In my weekly column — about the brutal 1-5 start of the Chicago Bulls and the chants by Bulls fans for “Ko-be!” — I ran off a brief list of physically overmatched guys who have impressed me in the tenacity with which they’ve approached individual battles with Kobe Bryant.

It reminded me of a column I did two years ago, ranking the best “Kobe Stoppers” in the NBA. With Bryant about to visit Bruce Bowen in San Antonio again, it’s interesting that even though he’s now up to age 36, Bowen has only improved his ranking (he’s No. 1 in my book now, with Ron Artest and Andrei Kirilenko having shown definite signs of slippage in intensity). Watch how Bowen anticipates Bryant’s timing on jump shots and gets in there to contest when far more athletic defenders get caught lying back.

We’ll see if Bowen has lost much to Father Time after another title and another offseason. Just Friday night, Bowen brilliantly put the clamps on Peja Stojakovic (one layup was his field-goal damage of the night, which was a little less than what he did to the Lakers four days prior) to show what he can do to a less well-rounded scorer.

Bowen is like a great cornerback. It’s not necessarily as fun for the average fan to watch him do a great job as it is to do a bad job. But there is greatness in what he’s doing, too.

Speaking of football — and remind me to tell you the story one day about when I covered the Dolphins for The Miami Herald and Zach Thomas and Larry Izzo asked me to bring in my list ranking my top 100 favorite movies — if you want to check out something different … I did an analytical piece on the San Diego Chargers’ narrow victory over Indianapolis this week for our SoCal Sports Now section.

Posted in: 2007-08 • Kobe Bryant |

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