Any Finals series brings about all kinds of talk regarding legacies.  Who will redeem themselves?  Who will be the victim of history’s indiscriminate blade, capable of cutting down All-Time Greats into all-time chokers?  The league’s biggest stage and its brightest lights encourage us to debate the who’s who of the NBA, both in regard to the current landscape and the shape of things past.

For a variety of reasons, using this framework to discuss (and by discuss I generally mean yell, scream, fight, argue, impale, etc.) Kobe Bryant is especially appealing to us.  Love him or hate him, yada yada yada.  He’s just a polarizing dude.  If Jordan’s proper place is on a pedestal and LeBron’s is on a throne, then Kobe feels most natural on a barstool.  Not that Bryant perfectly epitomizes the common man, but he has managed to work his way into the league’s highest position of interest.  Not rocket science, I know.  But Kobe’s status as a player of intrigue is a bit pertinent these days in determining where he stands in the context of league history.

If Kobe wins the title, it’s not so much an affirmation of Kobe’s trials as it is a fitting climax.  Even subsequent championships would lack the same luster, the long awaited sigh of relief.  The remainder of Kobe’s career would be the falling action, afterthoughts to resolve the loose ends of a dream fulfilled.  Roll credits, end scene, fin.  The real, emotionally satisfying end will already have been achieved, and all we’ll be treated to is the last five minutes of Return of the King all over again: a series of natural conclusions that only serve to nullify the impacts of the true climax and ending.

On the other hand, if Kobe falls short, the rise lives on.  The tension builds and builds until Kobe wins by his own power or retires, but our interest in Kobe’s narrative lives on.  Considering LeBron is merely strolling along his predetermined course for greatness, the NBA and its fans need Kobe’s tale of tragedy and redemption to live, lest it give way to the air of inevitability surrounding the league’s fortunate son.  How sick is that?  Even when Kobe’s dream lives on, LeBron finds a way to fit into the conversation from his couch at home.  LeBron’s style is a welcome counter to Kobe’s, just as Kobe’s narrative is a welcome counter to LeBron’s.  We need the tension that Kobe brings because we despise the neat and tidy, and though we claim to value greatness and closure, we lust for loose ends.  Loose ends that bring instand satisfaction and disappointment the moment they are resolved.  LeBron, on his current course, will never be able to give us that.

As observers with no stake in either team (other than everyone generally loving the underdog Magic and thinking Kobe is capable of being a douche), should we want Kobe’s journey to take him toward a sudden but concrete conclusion?  Or to have his entire legacy (whatever that word has come to mean) hang in the balance as time ticks by?  I, for one, am not quite ready to say goodbye to our current story arc.  There’s a time for that finale, and I can only hope that 2009 isn’t it.