Give Him The Ball!!!

For almost my entire life I have been a fan of the NBA. You don't find enough NBA fans in this part of the country, but I love it. I started off by watching Michael Jordan deal out finals losses to the Utah Jazz way back in the 90s. Now I am partial to Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns. As in any sport, there is always that team that you hate. You hate to see them do well, you hate to see them win. For me, this has always been the Lakers. I tend to root against the teams who are over-hyped and over-covered by ESPN. In the NFL it's the Cowboys. In college football, it's USC. In the MLB, it's the Yankees and the Red Sox. And in the NBA it's the Lakers.

Star power is a big reason for these media favorites to get the attention they do. For a long time I hated Kobe Bryant. He was and is a great player, but I hated his attitude. He was a bad team player, always wanting to take every shot. He couldn't get along with Shaq, and he was arrogant. This always rubbed me the wrong way, and when Shaq left for the Miami Heat, I delighted in the years when the Lakers struggled. I was glad the Heat won a championship for the sole reason that Shaq did it before Kobe did.

While I'm still no Laker fan at all, I think I'm starting to come around on Kobe Bryant. I still don't really like him, but I think I'm starting to understand him better. I read a poll in Sports Illustrated the other day where they asked other NBA players who they would want taking the last shot with the game on the line. Like 74% of them said Kobe Bryant. That is a huge number, especially with all the stars in the league. No one can deny the talent that Kobe has, even if his attitude isn't the greatest. And when I really think about it, if I was that good, I would want to take every shot as well. If the team lost and I didn't get the ball enough, I would probably be upset too. Now, Kobe is showing that he is even growing out of this. Today I heard a statistic that said something like the Lakers are 29-2 when Kobe takes less than 20 shots. Instead of trying to be the superstar among a group of 5 good basketball players, he is actually playing within the team. And the Lakers are probably the favorites to win it all this year.

It has been said that in sports a real superstar has to want the ball in his (or her) hands when the game is on the line. When it's the 4th quarter and there are only 10 seconds left on the clock with no timeouts, the greatest players always want to be the ones to take the last shot. Anybody who ever watches the Lakers knows that the ball is going to Kobe. If you are Phil Jackson, Jack Nicholson, or any other Laker fan you want the basketball in Kobe's hands. And if you're Kobe Bryant, you want the ball in your hands. You want to be the one who puts up the shot, with everything on the line, and either succeeds or fails. You are the one who is willing to risk the pain of defeat and failure to achieve victory.

As I was watching Barack Obama's address to Congress tonight, I kind of felt this way about our new president. You would almost think he's crazy, because he looks way too comfortable and calm to be in the situation he is in. He inherited a nation fighting two wars with an economy that's going in the toilet. We have an enormous national debt, and across the world our reputation has sunken very low. Partisan divides are running deep in Washington; and while the Republicans and Democrats fight over what should be done, people are continuing to lose their jobs.

Tonight in his speech President Obama looked confident and he highlighted some key directions that the nation needs to move in order to improve things. He talked about the stimulus bill that just passed and how it will create jobs for the economy. He said that healthcare needs to be made more affordable, and even claimed to aggressively pursue a cure for cancer. He also wanted to make it easier for Americans to go to college, which is a huge deal for me. Among other things, he also said he would reduce the national debt by half by the time his term as president is up. Remember, this is not on the campaign trail. He has been elected. He isn't trying to get more votes this time around. These are actual goals President Obama is trying to acheive.

I knew that Obama was ambitious, anybody who runs for President of the U.S. is. But this is beyond even that, and this is one of the main reasons why I am so comfortable with him being my president:

He wants the ball.

When it's the fourth quarter and the game is coming down to the wire, he wants the ball in his hands. He's not afraid of being the man sitting in the highest office in the land when disaster strikes. He's not worried about the pressure. No, he is confident in his ability to make the shot.

I can't tell you how many times I have watched a Lakers game, or at least the highlights of a Lakers game, rooting for the other team, and then watched in disgust as Kobe Bryant sank a 3-point, game-winning basket as time ran out. He literally does it all the time, and I can't stand it. But that is what makes him so great. He wants the ball in his hands when it matters, and so many times he delivers. Barack Obama hasn't done a lot yet. He has only been in office for a little over a month. But it's not hard to see that with the financial crisis and everything else going on with our country right now, he wants the ball. He wants to be the one taking the shot. And for the man who will be leading the country on into the future, that is one quality I like to see.