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A Destructive Force
Dangerous. That's the idea. He's a gunslinger. He leads the league in stepping on opponent's throats.

He cares less about others, and that's the defining greatness of Kobe Bryant, as the story is told.

Phil Jackson, in his tell-all book a few years ago, called Bryant uncoachable. Tex Winter, in the big picture known as a great Bryant supporter, is quoted in Roland Lazenby's "The Show" saying: "He's never really listened to anybody, has he?"

In his early career, it seemed Bryant was never happier than when Shaquille O'Neal was on the bench and the Lakers spread the floor and let him go solo against the Pacers in the 2000 NBA Finals. Does anyone love shooting more? All kinds of stats support the idea that he shoots a hell of a lot in crunch time, even though he's not all that efficient.

In 2001, he got to play the NBA Finals in Philadelphia, near where he grew up. People asked him about playing in front of Philadelphia fans, and he said he couldn't wait to slit their throats.

There was, of course, "the Colorado incident."

It's not hard to make the case that if you wanted to raise a young basketball player to be the next Kobe Bryant, you'd focus your training on ruthlessness.

And you'd fail to produce the next Kobe Bryant.

Building Project
In February 2008, the NBA had its day of service in New Orleans. Truckloads of players wielded paintbrushes, shovels and hammers.

A bus that included Doc Rivers, Amare Stoudemire, Chris Duhon, Gerald Green, Paul Pierce, Kobe Bryant and several media members pulled up to a muddy site in neglected New Orleans East. Rain fell steadily. Cheap plastic ponchos were suddenly valuable.

People like Doc Rivers and Paul Pierce quickly made themselves useful pounding nails. It was evident many of the other players had not done this kind of work before.

Kobe Bryant was wearing a Darth Vader-style splint to protect his then-freshly gimpy pinkie. He could not swing a hammer. He was also hounded by TV cameras everywhere he went. 

Nevertheless, after a few minutes of running around he had clearly understood how the whole house was going to go together. He knew that this wood was going to be needed for that wall, that these other materials had to go over there. So he became the delivery man, taking things where they needed to go, and when he got there he gave pep talks to the other workers, and did some directing -- finish hammering that one, and then tack on this piece right there kind of stuff.

Everyone else aspired to be a construction worker, and many failed at that. Bryant aspired to be a foreman, or executive, and succeeded. He had the whole project in his mind, and was focused on no one detail, but the total long-term goal -- right down to chatting with the young woman who presumably lives in that house today.

Executive thinking, goal orientation, entrepreneurial spirit ... Call it what you want. It's a defining element of Bryant's success, and it might outrank ruthlessness.

What's rarer in the NBA. Someone ready to take big shots, or someone who:

• Just needs five minutes to encapsulate a construction project in his mind? 
• Can tell a joke in English, Italian or Spanish?
• Keeps his body in condition to play at his peak for a dozen or more years?
• Plays to the point of doubling over in exhaustion?
• Looks away, takes a deep breath, and plays on after being shoved dangerously out of mid-air by Dahntay Jones, or hammered across the face by Carmelo Anthony?
• Works out unbelievably early in the morning, so as to not miss quality time with his daughters?
• Can watch video of himself attempting a fairly insane baseline pass (in "Kobe Doin' Work") and laugh at his mistake while saying "that's just a dumb play by me"?
• Will not only use All-Star Weekend to ask Gary Payton how to defend the screen and roll, as told in Lazenby's "The Show," but then immediately implements the advice and goes, over a weekend, from being a liability to an all-NBA defender?
  

To me the point of Kobe Bryant is not just his guts or his gun. It's his mind, with its vision and mastery of all sorts of things, including how ten players move around the floor.

Basketball, in general, is a pursuit beyond immediate apprehension. So many players, moving in so many different ways. It's bigger than plans and patterns. Watching a Bryant game, it almost feels to me like it is all contained in one mind. He knows the action on this work site.

Killer Construction
At this stage of his career, Bryant's using all that knowledge to construct. Not merely to destroy opponents, but to build a Laker team. He understands the big project better than anyone and is running around the construction site, making sure they have everything they need. 

These Finals will be a test of this part of Kobe Bryant, to be sure. How is Bryant, the leader? 

I can see an even bigger test down the road. With a mind and drive like that, what kind of force will he be after he stops playing? In basketball, or some other field, he has as much  potential as any player to be the next Magic Johnson, Jerry West, Tex Winter or Phil Jackson.

Who knows how he'll choose to apply himself, years from now. He'll have opportunities at greatness in any field. (In fact, if you wanted to make a case against players jumping straight from high school to the NBA, the best argument is that Kobe Bryant's mind is one that would have gotten so much out of higher learning.)

Killer mentality, as an isolated trait, is seldom meaningful. The other day I read a weird and terrible story about a young man in Kentucky dying after multiple rounds of Russian Roulette. Ballsy as you could possibly imagine, but tragically misguided.

Pulling the trigger in the face of high stakes is exceptional and devastating. But so much more valuable, and rare, is the construction -- of a team, a season, a career, an adult and professional mentality -- that truly defines the 2009 version of Kobe Bryant. While Bryant's early career made us all think about his destructive powers, it's his constructive work, to me, that is most interesting.

(Photos by Gabriel Bouys/AFP and David Sherman/NBAE both via Getty Images)