One distinction to be drawn between the two men’s respective devotions to James Naismith’s venerable creation—this sport whose popularity rises by the year in spite of its preeminent pro league’s crass handling of the very public discord between Labor and Management led to an abridged 2011-12 season just last fall; this sport that demands such a melange of kinesthetic prowess for a player to truly thrive[5] that many athletes who’ve found some success in other sports are at first stunned by the gradient of baskeball’s learning curve—being Kobe’s manifest obsession with Winning the game, each game, all games, vs. LeBron’s seeming love of or affection for just playing.[6]

Which is to say neither that a) Kobe doesn’t on some profound level enjoy the sport he’s spent his life trying to be the best who ever played, or b) James has no desire to win: both claims would lazily, ludicrously, overstate the case, but it is true that Kobe seems a bit more present when he’s ripping opposing teams and fan bases’ collective cardiovascular center through sternum in “the crunch” than when he’s playing an efficient-but-essentially-clock-punching first quarter, shaking his head and muttering invective when teammates fail to make a for-him easy play; likewise LeBron seems more at ease during those surges of shocking greatness that seem almost inexplicably to incandesce for several minutes of transcendence but still leave the final score anybody's guess.