Everybody supposedly gets everything they deserve, and so, at last, did Kobe Bryant.
That's for better and worse. His excesses and mistakes were Pure Kobe, as was the disconnect with the press.
Nevertheless, you'd have to be some hard case to miss the fact he's one of the all-time greats, with a career arc and audacity that make him the high-wire act of all time — and he has been for years while being accused of tanking big games or pouting, as recently as the Thunder series in April.
Bryant's fifth title might not be his last, and it's one more than Shaquille O'Neal or Tim Duncan won in the decade.
Shaq is 38. Timmy's 34. Kobe is soon to be 32, on a Lakers team poised to challenge for more titles, assuming they recover from this one.
Andrew Bynum is set for knee surgery. We don't know how many operations Kobe will need for his knee, finger and other body parts we didn't know about.
Still, with successful procedures and the wisdom not to try to play seven months with a broken finger again, Bryant has years to stack ever greater accomplishments atop each other.
If you haven't heard, he and his five titles are now in the "conversation" with Michael Jordan, just one ahead of him at six.
Of course, this is according to Kobe Math:
Titles 1-3 from 2000 to 2002: Meant nothing, with Shaq getting the credit.
No. 4 in 2009: Hey, Kobe's back! Maybe he and LeBron James can meet next season.
No. 5: How could we ever have doubted you, Kobester?
It's actually just the latest of the Kobe-MJ comparisons, which go back to Bryant's teenage years. NBC hyped the 1999 All-Star game as a shootout between them with full-page newspaper ads of Mike and Kobe, then 19, towering over the New York skyline.
Now we're in the We-Really-Mean-It-This-Time phase.
When not hyping children, the press likes to update everyone's legacies, annually, even for 25-year-olds such as LeBron.
Said Lakers point guard Derek Fisher, who could be in the press if he lost about 100 IQ points: "The most interesting part about the conversation is that (Bryant) is not really close to being done. ... There will be a lot more to talk about there."
Here's what you can say: Whatever state Kobe's public relations are in, this isn't an act a basketball fan would want to miss.
If you combined MJ with Batman, you'd have Kobe.
Jordan was like Rembrandt to Bryant's Picasso and wouldn't have even thought of taking one of those fadeaway-jackknifing-hand-in-his-face-no-one-can-make-that-I-don't-believe-it shots Kobe knocks down regularly.
Of course, that's why Mike shot 49.7 percent for his career and Kobe's at 45.5 percent.
"Michael didn't take the same kind of shots Kobe does," said Doug Collins, who coached the young Jordan in Chicago. "You could put me out there all day with a bucket of balls, and I couldn't make those shots. For Kobe, it's 'What's the problem?'
"It's just Kobe's DNA. It's what makes him who he is. Kobe will shoot a three when a two will win it and make it."
Bryant is 12,597 points behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all-time scoring record — seven seasons worth at Kobe's current average.
That's farther than you'd project a mere mortal, but this is Kobe Bryant, whose dedication to conditioning is also unparalleled.
Of course, if they programmed in degree of difficulty, Kobe might already be at 50,000.
Whether the rest of Bryant's career will be as crazed as the first 14 seasons is only partly up to him, but it would be good to hold more than one human news conference a year.
Giddier than ever before after winning the title Thursday, he was genuine and likable, even while noting, "I lied to you guys" about the Celtics rivalry, the O'Neal rivalry and everything else we asked about for months.
Two days before on the same stage, Bryant couldn't even manage a snicker as talk-show host Vic Jacobs, in his trademark purple and yellow fur with matching cap, rolled into his routine.
The NBA didn't include it in the transcript, perhaps busy reviewing standards for press credentials, but with Vic's help, I reconstructed it:
"Vic Jacobs, AM 570 Fox Sports Radio! Confucius was a sage who had the will to become a scholar when he was 15 years old! According to the Buddhist maxim, 'First intention, then enlightenment,' Koab, do you sense this team's intention to go for the jugular in Game 7?"
Kobe sat with his chin in his hand, as if waiting for authorities to cart Vic away, saying something unintelligible, adding with a tiny grin, "That's as Confucius as I get."
Hey, this stuff is funny, and this ride only lasts so long.
Hopefully, we won't miss Kobe and he won't miss us.
Mark Heisler covers the NBA for the Los Angeles Times.