In Remembrance of “The Mamba”

In many ways, Kobe Bryant was a man defined by two legacies. The legacy of the great player before him in Michael Jordan and the great player that followed him, LeBron James.

That is the natural tendency in sports: to compare accomplishments to each other, to rank whether one player was better than the other.  While Kobe’s on court legacy definitely stands tall to both Jordan and James, to do so seems to minimize him. Kobe, in many ways, was beyond comparison.

Growing up, I was an intensely deep fan of his “Airness”, Jordan.  I had a cut out in my room and every time I’d be at the basketball court alone, I would pretend that, in my mind, I was Jordan’s teammates on those legendary Chicago Bulls teams.  “Jordan…pulls the defence in, kicks it out to the rookie point guard, Thomas for three!!” would be imagined in my head as I sank the shot (If I missed, you better believe I re-ran the scenario again in my head).  I wanted to be like Mike.

So when this young upstart shooting guard, coming straight out of high school from Philadelphia, started making waves in the league, I immediately took a disdain for him.  “Who in the world is Kobe Bryant?!” The comparisons to my hero, Jordan, infuriated me. His bravado rubbed me the wrong way. Why was this young upstart getting these comparisons when nobody could compare themselves to the great one? 

Kobe didn’t help endearing himself to me by winning three championships early in his career with one of my other most reviled players, Shaq. My disdain at the time blinded me from the truth: this guy was THAT good. His jump shot was better than Jordan.  He had the ability to drive to the basket as well as Jordan. His will, the thing that Michael was known for, was matched in Kobe.

When that early 2000s Lakers team dissolved, I was overjoyed.  I thought to myself, Kobe’s legacy would never match my hero’s. I was wrong. His journey with those terrible Lakers teams that followed and then finally, his title winning resurgence with Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, culminating in their win over their hated Celtics rivals in 2010, showed me and the rest of the world that Kobe was without a doubt one of the most incredible basketball players to ever stop foot on a basketball court.  To reach greatness early, fall from grace, only to claw your way back to the top was a hero’s journey and Kobe’s career lived it.

Photo: Getty Images

As the Golden State Warriors and the LeBron James era began taking over the NBA following the Lakers title in 2010, I realized that the dislike that I began Kobe’s career with, had burned away.  I had developed …a begrudging respect for Kobe.

Say what you wan’t about the man, there was nobody who was more focused and hardworking as a player than Bryant. He was a man who was handed everything from birth: He was the son of the great “Jellybean” Joe Bryant who came from a privileged life who never apologized for his advantages in life but he never took them for granted. 

As we read the eulogies about Bryant’s career in the upcoming days, you will see them peppered with stories of Kobe showing up hours early for shootarounds before practice, or staying late to work on his shot. Even in his career, Kobe started his career with one of the best roster advantages to have in the world in Shaquille O’Neal as a teammate. It didn’t stop Kobe from carving out his own legacy next to the big man and in many ways, driving the team to greatness despite O’Neal’s occasional lethargy towards conditioning and practice.

When Shaq left, Bryant didn’t stop working.  He dragged some truly putrid teams to the playoffs for several years before management finally gave him a little bit of help in the form of Gasol and with the Spaniard’s help he ascended to the top of the mountain.

The Black Mamba (as he affectionately nicknamed himself) was a man keenly aware of his own legacy. In many ways, he knew that no matter what he did, he would never live up to the un-realistic legacy that Jordan left behind. It isn’t a knock on him but the way that people have built up Michael’s legacy. Instead, Kobe created his own legacy. A legacy of greatness, both individually and as a leader of a team.

It wasn’t until the 2013 NBA All Star game, that I finally saw the light on Kobe. LeBron, the new usurper to Michael’s greatness crown, was clearly the top man of the NBA. In a show of “the Old Man’s still got it,” Kobe played lockdown defence on James late in the fourth quarter. When I say lockdown, I mean lockdown.  Kobe stayed step for step with the best athlete in the NBA, a man six years his junior.

Photo: Getty Images

Kobe was aware that LeBron had passed him as a player at that moment, but the Mamba still wanted to show the young star that when he wanted to, Kobe could still be on his level.

As I looked on, I couldn’t help but smile. I misunderstood Bryant this whole time. Kobe was everything I idolized but I was too dumb to realise it. Kobe was a man that wanted to not just be great but be the best out there and nothing, not time, not his opponent…nothing would stop him. His love and for the game oozes out of every pores.  A love, chronicled in his Oscar winning short film, Dear Basketball, that started with his imagination as a six-year-old pretending with a rolled up sock, until his final game, a 60 point eruption as he faded into retirement.  Kobe envisioned greatness and then became it.

The saddest part of his passing is the legacy that Kobe would leave behind is gone too, in that fiery crash in California.  In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel on Kimmel’s late night talk show, Kobe brought up the story of how one day before a Lakers home game he was attending with his daughter, Gianna (or Gigi as her father calls her), a fan came up to the Bryants and implored Kobe to have a son.

 Someone that could carry on Bryant’s legacy on the court and without missing a beat, Kobe said that Gigi quickly quipped in “Oh wait….I got this.” I don’t know what Gigi’s future would have held. Whether she would have gone on to greatness in the WNBA or her being her father’s daughter, she probably wouldn’t have settled for anything less than playing in the men’s league. Either way, we lost out on a chance to see the next iteration of greatness in her passing.

In talking about Bryant, it is important to mention the “elephant in the room” when discussing his legacy, the sexual assault allegations levied against him in 2003.  While charges were dropped against Kobe because the victim refused to testify, it is important to include this as part of his legacy as well. What occurred between the victim and Bryant is only known to the two of them, but it is as much a part of his legacy as his on court contributions were.

As the shocking news of Kobe’s passing reverberates over the next few days, It’ll take some time to absorb this loss. In the mean time, while we mourn the loss of lives that left this world far too soon, I’ll take the only lesson I know in tragedies like these: to be closer to the ones that you love and to be present in the now.