WSC 24 Gunnin’ for a statue @ The Crypt

Kobe, LeBron, and other subjects unpopular north of Bakersfield

(Note: To make up for the Oregon-centric nature of last week’s content, I’m gonna swing hard Cali-side in this newsletter. Washington, I owe you one.)

Kobe Bryant was 21 and not quite a star the only time I ever spoke to him, and though the kid had a regality about him I never would have guessed that he’d be sainted. That’s how Bryant is regarded in LA and around the NBA, like he was too good for this world. When they put up Mamba’s Crypto.com Arena statue last month, the ceremonial run-up put me in mind of Diana Spencer.

The mood and expectations in KobeStan are but part of what LeBron James is up against in the terrifically masturbatory game called Quantifying Greatness. On Saturday night James scored his 40,000th NBA point, a number unthinkable until the kid from Akron stepped on the scene. That scene was so long ago.

I wore the LeBron rookie jersey on my Ghetto Celebrity book tour.

Photo by Brad Dosland

The span of this high-level hoops play is unprecedented.

Is the 39-year-old power forward having the greatest sports career ever? The on-court stuff James doesn’t do as he pushes 40 only makes what he did in and around his peak more remarkable.

The weekend achievement got me thinking back to the smartest King James talk I’ve heard in a while, from Howard Bryant and Bomani Jones.

After an unfunny anecdote about buying gas in Scandinavia and some above-par All-Star Game discussion, Jones leads Bryant through a high-level inquiry into James’ extraordinary career and the meaning of it. We’ve never seen a player transcend team identity like this one. There’s never been a great who’s worthiness was measured against two deities: One in Jordan, whose measurables can be argued, and the one whom LBJ might only catch if he too decides he’s above LA traffic and meets a tragic end.

Lebron James is hanging out in LA and playing high-level hoops at 39 because it’s great for his brand—just as he left Cleveland for Miami to grow his international business. Fascinating. Just thought I’d celebrate this Buckeye a little bit more, before Shohei Ohtani fever takes hold.

And here are 10 notables for the week.

10 A pair of sad Academy Award stories

With the Oscars coming up on Sunday, look forward to a week in which Hollywood celebrates itself to the point of being insufferable.

As a counterbalance, I give you some Academy Awards weepies.
PBS/Hollywood Reporter

• First, this year’s heavy favorite to win Best Documentary. “This is painful to watch, but it must be painful to watch,” says the narrator of 20 Days in Mariupol. Because this is war, that stupid and futile practice that humans somehow are in love with. This film is pure horror that you simply must see.

• The other sadness concerns Hattie McDaniel, the sweet-faced woman pictured at the top of this entry. She won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award in 1940, sat at a segregated Ambassador Hotel table with her white agent, and went on to play a maid 74 times. McDaniel famously said, “I’d rather play a maid than be a maid.”

• The next Black actress to win an award from the Academy was Whoopie Goldberg, 50 years later.

• This year, The Town might deserve its haughtiness, as 2023’s crop of films was one of the best that I can remember. Just saw the comedy Bottoms last week. Incredibly well-done.

Lil hit

• Multnomah County commissioners are set to vote on a Palestine ceasefire resolution on Thursday, but the strongest of the document’s language may be gone by then.
  Portland Mercury

9 Phoenix media crush previews ‘Sho-Time’ in LA

To accommodate the throng of international reporters covering the Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto-starring LA Dodgers, the team has built a satellite press box at Camelback Ranch, the Glendale, Arizona spring training site.
KJZZ