Kobe Bryant’s competitive drive betrayed by his body

If you believe that age is all in your mind and the trick is keeping it from creeping down into your body, Kobe Bryant had a much better run than most athletes ever enjoy. But it's not how old you are, rather how you are old.

In the life of a Hall of Fame basketball talent, Bryant has hit the proverbial wall.

He is smart to walk away before it completely crumbles atop his legacy.

Bryant announced Sunday on The Players' Tribune website that he will retire following this season, that his 37-year old body won't hold up past 20 years wearing a Lakers uniform.

It wasn't stuff of Shakespeare or Whitman, but what his ode to the game said in the simplest manner was this: That his was a long and profound love affair with basketball, that it gave him his mind and spirit and soul, that it born him a dream to chase as a 6-year old boy, but that his body no longer will agree to cooperate in such a pursuit, that the end has arrived.

He hasn't been that Kobe since 2013, since before he tore his Achilles tendon. He hasn't been elite since that moment.

His story has been one of as much pain as glory since Bryant was drafted No. 13 overall in 1996. He broke fingers and fractured a knee and tore the other one and sprained ankles and strained hip flexors and injured shins and feet.

It's time, all right. Even his unparalleled competitive drive — the greatest in NBA history, even more so than the assassin that was Michael Jordan — couldn't stop Bryant's limbs from finally screaming enough was enough.

It will commence again now, the subjective discourse on where Bryant ranks among the NBA's all-time best players, where his five championship rings and more than 32,000 points and 17 All-Star selections and two Olympic gold medals should place him on the sport's pantheon of greatness.

I have always listed Jordan atop any such inventory. After him, it's about one's personal criteria.

Suffice to say, Bryant should be part of any such conversation, no matter what number is attached his resume.

No one was more competitive. Ever. He worked harder than anyone to become great since arriving to the NBA straight from high school. He treated losing a midseason game as he would Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Just abhorred it.

Few have been smarter on the floor and few adapted their games to their age to remain relevant as long as Bryant did. He was always two steps ahead of everyone. He sniffed out plays a few dribbles earlier than the next guy.

He saw the game in a most beautiful way.

But there is a reason that in a letter Bryant had delivered to each fan that attended Sunday night's home game against Indiana, he wrote that whether they viewed him as a hero or villain, he poured every bit of emotion and passion into being a Laker.

He was both to many.

You could argue his competitive nature has been far more self-absorption in recent years and that trait, more than anything, has led to the incredible demise of one the league's most storied franchises.

Bryant has shot his worst percentages the last three years since early in his career, but kept on shooting. He's a turnover waiting to happen now. His massive contract extension of two years for $48 million following the Achilles injury damaged the Lakers' salary cap and limited what players the team could put around him. In honoring Bryant with such a deal, the Lakers dishonored those paying to watch him.

His perceived selfish ways the final years of his career will be as much part of his legacy as the 2003 sexual assault case in Colorado, even though the charges were dropped. A civil suit was later settled and Bryant apologized, but admitted no guilt. It's still part of things, as much as those shiny rings. It has to be.

Barry Sanders left the football field too soon. So did Bobby Jones the golf course and Sandy Koufax the pitching rubber and Bjorn Borg the tennis court. You could make an argument Patrick Ewing and Brett Favre and Gordie Howe and Roger Clemens and Muhammad Ali should have departed their respective sporting arenas far earlier than they chose.

Kobe Bryant hasn't been that Kobe is some time, so it feels as if now is the perfect time to play things out and limp away. He is the last man standing from an amazing draft in 1996, one that saw Allen Iverson and Ray Allen and Stephon Marbury and Steve Nash all enter the NBA with Bryant.

One by one, they all left.

Now, the absolute best of that crop will also.

It's as simple as any poem: Kobe Bryant's heart and mind never gave up.

His body did.

Isn't that usually the case?

— Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on "Seat and Ed" on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow him: @edgraney