Kobe Bryant should be the White House press secretary

May 30th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

He is good at this stuff. To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan — the obvious way he contorted his entire game to resemble Jordan’s has always sort of bugged me, the way the moderately popular kid in high school who tries way too hard to be everybody’s friend bothered me. It’s just, you know, be yourself man.

But recently, I am finding myself in greater and greater awe of Kobe, and not just for his basketball skills, which constitute one of the most highly refined individual skill sets in the world. No, today, I find myself totally engrossed by how well Bryant has manipulated the media (I guess we can include ourselves now) into discussing him on his terms.

First things first: it’s sort of brilliant that he’s doing it now, rather than wait until the NBA season is over. People pay attention to the NBA during the playoffs. That simple. But beyond that, to recognize that as the Spurs somewhat boringly march on to another title, casual fans and the media would be captivated by a squabble in L.A. is sort of genius. Second, Bryant has controlled the way this story is being told in almost every regard. He’s talking to reporters proactively (seriously, who does that?), he’s going on radio shows, he’s making posts on his own blog, he’s keeping the story moving forward, all of it. I have followed the story intently, and I have yet to hear a strong rebuke, with evidence that his organization isn’t lying to him, from any media member or Lakers press representative. Kobe is controlling this thing like he controls so many games: with cunning, with power, and with a refined sense of performance far above his competitors.

That said, no way he gets traded. But it was worth a shot, right?