For Kobe Bryant, turning 30 (twice) caps a roller-coaster year
MARK HEISLER / ON OLYMPIC BASKETBALL
An Olympic gold medal would be the perfect present for the Lakers star, who went from estrangement early in the season to an MVP award and the NBA Finals.
BEIJING — Now thisthis is a birthday party.
On top of the little get-together the world is having and finding himself the toast of the town . . . or Asia . . . Kobe Bryant turns 30 Saturday, the day before the Olympic men's basketball final.
Guess what he wants for his birthday.
In the Year of the Kobe, there's more. He has his choice of birthdays.
Bryant will turn 30 here after tonight's game against Argentina when the clock strikes 12 and it becomes Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008.
Of course, in Philadelphia, where he was born, it will still be noon on Friday, Aug. 22, so there he will still just be 29 years and 364 days old.
"That's kind of weird," Bryant said at practice Thursday. "I hadn't thought about that."
Which one does he plan to celebrate?
"Two parties," he said. "Two gifts, everything."
Actually, he can celebrate here at midnight . . . and noon Saturday when it becomes Aug. 23 in Philadelphia . . . and 3 p.m. when it becomes Aug. 23 in Los Angeles . . . not to mention at the party the U.S. team hopes to throw Sunday afternoon if it wins its first Olympic gold medal in eight years.
His blessings don't merely runneth over, they multiplieth exponentially.
In the Year of the Kobe, he could also find himself chained to a downtrodden Lakers team, blast the organization, try to get himself traded and find himself in the NBA Finals with his first MVP award as a member of . . . the Lakers?
I'll have whatever he's having, and make it a double.
Appropriately enough, turning 30 is time for reflection when one stops saying, "Don't trust anyone over 30," and goes, "I'm 30? How did that happen?"
Bryant says he's happy about it, noting, "I'm turning 30 twice!"
"I enjoy it, actually," he said. "The 30s are where you start hitting your stride, really, start hitting your prime.
"Right now, physically, I'm as healthy as I've been in years, so the physical part of the game is back to where it used to be. The mental part of the game is there, so it feels great."
In his case, turning 30 marks the end of a year in which everything that had gone so spectacularly wrong suddenly turned around.
When he turned 29, he was coming off three disappointing seasons. Worse, for someone who grew up thinking he had a "destiny," as opposed to a career path, he had no control over anything.
