April 14, 2016: The day after Kobe did Kobe things for the last time

It’s 1:09 AM . . .

It’s 1:09 AM and I wasn’t supposed to write this. But sometimes sports happen.

It’s 1:09 AM and I’m writing about a player I -- while admiring his work -- never once rooted for, while the sounds of him speaking fill my otherwise quiet room.

I, like a good percentage of people, spend a good portion of time thinking about sports. I don’t know about you, but I like to think about sports from a macro level. What draws people to sports? What drives fans to live up to their fanatic namesake? How do we deal with moral conundrums like concussions, drugs, arrests and suspension, paying college athletes and hockey fights? What if my favorite player is a bad person? How can I root for my team?

All of those issues and all the discussions they drive are born of a swath of opinions freely shared at varying decibel levels. Said less pretentiously, they are points of debate. Embrace debate. An unseemly amount of sports content is created through debate, discussion and disagreement. It’s a huge part of our sports consumption, while having nothing to do with why we fell in love with sports.

We didn’t start watching sports to make good points. We didn’t watch sports to guide our moral compass. And we certainly didn’t watch sports to be well informed. We fell in love with sports because they made us scream, and cry, and laugh, and cheer, and stand up, and look away, and hug our dads, and brag to our friends. We watched sports for the moments; moments that couldn’t otherwise be believed if we hadn’t just seen it in front of our very own eyes. We fell in love with sports because it made us believe anything was possible.

We fell in love with sports because Kobe Bryant scored 60 in his final game ever, while on two bad knees, hoisting 50 shots and leading a comeback victory, stealing the night from the Golden State Warriors and their record-setting 73rd win. Never before has such an esteemed record been legitimately broken to less fanfare.  Never before has such an insignificant win made sports feel so alive; like anything was possible. Never before has 24 been far greater than 73.

It’s 1:29 AM and I wasn’t supposed to write this. But sometimes history happens.

Thanks, Kobe.

Headlines

• Warriors eclipse Bulls’ record, Curry hits 400th 3
• Kobe says goodbye the only way he knows how
• Lighting take early series lead
• Penguins jump all over Rangers
• St. Louis takes game one in OT

Best of the Rest

So, Twitter picked a bad time to go down

Steph is not real

Go Rockets

Here’s just a bunch of Kobe stuff

Then he dropped the mic. For real, like actually did it (this is a vine. Click it).

Stat of the Day

Kobe Bryant took 50 shots in his final game. No player has taken 50 shots in a game in the Basketball Reference era (1983-present). It was also the tenth time he took 40+ shots in a game . . . the most all time. Michael Jordan is second with four.

Did Tim Tebow retire?

No, he’s just a free agent, and remains one at this time.

Cheap and easy scoreboards

NBA Scoreboard

We’ve already covered all the stuff that matters, but here’s a link anyway.

NHL Scoreboard

MLB Scoreboard

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