The Los Angeles Lakers hit a lull in their Kobe Bryant-centric dynasty. The Kobe- and Shaquille O’Neal-led Lakers pulled off a three-peat from 2000 to 2002, and the Kobe- and Pau Gasol-led Lakers went back-to-back in 2009 and 2010. Sandwiched between, on Jan. 22, 2006, was Bryant’s historic 81-point game against the Toronto Raptors. Bryant’s individual excellence knew no parameters.
Midway through the fourth quarter, the Lakers held only a 97-93 lead over the Raptors. From there, Bryant, then 27 years old, ripped off 22 points to secure a 122-104 victory. At the time, his 81 points stood second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 as the best scoring masterpieces in NBA history.
Miami Heat All-Star Bam Adebayo made it a trio on Tuesday night.
Adebayo, 28, scored 83 points in the Heat’s through-and-through 150-129 blowout of the Washington Wizards. The game was never close. Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra kept him in for 42 minutes to let him chase history. The only scoreboard watching was concerned with Adebayo’s box score as he crept closer to Bryant’s 81.
Ultimately, Adebayo scored his 82nd and 83rd points at the free-throw line with 1:16 left in regulation. Afterward, Adebayo tearfully embraced his mother, Marilyn Blount, and partner, the WNBA star A’ja Wilson, to celebrate a moment they’ll all remember forever. Simultaneously, Kobe and Lakers fans mourned their late, great hero.
I am not interested in the critique surrounding Adebayo’s triumph happening on a nondescript March Tuesday against a wretched (and actively tanking) Wizards team. Would 83 points be more renowned if LeBron James or Stephen Curry were the ones netting them in a game with stakes? Almost assuredly. Would it be more palatable for fellow all-time greats to edge Bryant’s record? Maybe. Was it ethical or unethical hoops? I don’t care so much about that answer as about what the question itself reveals.
Part of aging is believing that everything used to be better, and the NBA and its tanking epidemic aren’t making a compelling case to the contrary. There is some grief in wistful nostalgia about the NBA of old, but Adebayo’s 83-point night truly exposed the grief over time moving on without Bryant.
The astrophysicist Ethan Siegel once wrote%20in%20the%20Universe.&text=The%20thing%20is%2C%20these%20are,and%20shorter%2Dlived%2C), “The stars from back then are fundamentally different from the stars we have today.” It turns out that’s true in the NBA galaxy, too. No two stars are made the same. Both won two Olympic gold medals, but Bryant was a top-10 all-time scorer, while Adebayo is a two-way center and five-time All-Defensive Team member. The biggest differentiator is that Bryant’s star burned bright and fast - much too fast.
Bryant tragically died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020. They say all athletes die twice. There was a sense of finality when Bryant retired, but death is the ultimate finality. Everything stands still. It seems as if the world can’t go on without that person existing in it. In Bryant’s case, the then-Staples Center became holy ground. If Bryant weren’t built into the fabric of Los Angeles before, he was eternally sewn into it posthumously. The truth for anyone in death is that they live on in memories. Bryant is also alive in NBA history.
In the hours after Adebayo’s 83-point outing, debate of all sorts erupted. According to The Athletic‘s Mike Vorkunov, Adebayo’s 43 free-throw attempts and 36 made free throws are the most ever. “Bam had 92 points total over his previous four games,” Vorkunov wrote. “His PPG went up from 18.9 to 20.0.” Meanwhile, The Athletic‘s Sam Amick criticized the Heat coaches for their handling of the game and wished Adebayo had opted to tie Bryant’s mythical 81-point game rather than best it.
That is not how time works. Sadly, most everyone and everything will eventually be lost to the sands of time. The most human, and, in some ways, most admirable rebellion against our shared ephemerality is to relish in the moment when it feels like everything will always exist exactly as it is. As the late poet laureate Andrea Gibson wrote, “You ever felt that?
A split second when nothing in the world is dying? 888 goosebumps.”
Adebayo’s night was a goosebumps moment, whether for people who purely love basketball, people who love Adebayo, or people who miss Kobe Bryant. It revealed the human struggle to accept that history compounds on top of people who are no longer around to try. But while Bryant is now one spot lower on the all-time single-game scoring list, he is not diminished. His memory will never be diminished. Adebayo himself reminded us of that.
“That was my idol growing up,” Adebayo told Scott Van Pelt onSportsCenterafter the best night of his basketball life. “I watched how he approached the game, with that much focus. Laser focus. Being locked in for 48 minutes of a game. Obviously, to see him do it that way, special moment.”
Adebayo added, “Being able to never meet him, in my mind, I wonder what he would say to me at this point.” When Van Pelt asked for Adebayo’s best guess of what the creator of the “Mamba Mentality” would say, Adebayo said, “He’d probably tell me to do it again.”
Bryant was an iconic competitor. Perhaps nobody would hate time standing still and old records standing forever more than Bryant. His greatness inspired Adebayo’s greatness. Maybe for many people, Adebayo’s 83 points landed as a betrayal of Bryant’s 81. To Adebayo, it felt like honoring him. More importantly, it helps keep Bryant alive. Adebayo’s accomplishment didn’t mark the crumbling of Bryant’s but rather reaffirmed the foundation Bryant laid for generations to build upon.
From now on, talking about Adebayo’s 83 points will resurface Kobe and the January night he scored 81 points. Adebayo’s 83-point performance wasn’t an insult. It was a gift. It gave us a new reason to revisit Bryant when he was at his most alive. In turn, it ignites hope that some stars never burn out.
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