No doubt Kobe now a certified NBA star

By Al S. Mendoza

YOU have patience, you will succeed.

You sacrifice good time, happiness is within an arm’s reach.

You believe in yourself, there ain’t no mountain high.

Those are lessons learned from the just-ended NBA Finals won by the Lakers over the Magic, 4-1.

Kobe Bryant authored them all.

Patience.

Sacrifice.

Self-belief.

You will never find another basketball animal on this planet so determined as to buck all odds to pierce that elusive dream.

There is no basketball story in recent memory as touching as the drama of the ongoing Kobe Bryant saga.

What he did almost equaled Obamism, that almost unique, if not weird, art that made Barack produce the eighth wonder of the world with a stunningly sensational victory in the last US presidential election.

Nobody has done it better than Kobe Bryant.

Go, ask even Stan Van Gundy, the losing Orlando coach.

“He is on a different time zone,” Van Gundy said of Kobe Bryant. “What he has done, been doing, is quite on a totally different level.”

Who said will power is a dead virtue?

Come, watch what a true specimen of virtuosity look like.

Almost consigned to oblivion after seeing himself orphaned as a result of his break-up with Shaquille O’Neal in 2004, Kobe Bryant struggled and persevered to get into the groove of things once again.

Isn’t it sweeter the second time around?

“I came to the mountain twice,” Kobe Bryant said when the Lakers reached the 2009 NBA Finals. “I wouldn’t let the second climb go to waste.”

Scoring 40 points in Game 1, Kobe Bryant set the tone of the 2009 NBA Finals.

In the next four games, he scored no lower than 20 points per game.

After producing 32 points in the title-clinching Game 5 Lakers victory, and ending up averaging 30 points per game, Kobe Bryant became the hands-down winner of the Finals MVP.

The Lakers’ victory redeemed Los Angeles’ 6-game loss to Boston in 2008 in which Kobe & Co. were blown away by a 39-point Celtics victory in Game 6.

Kobe Bryant’s comeback wasn’t easy.

Thrice the NBA champ together with Shaq in the Laker camp in 2000, 2001 and 2002, Kobe Bryant next languished in near-obscurity in the next five years or so. He endured the cruel taunt of “not being able to win an NBA crown without Shaq by his side.”

Meanwhile, Shaq won his fourth NBA crown in 2005 with the Miami Heat.

And Kobe Bryant saw Phil Jackson leave as the Lakers coach in 2004, triggering his slide to oblivion.

Then, a ray of hope appeared when Jackson returned two years later on a five-year, $10 million-a-year coaching package.

With their reconciliation, Jackson, the Zen of coaching, and Bryant, from ball-hog to big brother, would rebuild the Lakers dynasty.

Derek Fisher, an original Laker, would soon be shipped back from Utah. And then Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, Trevor Ariza and Big Bynum were added to the team.

The rest, as we love to say, is history.

With their recent victory, Jackson now owns 10 coaching titles, an NBA record, surpassing the late, great Red Auerbach of the Boston Celtics.

And with the Lakers’ 15th NBA title, Los Angeles is now just two crowns shy of the record 17 owned by the Celtics.

There’s almost no doubt that Jackson will go for the Boston record, his contract with the Lakers still being very much intact.

Kobe Bryant, too, I believe. He’s also two NBA championship rings short of Michael Jordan’s six.

And, considering that Kobe’s knees of 30 years haven’t shown any creaky tweak or something after all these years, opposition beware.

The Chief Laker had just gotten his second wind.

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