Sports Illustrated
Kobe Bryant's Message Took a Lifetime to Mold, and will Last Even Longer
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Chances are, you were stunned Sunday.
There was no other reaction to have when news broke that Kobe Bryant had died in a helicopter crash. Even in a place like Alabama, where he never played during his illustrious NBA career, it was hard to comprehend.
Wait, what?
It just didn't make sense. Wasn't he just here?
There was a lot of that going around. Still is. Bryant was just 41. He did a lot during his time on earth, and seemed to have so much more to do.
I know because the first and the last time our paths crossed he was a very different person.
Yes, I had the pleasure of seeing Bryant play. Numerous times, in fact. This was also back when reporters sat courtside with essentially the same view of the coach (who would occasionally turn around and comment in ways that I could never use in a story).
So I just didn't see him play, I pretty much had the best seat in the house. It was so good that the game Muhammad Ali sat across from me I could see ever reaction on his face.
Bryant was still wearing No. 8 that first time on March 1, 1999. The previous spring I had taken a new job as the Phoenix-area reporter/columnist for the Tucson Citizen, but it took a while to see the Los Angles Lakers due to the lockout delaying the start of the 1998-99 season.
When they did finally make it to America West Arena (as it was known then), Bryant wasn’t the story. It was Dennis Rodman.
The Worm was playing one of his first games with his new team and in the article I wrote called him the “freak:” Freak of nature, freak of fashion, freak of rebounding.
The Lakers had an incredible lineup of names that season, including Rick Fox, Derek Harper, Glen Rice, Travis Knight, J.R. Reid, Derek Fisher and Mr. Clutch, Robert Horry. Bryant had just played in his first All-Star Game, but he wasn’t quite the single-name sensation "Kobe" yet. It was still Shaquille O’Neal’s team.
There was already some friction building, on and off the court, and the lack of cohesion helped lead to a lackluster start. Coach Del Harris had just been fired, but the Lakers still pulled off a 97-91 victory at Phoenix.
It was like watching a carnival come to town, magnified by Rodman’s addition. The 37-year-old had just dragged out the negotiations for more than a month while enjoying the Super Bowl and the L.A. nightlife with his newlywed wife Carmen Electra.
That’s when Bryant really first got my attention, with a comment he made about Rodman making the Lakers wait: “I’m not really (interested in) getting to know him. I don’t really care. Personality-wise, who cares? We just leave it up to the media, even the fans to judge him as a person. Whatever he wants to do (regarding) us as a ball club, it just depends on what he does of the court, what he gives us.”
Bryant was 20 at the time, and had just showed it. Having been drafted at 17 and playing for the Lakers he was in a blinding spotlight and under immense pressure. It was an impossible situation.
He scored 10 points that night, and afterward was pretty contrite, admitting about Rodman: “It does seem like everyone’s just stepped up their game since he got here.”
Every time I subsequently saw Bryant he was always a little bit better, beginning about a month later when the Lakers came back and won again, 91-90. They consistently smoked the Suns including the 2000 playoffs en route to the NBA title, just before I left Phoenix for a different job.
Bryant's competitive nature was already off the charts when he scored 32 points in Game 2 in the finals against the Pacers, and 35 in Game 3. But I still didn’t know what to think of him, or when he was accused of sexual assault by a 19-year-old hotel employee in 2003.
I can’t help but wonder what’s happened to her since then.
Bryant was one of those players I hoped to revisit and learn more about down the line, but it took nearly 20 years for our paths to sort of cross again, when he visited Tuscaloosa and visited with both Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide in 2018. A lot of the people in the room when he spoke that day hadn’t been born when I saw Bryant first play, but the impact he had was immediate and overwhelming.
Just looking at the reaction of Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa was all anyone needed to see what he meant to them. Kobe has become a generational icon, in a sport that had continued to grow exponentially while going from Michael Jordan to LeBron James.
"I was excited to see him because that was my first time ever seeing someone that's a legend that's on that level,” former Alabama linebacker Mack Wilson said after seeing an NBA player up-close for the first time.
“You're just looking at him like 'man, that's a walking legend,’” running back Josh Jacobs said. “It was crazy.”
What turned my head was Kobe's message, which demonstrated how he wasn’t the same person who had that corner locker in the visitor’s locker room all those years ago, and was still finding his way.
“To be an effective leader, you have to be a really good listener and not to what’s being said but to what’s not being said. You have to be really observant. That was a big transition for me.”
Bryant went to say that the key to success was to clearly understand what motivates one, then seize on that motivation to separate themselves.
No wonder Saban brought him in.
Regardless of what you may have thought about Kobe, he was a rare athlete who found a way to transcend athletics.
He embraced the Olympics and playing for Team USA. His animated short, Dear Basketball, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. The Mamba Mentality: How I Play, wasn't just a book title, but a mentality.
He attacked business the same way he went after a zone press.
Never satisfied, Kobe kept re-inventing himself. His versatility in life was more impressive than on the court – and that’s really saying something, Bryant was an incredibly versatile player. Plus he became a father, a role he seemed to embrace as much or even more than any he had in basketball.
Consequently, Kobe’s death was stunning, but his 13-year-old daughter Gianna dying with him was absolutely heartbreaking.
Part of me still doesn't know what to think about Kobe, and never will. But I do know that he was a (shooting) star who grew up in front of the world, under the most difficult of scrutiny.
The key word there is grew. He always strived for more. He inspired.
Consequently, his light will continue to shine, especially since there were so many facets to him.
Most of those developed after those early day in the NBA, which leads to one of my few regrets in this possession: That I didn't spend more time all those years ago trying to figure out what made Bryant tick, and how that young player would become Kobe.
The Crimson Tide got a good glimpse of it, though, and hopefully each one of those players and coaches will take from it in trying to create his own legacy.
