{"id":799,"date":"2004-05-14T12:12:38","date_gmt":"2004-05-14T16:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=799"},"modified":"2009-01-16T17:26:56","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T21:26:56","slug":"sensible-kobe-bryant-commentary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2004\/05\/sensible-kobe-bryant-commentary\/","title":{"rendered":"Sensible Kobe Bryant Commentary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been hearing and reading about what a great player Kobe Bryant is, since he is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/05\/13\/sports\/basketball\/13lakers.html\">putting up good basketball numbers while also defending himself at trial<\/a>.  I haven&#8217;t been particularly impressed with that feat.  And I just noticed an ESPN column by writer Jason Whitlock that is more in line with my own feelings.  <a href=\"http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/espn\/page2\/story?page=whitlock\/040513\">He writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;As good as [Kobe] played Tuesday, just think: If the idiot hadn&#8217;t stepped out on his wife and slept with a teenage woman he didn&#8217;t know, he might have been even better Tuesday night. . . . These are the dangers of a high-profile, married man sleeping with a teenager he&#8217;s only known for 30 minutes.&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n<p>I agree.  Writers should not be making this man out to be a hero because he is being forced defend himself from rape allegations &#8212; a position he is in only because he either made a horrendous decision (rape) or merely a very bad decision (&#8220;mere&#8221; adultery).  It is nice that he is able to continue to play well while also dealing with the consequences of his bad choices.  But it is nothing heroic.  And the best and most admirable thing Kobe Bryant could have done, for his family, his team, and himself, would have been <i>not making those bad choices <\/i>in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been hearing and reading about what a great player Kobe Bryant is, since he is putting up good basketball numbers while also defending himself at trial. I haven&#8217;t been particularly impressed with that feat. And I just noticed an ESPN column by writer Jason Whitlock that is more in line with my own feelings. He writes: &#8220;As good as [Kobe] played Tuesday, just think: If the idiot hadn&#8217;t stepped out on his wife and slept with a teenage woman he didn&#8217;t know, he might have been even better Tuesday night. . . . These are the dangers of a high-profile, married man sleeping with a teenager he&#8217;s only known for 30 minutes.&#8221; I agree. Writers should not be making this man out to be a hero because he is being forced defend himself from rape allegations &#8212; a position he is in only because he either made a horrendous decision (rape) or merely a very bad decision (&#8220;mere&#8221; adultery). It is nice that he is able to continue to play well while also dealing with the consequences of his bad choices. But it is nothing heroic. And the best and most admirable thing Kobe Bryant could have done, for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics","tag-popular-culture-and-media"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5685,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/5685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}