Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

I’m not excited’: Why Kobe Bryant fans don’t like LeBron James

Lakers James Fans

Bridget Bennett / The New York Times

Los Angeles Lakers fans watch their team participate in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas July 8, 2018. A strange phenomenon is playing out in Lakerland, as hard-core Kobe Bryant fans — who are historically predisposed to disliking LeBron James — cope with the new and apparently uncomfortable reality that their nemesis is suddenly the face of the franchise.

The Los Angeles Lakers recently acquired a high-profile player, but many longtime fans have been arriving here for NBA Summer League paying homage to the past. They wear jerseys bearing the Nos. 8 and 24, which belonged to Kobe Bryant during his long and productive career and now hang from the rafters in Staples Center.

“He gave his heart for the love of the game,” said Nathan Andrews, 31, who works for the water department in Needles, California.

Andrews was wearing a gold No. 24 jersey and sounded downright wistful as he reminisced about Bryant’s former greatness. But what about the future? Andrews had to be excited, right? The Lakers are back, baby!

Andrews grimaced.

“I’m not a fan of LeBron,” he said.

A strange phenomenon is playing out within a subsection of Lakerland, as hard-core fans of Bryant — the so-called Mamba Army who are historically predisposed to disliking LeBron James for various reasons — cope with a new and apparently uncomfortable reality: James, their longtime nemesis, is suddenly the face of the franchise.

In interviews with about a dozen fans wearing Bryant jerseys at summer league in recent days, they expressed a mix of emotions about the team’s recent signing of James. Some were excited — the Lakers have been very bad at basketball for several seasons, and James is very good at it — but many more sounded confused and annoyed. James, the league’s most dominant force, still has much to prove.

“I don’t even know where to start,” said Stephanie Serrano, a 35-year-old fan from San Clemente, California. “He’s such a diva sometimes.”

Serrano, who counts herself as a Kobe acolyte and was wearing the throwback jersey to prove it, noted how Bryant had spent his entire 20-year career with the Lakers. James, on the other hand, has hopscotched from team to team, she said, chasing rings. She questioned his loyalty.

“Don’t get me wrong: He’s good,” she said as she pondered the seasons ahead. “Maybe I’ll feel differently once he wins a championship for the Lakers.”

To fans like Serrano, Bryant is one of the greatest Lakers ever — if not the greatest. He was an 18-time All-Star. He helped deliver five championships, including two without Shaquille O’Neal. He may have stumbled in the twilight of his career — he averaged 17.6 points while shooting a subterranean 35.8 percent from the field in his final season ahead of retirement in 2016 — but perhaps he was deserving of a gluttonous year on his way out. Or at least that was the view of Kobe stans — his most dedicated devotees, who, some may say, take their fandom too seriously.

“He was 100 percent pure Lakers,” said Matt Sheldon, a 37-year-old fan from Las Vegas. “The best basketball player I’ve ever seen.”

Sheldon, who works in sales, wore his No. 24 throwback to watch the Lakers at summer league on a recent evening. He got a little emotional when he talked about Bryant, referring to the “Mamba mentality” as if it were a guiding principle.

“The best,” he said.

As for the team’s most recent big-name acquisition? Sheldon made clear that his feelings toward James were more nuanced. He drew a sharp distinction between the James who played for the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Miami Heat — “He was a whiny baby,” he said — and the James who recently signed with the Lakers.

“You put up points in a Lakers uniform, you’re good with me,” Sheldon said. “And he’s going to put up a lot of points in a Lakers uniform.”

He added, “It doesn’t mean I need to hang out with him.”

Other hard-core, jersey-wearing fans of Bryant were not quite so ready to move on from the James of yore. Jeremy Gonzales, a 20-year-old student from Long Beach, California, rattled through a list of criticisms, including his allegation that James is a lazy defender. (James has been named to the league’s all-defensive team six times.)

“I also didn’t like that he didn’t want to shoot,” Gonzales said. “And now that he shoots, I still don’t like that he doesn’t have a post game.”

All that being said, Gonzales recalled the moment he received the news alert on his phone that James had agreed to join the Lakers.

“Oh,” he said, “I was hyped.”

Two fans who were decidedly not hyped by the signing were Janessa Yumul, 28, and Jessica Dawana, 29, longtime friends from Southern California who color coordinated their Bryant jerseys for summer league: Yumul in yellow, Dawana in white.

“Lake show for life!” said Dawana, who works in human resources technology.

Yumul and Dawana said they had revered Bryant since the start of his career, citing his toughness and competitive fire. They do not love James. Not yet, anyway.

“I never liked him,” said Yumul, an ultrasound technician who now lives in Las Vegas. “I always thought he seemed really cocky.”

“And dramatic,” Dawana said.

To illustrate what she described as the difference between the two players, Dawana recalled how Bryant once sank two free throws after tearing his Achilles tendon.

“Who does that?” she said. “Whereas with LeBron it’s like, ‘Ehhhhh!'”

As she said this, Dawana fell backward as if to suggest that James tumbles over in stiff breezes or suffers from fainting spells.

Dawana added that she was worried the addition of James would upset the development of an “up-and-coming team,” which finished last season with a 35-47 record. But Dawana said she would try her hardest to enter this new era, featuring the greatest player on the planet, with an open mind. After all, Bryant had given the move his blessing via Twitter.

“But I’m not excited about it,” she said.

Mychal Thompson, a former power forward who won two championships with the “Showtime"-era Lakers of the late 1980s, said he understood why so many fans still hold Bryant in such high regard.

“Oh, that’s easy, man: his passion, his competitiveness and his desire to win,” Thompson said in a telephone interview. “He gave fans every ounce he had. Kobe would never take a night off. And if you asked him if he wanted to rest, he would look at you like you’re crazy.”

Thompson was less understanding about the anti-LeBron sentiment in at least one corner of the Lakers fan base. That segment, Thompson said, seems to be afraid that James is supplanting Bryant on the list of all-time greats — assuming, of course, that he has not already. Many fans want to preserve Bryant’s legacy as much as possible.

Glenn Gagan, 25, who traveled to summer league from his home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, said he did not like James — right up until the minute he signed with the Lakers, and then everything changed. Gagan said he waited five hours at an outlet mall to buy a James jersey in purple and gold.

“I’m excited,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming for Lakers fans.”

A long time coming, perhaps, but rocky on the landing for Kobe fans who aren’t ready to let go of what was.

Gagan isn’t one of them.

While he proudly sported his new James jersey around summer league, he didn’t feel the need to wear his No. 24 underneath or have it clutched in his hands, though he kept it close. He had given that jersey away, to his girlfriend.