Old Kobe: Three Rings; New Kobe: 81 Points

Last night Kobe Bryant scored 81 points to lead the Los Angeles Lakers to a 122-104 win over the Toronto Raptors. Only Wilt Chamberlain - with 100 points against the Knicks in 1962 - has scored more points in an NBA game. An absolutely incredible individual achievement ... by an incredibly selfish individual.

The official attendance for the game read 18,997, but it may as well have included all of Kobe's Lakers teammates since they're not given much to do these days but stand around and watch Kobe execute one-on-one moves against overmatched defenders.

Kobe has apparently gotten exactly what he wanted. No longer does he have to suffer the indignity of sharing the spotlight with Shaquille O'Neal as the Lakers win NBA titles. No longer does Kobe have to watch helplessly as mere mortals like Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady win scoring titles. Now Kobe is Showtime and can win all the scoring titles and possibly even break all the scoring records ... but he's made a conscious trade-off: Personal glory over team success.

You always hear players saying they want to play alongside with Jason Kidd ... or how Steve Nash makes everyone around him better. You never hear anyone saying those things about Kobe Bryant ... and you probably never will.

For years, Kobe Bryant seemed intent on following in the footsteps of Michael Jordan. Numerous players have been prematurely dubbed as heir apparents, but only Bryant comes remotely close to combining Jordan's physical gifts and his killer instinct. Kobe's career does have some parallels to Jordan's ... only Kobe is doing Jordan in reverse.

Jordan started out as an unstoppable one-man show. He almost single-handedly carried the Chicago Bulls to post-season success. The key word being almost. It wasn't until Jordan began trusting his teammates and making them better that he was able to win the NBA title that had eluded him while he attempted to do it all by himself. Once Jordan finally figured out what it took to win an NBA title he wanted to keep doing it ... and he did -- five more times.

Kobe had the good fortune of joining a 53-win team as a rookie and having Shaq, the game's most dominant player, as a teammate. Jordan joined a 27-win Chicago team and had the trio of Steve Johnson, Dave Corzine and Jawann Oldham manning the middle during his rookie campaign.

Jordan didn't win his first NBA title until his seventh season ... at the age of 28. Kobe Bryant won his first title at 21 and now - in his 10th season - is still only 27! Perhaps it all came too easy to Bryant ... or maybe it was just a case of too much too soon. Whatever it was, something changed ... and not for the better.

It was no longer good enough just to win titles ... Kobe needed to be alone in the spotlight. Well, guess what? He got what he wanted.

Kobe Bryant can set all the scoring records he wants, but if he's unwilling to share the spotlight (not to mention the basketball), he's unlikely to ever win another NBA title. And if he never wins another NBA title, Bryant's legacy appears headed towards that of a selfish scoring machine. Baseball fans care about statistics and remember them long after a player has retired. In basketball, it's all about the rings.

Nobody remembers - or really even cares about - the stats put up by Bill Russell or Larry Bird or Magic Johnson or Isiah Thomas or Michael Jordan. Everyone just remembers them as winners. Patrick Ewing, Dominique Wilkins, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton and Reggie Miller were all great players ... but every hoops fan knows they won a total of zero rings between them.

Bryant's three rings can never be taken away from him so he can never belong to the ringless fraternity. However, it no longer looks like he's destined to be mentioned in the same breath as Michael Jordan and the other great "winners" either. Wilt Chamberlain or Bob McAdoo are better comparables ... but even Chamberlain and McAdoo won their scoring titles early in their careers and only later learned to accept playing contributing roles on championship teams. Bryant is going in the opposite direction. He's got the NBA titles ... now he wants the scoring titles ... and history will remember him accordingly.