Kobe Bryant loved basketball. That’s an obvious statement.
It’s cliché to say that about any professional basketball player. It’s really difficult to get to the level of being in the NBA without loving the craft of what you do. Kobe Bryant was obsessed with that craft. It cost him friendships he didn’t have time to nurture. It often left him isolated in a sport that lauds the importance of team play. Kobe was just the guy who wanted it more than just about everybody. I’m not talking about just about every single one of his peers; I mean he wanted it more than just about everybody in the history of the game.
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He embodied the audacity of wanting to be historically significant. Think about the raw idea of wanting to be the greatest of all time at something. When it comes to basketball, the standard set before him was as much mythical as it was tangible. We saw the records of Michael Jordan still being shaped in historical excellence and eliteness as the 18-year old Bryant entered the NBA. He saw what MJ was doing and thought to himself, I can do that better.
You have to lovingly obsess over what you do to think such a brash, almost narcissistic goal is attainable. That’s what made Kobe the player he ended up becoming. He never quite matched Jordan in really anything, although the similarities are there. Even if we accept the idea that he became roughly 80 percent of what Jordan established as the standard for basketball excellence, that is an absurd thing to wrap your head around. That is something maybe a handful of people in NBA history could even approach.
Kobe tried to do that because of how much he loved the game. But that love didn’t just exist within his own career. It extended to every aspect of basketball. He loved the game that came before him. He loved the game that he played in. He loved the game that came after his career. Extend that love to women’s basketball and he was right there. Nancy Lieberman, a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame since 1996, tells a story of Kobe fresh off a championship, pulling her aside one day to pick her brain on her approach on the court. He could be seen at WNBA games and college contests. Obviously, that admiration and dedication extended to girls basketball, especially revolving around his daughter Gianna’s team.
Bryant would speak glowingly about the NBA’s foundation setters. Clearly, Jordan was his idol. But he grew up in professional basketball, thanks to his dad. He took whatever he could from any player he ever saw and credited them with inspiring him. His admiration and the way he talked about Jordan had a reverence with more depth than most could imagine or muster.
In an interview with Shaquille O’Neal back in 2018, Kobe talked about Jordan taking him under his wing and what it meant to him. How it affected him. How it shaped his intention to do the same thing for the next generation of NBA players. That tutelage was something Kobe decided he needed to carry on for the next generation.
Much in the way Hakeem Olajuwon became the footwork guru for NBA players (Kobe attended plenty of classes from The Dream too), Bryant took to teaching players off the court. You could work out with him and learn some tricks of the trade. You could see the work ethic it took to achieve historical greatness. Players could learn just how much of their stellar work ethic and skill-honing just simply wasn’t good enough if they wanted the history of the game to include their names in it.
When Kobe joined Team USA in the 2008 Olympics, players like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade saw the intensity and persistence it took to get where they wanted to go. He would impart his wisdom on you, but you needed to prove worthy of such secrets of the trade. He was willing to work out with anybody, but to truly dig into his greatness required a level of dedication proven to be unshakeable.
Kobe talked to Shaq in that interview about watching O’Neal bully players in practice and on the court. Not in the sense of being strong against players. It wasn’t bully ball. It was actual bullying. He got in everybody’s face. He punked them. Shaq tested every single player and big man to see what they were made of and it was something Kobe also took with him. You had to prove worthy of being a teammate he could trust in the trenches, even if he was still going to rely on himself to win games.
Some look at that as foolish, and it might be. But it also weeds out the players you don’t believe will help you achieve the ultimate goals. Those goals were championships. Kobe wanted eight of them. He wound up with five. But he wanted the eight to surpass Jordan’s legacy. Yes, Mike won six of them, but just barely one-upping him wasn’t going to suffice.
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As for studying the game, Kobe took as much from the present as he did from the past. I remember seeing Kobe appear on “Inside the NBA” in the mid-2000s during the playoffs, after his Lakers had been eliminated. The TNT crew was covering a San Antonio Spurs game, and during halftime Kobe did what many of us do. He was geeking out over the basketball minutiae. They were showing Manu Ginobili highlights from the game, and Kobe kept trying to show how the unorthodox style of Ginobili’s attack was making life so difficult for the opposing defense. He talked about it like he was watching one of his idols, but Kobe was born roughly a year after Ginobili.
Kobe showed his love for his peers like Tracy McGrady in this side-by-side interview with Rachel Nichols.
