This is unreal. I’m still literally in shock. After Rockets-Grizzlies ended, I switched over to watch Lakers-Warriors in its entirety. I bought League Pass two months ago, and while they were playing horrific, I picked the Lakers in my 5 just to watch Kobe play.
You can’t even put the emotions into words. You felt sadness for Rose and Rondo. But this is something else – another world. I’m watching the reactions come in on Twitter from various media personalities, and the entire basketball world at this moment is in a coma. One of basketball’s most iconic figures ever may have just walked off the court for the last time. Simply unreal.
I can’t even collect all of my thoughts completely right now. First, it’s almost as if, the way this guy pushed himself, you almost knew this was how he would end up going out. Second, it seems almost more incredible that Michael Jordan somehow managed to not suffer any major injuries later in his career.
I just watched Kobe’s postgame lockerroom interview and he said that he knew the injury had occurred because he heard the pop. Not an achilles, but I tore my ACL completely three months ago and also heard “the pop.” Let me tell those of you who have been fortunate enough to have never torn any ligaments: “the pop” is the single loudest sound a person can hear in their life. It sounds literally like a firecracker, or a bullet being shot out of a gun.
Kobe will rehab and come back. But at 34, he will never be the same and this is not how it should’ve ended. Regardless of how you feel about the man himself or even his flaws as a player, he is and was undeniably the hardest working man to have graced the hardwood and a modern day artist. This game will not be the same in his absence and we were privileged to have witnessed his greatness over these last two decades.
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