When the NBA restarted in the so-called “bubble” at Disney World after the Covid-19 stoppage, it seemed predestined that LeBron and Anthony Davis’s Lakers and George and Leonard’s Clippers would face off in the Western Conference Finals. But the Clippers couldn’t hold a 3-1 series lead over the Denver Nuggets, each loss more tragically improbable than the one before. The whole world was stuck at home during George’s lowest professional moment, gathering on NBA Twitter to gawk and to roast. Josiah Johnson, an NBA Twitter power user, tells me George took an unfair amount of the blame for the Clippers’ collapse. “But this is the internet; if you’re looking for respect on Twitter, good luck,” he says. Johnson’s dad Marques played in the NBA in the 80s, and Josiah knows it was a different world. “Back in those days—in the 80s, 90s, 2000s—I’m sure a lot of the stuff was still going on, but it was happening in barbershops. Now, NBA basketball and NBA Twitter is on a 24-hour cycle.” In today’s NBA, you never stop getting your hair cut.
George came of age during the Kobe years, and as an LA kid, he became obsessed with capturing the Mamba Mentality. “It always just came down to like, ‘What would Kobe do in this situation? How would Kobe respond? How would Kobe act?’” he says.
As a young player, George would try to embody the lunatic focus he’d learned from studying Kobe. He would dominate, but he wasn’t being true to himself. “Every time I touched the floor, it was a mentality that I was trying to chase. I don’t want to show no emotion, no friendship. I want to take out this dude,” he says. “But off the court, I’m not that guy. Off the court, I’m not an angry person. I don’t want to destroy you. I’m a friendly person. I’m a positive person. I’m a happy person off the court. And so, it was just always like a mind freak that that’s how I would approach a game when that wasn’t who I was.”
David West played with George during his Mamba stage. He remembers the way the young star would wear Kobes every night, molding his game after his idol. He loves George, whom he ranks with Chris Paul, Steph Curry, and Tim Duncan as the most attentive listeners and best learners he’s played with. But he knew the young superstar had to find his own leadership style to truly succeed. West watched from afar as George matured in Oklahoma and then with the Clippers. It’s impossible to have teammates follow you if you’re not being yourself, West tells me. Authenticity is essential in a leader. “When it’s not natural to you, that’s where his professionalism comes in,” West says. “He’s like, ‘Okay, I’m trying to mold myself in this image that isn’t me; let me figure out a way to find myself.’”
George has no trademark celebration; his current game does not lend itself to 30-second social media clips. He is forcefully self-assured—“I knew I was special, I knew I was different when I was in middle school,” he tells me—but has never mastered the art of braggadocio. He’s placid and introspective and, well, nice. It’s not necessarily what NBA fans want in a star. As West puts it: “If I turned on the game, and saw him flailing his arms and dancing, I’d be like, ‘Yo, he’s off.’ Because that’s not who he is.” And so the quiet second star of LA’s second team will have to let his game do the talking. “We know straight up when Paul is healthy, he can play with anybody in the league,” West says.
Joseph Bien-Kahn
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