Originally posted by LA9erFan:Originally posted by dobophile:
What a jerk.
LOL. I was wondering what the reaction to him would be from people for that. I'd guess that overall they'd eat it up simply because he's MJ.
I know this might be hard for people to believe, but MJ is everything I like about sports. He was born with insane God-given abilities and milked every last ounce out of them. I have tremendous respect for people who do that in or out of sports. He was also as competitive as they come, and wanted to rip his opponent's hearts out. That's all I really care about when watching sports. I want to watch world class athletes battle to the proverbial death while getting the most out of their abilities. He was all of that. I don't give a rat's ass if he's a swell guy off of the court, or if he cheats on his wife, or gambles, or any of that. The whole Mike Vick/Terrell Owens/Plaxico Burress soap opera crap is completely uninteresting to me, although it's everywhere.
My irritation about him has always been because of people's reaction to him, and making him out to be something that he wasn't on or off the court. He's on the beneficial side of a double standard.
This is exactly why I hate when people demean Kobe for all that off the court crap. He's a bad ass plain and simple. If you don't have a desire to see the best person at what he does and keep that in perspective I don't know what to say. I don't have kids yet, but I could care less what a player does off the court. Kobe a womanizer, Jordan a womanizer, Jerry Rice a womanizer, Tyson an animal.......who cares??? They were all at the top of what they did.