When it came to the current and future generations, Bryant tossed around as many compliments as he did jump shots. He spoke reverently about the calmness of Steph Curry four years ago in a conversation with Michael Wilbon on ESPN.
“I see a calmness about him,” Bryant said. “I think it’s something that not a lot of players understand. So I think it’s hard for the fans to understand what I’m saying because most players don’t get it. There’s a serious calmness about him, which is extremely deadly because he’s not up, he’s not down. He’s not contemplating what just happened before or worried about what’s to come next. He’s just there.
“And when a player has the skills and has trained himself to have the skills to be able to juke, shoot, dribble left, right, etc., and then you mix that with this calmness and poise, then you have a serious, serious problem on your hands. When I watch him play, that’s what I see.”
Kobe appreciated Curry, which is not something many of Curry’s peers have often done.
When Bryant gave out challenges on social media back in 2017, he challenged Giannis Antetokounmpo to be the league’s MVP. Two years later, Giannis took home the MVP hardware. To which Kobe congratulated him by saying the next thing up was a championship. Antetokounmpo worked out with Kobe in the 2018 offseason, the summer before his MVP campaign. Watching him talk about the experience shows the inspiration Kobe gave to young players.
Kobe’s work as an analyst through “Detail” on ESPN showed admiration for everything that was coming after his career. He dared to push Kevin Durant to be an even deadlier weapon than he already is. He marveled at Kevin Love reading defenses. Bryant showed that even the first summer league action from Trae Young in 2019 could lead to a special presence on the floor that left defenses picking their poison and always picking wrong.
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Kobe loved basketball. He loved the game before him. He loved the game he existed in. And he loved the game that he helped lay the foundation down for in the future. Too often today, former players talk with disgust about today’s game because it doesn’t really resemble the game they knew and played. It changes, just like it changed by the time they came into the league. You don’t have to prop up a product you don’t enjoy, but constantly tearing down the current and future NBA also seems disingenuous at the same time.
To me, Kobe’s career was saturated in insecurity. That may sound like a negative, but it was a positive. He was insecure about his placement in the hallowed courts of the league’s history. Constantly chasing Jordan will do that to you. You can’t help but feel like you haven’t done enough and you have to do more. It wasn’t a lack of confidence but a lack of protection over his own legacy that he was establishing. And his standards for his own legacy were always going to surpass those standards others imposed on him.
Once he was retired though, and his journey in the NBA was over, Kobe approached everything dealing with basketball with a poise and a sense of security that showed he was at peace with what he had done. He couldn’t have given more to the game. It was impossible. Hell, even when he ruptured his Achilles’ tendon, he asked the Lakers trainer if they could tape it up for him to finish the game. That was with full knowledge it had rolled up to his knee.
Retirement Kobe didn’t need to poke needles at today’s product. He no longer felt insecurity with his basketball legacy. What’s done was done, and he took the sadly rarely taken route of promoting the game instead of tearing it down. It’s something far too many greats of the game’s history choose not to do. Kobe didn’t need to show you how much he mattered. He was secure in that. He wanted to show you how much today’s game matters and will matter to future generations. I appreciated that about Kobe’s post retirement existence as much as, if not more than his illustrious accomplishments on the court. Because it was a reminder of why we are all here doing what we do: we love basketball and geek out on it daily.
The writing process isn’t supposed to be selfish. Writers aren’t supposed to make the story about themselves.
When the tragic passing of a giant in our field of work hits us so unexpectedly, it’s really difficult not to think about how it affects you in addition to those who lost loved ones. The passing of Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna, and seven other people on Sunday doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t appear to have any greater meaning. It’s a reminder to cherish those we have with us in the moment and moving forward.
Loss often brings about confusion. We’re wondering why it happened. What could have prevented it? What more could there have been? What did the future hold for all of those victims and their families and the future generations they could have affected? I’m left confused, saddened, and gutted by Sunday’s tragedy. Like millions, I’m left with tears in my eyes and pain in my heart. I’m left with a longing to let those closest to me know that I love and appreciate them. I’m also left marveling at the love of basketball Kobe possessed. I miss that outpouring love of the game from him, and hope millions of basketball fans continue to find a way to let that love keep building.
Rest in peace.
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(Top photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images)
Zach Harper is a staff writer for The Athletic, covering the NBA. Zach joined The Athletic after covering the NBA for ESPN.com, CBS Sports and FRS Sports since 2009. He also hosts radio for SiriusXM NBA and SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio. Follow Zach on Twitter @talkhoops
