O'Donnell: TNT 'wake,' fresh Super Bowl helping America mourn Kobe

SPORTS MASS AMERICA has never needed a fresher, more distracting Super Bowl than it does this week.

And Sports Mass America has seldom needed a very public video wake as much as it did Tuesday night on TNT.

With disbelieving sadness still enveloping the air, Shaquille O'Neal, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Dwyane Wade anchored three wraparound segments of tribute to the late Kobe Bryant.

The total content of approximately 140 minutes could not fail to move.

That included an hour live before a Boston-Miami game from southeast Florida, close to 20 minutes at the half and a concluding 60 minutes following the game.

All was done on high stools at center court of a barren Staples Center, an arena that was to have hosted a highly anticipated midseason match between the Lakers and the Clippers.

With a scheduled tip less than 60 hours after Bryant, 13-year-old daughter Gigi and seven others perished in a helicopter accident, the game was postponed.

Instead, on TNT, the empty seats and the silence between the words served only as mute accents to so much of the organic emotion laid bare.

The TV memorial slowly gained traction and was much more genuine than perfect.

https://twitter.com/NBAonTNT/status/1222314192138428416

Contributor> included Jerry West and Reggie Miller before the game, Candace Parker and Steve Nash at the half and Derek Fisher and Rick Fox in the concluding segment.

All were enhancing. All were speaking so straight from the heart.

And all gave viewers so profound and rare a view of the bonds inside a professional athletic association that in truth, at its best, is simply a nomadic group of dedicated artists and sky walking cowboys.

West - the myth, the man, the executive who traded for rights to 17-year-old Bryant for LAL on Draft Night 1996 - fought for words.

"He was like a son," said West, now 81 and long the model for the silhouetted player who has served as the NBA's primary logo since 1980.

"He basically lived with me for his first two years in (Los Angeles). My son Ryan, who worked for the Lakers, was his first best friend out here and drove him around."

West is also on the fringe of a different sort of emotional tidal wave.

In the days since the tragedy, a petition drive has gained close to three million signatures to have West's NBA silhouette replaced by that of Bryant.

Ironically, more than five years ago, West himself publicly stated that a new figure was due and in his opinion, it should be Michael Jordan.

So even from "the other side," the competitiveness of Kobe Bryant remains center air.

"We are all in the middle of a 'shake' moment," said Miller, the wonderfully insightful Naismith Hall of Famer.

"We're all shaken, just like you, and the emotions and those tears are all real."

No one who viewed the TNT effort could possibly question that.

And, for whatever reason, from the intelligence that calls the shots behind the universe, the NBA's new normal was given a very public opportunity to take hold.

STREET-BEATIN': With challenging days ahead, the NBA placates its scheduled side Thursday when the NBA All-Star reserves are named (TNT, 6 p.m.). Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler have solid shots; Zach LaVine gets in only if the influence of Jerry Reinsdorf and LaVine's standing as "the new mill's Reggie Theus" matter. ...

Good fortune continues to circle the No. 19 Fighting Illini men. They host Minnesota Thursday and if Brad Underwood's hoop hopers stay hot, "home court" Kofi Cockburn shows up. (6:30 p.m.; FS1, Jeff Levering, Steve Bardo; AM-890, Brian Barnhart, Deon Thomas). ...

Eastern Illinois will have even more than Tony Romo, Jimmy Garoppolo and Mike Shanahan - father of SF coach Kyle Shanahan - going for it at Super Bowl 54. Tom Brewer - Romo's CBS-paid spotter and editorial assistant - is an old dorm chum from EIU. ...

Four decades of Kansas City Chiefs radio play-by-play men: Wayne Larrivee (1978-84), Kevin Harlan (1985-1993) and Mitch Holthus (1994-now). Holthus will call SB 54 back to KC, Harlan will handle the national radio p-b-p for Westwood One and Larrivee almost made it to Miami with the Packers. ...

CBS picks up the final two rounds of the "colorful" Waste Management Phoenix Open - where the scores are as low as the tank tops - Saturday and Sunday (2-5 p.m.) Forget about Rickie Fowler and Hideki Matsuyama; winning tri box could be Webb Simpson, Gary Woodland and bomber Mark Hubbard. ...

And Jimmie Ward, the Forty-Niners safety who worked his way from Northern Illinois to Super Bowl 54, on who his team really is, deadpanned: "We're really nobody. ... Nobody until we earn it."

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.