest anyone forget, wiped out savings and left plenty of people without any capital whatsoever. Individuals without capital cannot buy, spend or save. In other words, they don’t contribute to the economy.

What the New Deal did was provide individuals whose savings had been eliminated with capital, in the form of the WPA and other job creation programs. Granted, this came at a high cost to the taxpayer, but in absence of it a.) there would be no one to fuel the economy on the lower levels and top-down investment would have led to a slow turnaround and b.) a good portion of those costs would exist anyway in policing/locking up all the shiftless bums patrolling the streets because they can’t find work.

Those who automatically dismiss the New Deal as government overkill usually neglect to consider these secondary effects, and, in doing so perpetrate a sort of reverse Broken Windows theory (ignoring hidden benefits rather than ignoring hidden costs). If the New Deal had the result of helping the economy, then I can’t write it off anymore than I could write off N.Y. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s “overreaching” when it has the effect of restoring investor confidence in the wake of stock scandals.

Third, I draw a distinction between New Deal programs as they existed at that time and the expansion of these programs that occurred afterwards. Social Security is a prime example of why such a distinction is necessary. The program was designed explicitly for poor old folks at a time in which poverty among seniors exceeded 50%. The Supreme Court decision made note of these circumstances, referring to them as “a crisis so extreme.”

Clearly, the program at the time was not Social Security as it exists today. If anyone at the time had promoted the idea that the government would attempt to fund the retirement of most Americans, the idea probably would have been ridiculed as untenable and the Court probably would have voted the other way. You can blame the New Deal for creating what led to our current retirement quagmire, but you shouldn’t confuse the two.

Of course, one could also exalt the New Deal for giving breaks to stellar talents such as Arthur Miller via the WPA, but doing that would require looking at how many mediocre and forgettable talents taxpayer dollars were spent on. No, the bottom line here is that, for all the ire it raises (even 60 years after the fact) among free market folks, the New Deal was a desperation move, not a Faustian bargain. Yes, there is a lot there to be disdainful of, but if you look hard enough, you’ll also find a few things to like. And lest anyone forget, things could have turned out much, much worse. We could all be calling each other “comrade.”