My Sportsman Choice: Kobe Bryant

By Franz Lidz

Nobody in sports made more headlines last year than Kobe Bryant. John W. McDonough/SI  Chris Stone: Red Sox Nation, you've earned this one  Paul Zimmerman: Boy Wonder brought Boston a title  B.J. Schecter: Red Sox captured Boston's heart  Richard Deitsch: The Babe had a big presence in '04  Rick Reilly: Big Papi did it all for the world champs  Jeffri Chadiha: A reward for reversing The Curse  Lisa Altobelli: Ramirez never took anything seriously  • Sportsman of the Year archive

Orson Welles once begged out of a party at Gore Vidal's house by saying: "I have an early call tomorrow. For a commercial. Dog food, I think it is this time. No, I do not eat from the can on camera but I celebrate the contents. Yes, I have fallen so low."

So let us now praise famous dog food -- namely Kobe Bryant, the Eukanuba of NBA shooting guards. I nominate Bryant for Sportsman of the Year in the grand tradition of Time, which has conferred its Man of the Year prize on the less-than-admirable likes of Adolf Hitler (1938), Josef Stalin ('39 and '42) and the Ayatollah Khomeini ('79).

Time's award (now called the Person of the Year) isn't supposed to be an honor, just a recognition of impact. And this year no sports world newsmaker had a greater impact than Bryant, who embodied many of the vices and few of the virtues of the modern elite athlete. Bryant staked his claim to Sportsmanhood last year by having a sexual encounter with a 19-year-old hotel concierge that he called consensual and she called rape. (The criminal charges were dropped over the summer because the accuser said she was too traumatized to go to trial, although the civil case is moving forward.)

Bryant's difficulties didn't stop there. In Phil Jackson's new book The Last Season: A Team In Search of Its Soul, Bryant is portrayed as a dour, petulant, coddled, lying, jealous whiner who even complained about the quality of the personal plane the Lakers helped bankroll so he could fly to and from his many Colorado court appearances. By driving away Jackson and refusing to be Shaquille O'Neal's sidekick, Bryant single-handedly broke up one of the great pro dynasties.

Be careful what you wish for, Kobe: You're now the No. 1 player on a second-rate team.

Sports Illustrated will announce the 2004 Sportsman of the Year winner on FOX on November 28. Check back every weekday until then to read more Sportsman picks from SI writers.