Love him or hate him, Kobe did things his way to the end

Frank Sinatra's "My Way" was released in 1969, so unless you grew up in an Italian household or frequenting Karaoke bars, it's fair to assume you haven't spent much time thinking about one of Ol' Blue Eyes' most famous ballads.

But if you're a basketball fan or at all familiar with the incomparable career of Kobe Bryant, and you ever happen to stumble upon Sinatra's famous track, it will surely conjure up memories of the Mamba.

Like any world-renowned athlete who has stuck around long enough and bridged generations, Bryant's career has seen its share of ups and downs. He's been a prodigy, a champion, a hero, a fallen star, a villain, and for his final act, an appreciated legend on a whirlwind retirement tour.

Along the way, he amassed perhaps the most loyal and rabid band of supporters of any individual athlete on the planet. Most sound basketball minds would agree that Bryant likely slots in somewhere between the 10th-15th best players to ever grace a basketball court, and that his sometimes selfish play was detrimental to the Lakers at his worst.

Bryant diehards won't hear it, as anyone who has engaged in an online discussion with them can surely attest. Bring up his poor shooting percentages in crunch time, and they'll tell you all that matters are the countless times it was his hands guiding the game's biggest shots through the basket. Tell them you think he's an all-time legend, just not quite one of the 5-to-10 greatest players ever, and they'll tell you to count the rings.

None of this is meant to discredit Bryant's prolific resume or to poke fun at his loyal following. In fact, as Bryant steps away from the game for good, it's almost become admirable to consider how passionate a response Bryant ignited in his fans.

But what was it about Bryant that made him the type of polarizing antihero these people so fervently defended while others sought to discredit?

"I think it's that I played with a chip on my shoulder, man," Bryant said when asked that very question earlier this season in Toronto.

Fair enough, but plenty of stars have played with the same proverbial chip.

"I didn't care who was out there in front of me," Bryant added.

"My job was to try to make your night absolutely miserable. Honestly, man, I came out there to destroy you," Bryant said sternly, almost as if he sensed the media gathering didn't quite understand the sincerity of his thirst for on-court blood.

"'But I found comfort in that," Bryant said of fans and opponents not finding him likable. "It's not so much the fact that people didn't like it, it's the fact that I liked the fact that they didn't like it, you know what I mean?"

Therein lies the truth.

While many in the spotlight clamor for public approval, often creating a falsified version of themselves for the cameras and microphones, you get the feeling that Bryant legitimately didn't care. If anything, he preferred we hated him.

There's certainly criticism to dole out in the sense that Bryant refused to adapt to a lesser role when his body could no longer sustain the weight of a primary one, but that same hardheadedness is what saw so many flock towards him, as if his followers grew more stubborn in their support with every ill-advised jumper that left his hands.

Everything about Bryant's career - from his successes, to his failures, to his highly publicized feuds, and perhaps even his landing with his favorite team in a draft-day trade - was about him doing things his way. No exceptions.

And not his opponents, his teammates, Phil Jackson, a ruptured Achilles, or knee and shoulder injuries could stop him.

Those injuries and the irreversible effects of aging - particularly after 57,000 minutes on an NBA court - slowed Bryant down, and often made the results of his stubborn approach unwatchable.

But as he fired away one final time on Wednesday night in Los Angeles, pouring in an improbable 60 points on an unfathomable 50 shots to lead another fourth-quarter comeback, one thing became certain. Not even the undefeated Father Time could stop Kobe Bryant from doing things - and going out - his way.