Author’s Note: In writing this piece for 8/24, Mamba Day, the author wishes to focus on his childhood memories and the lessons learned from Kobe Bryant within the bounds of basketball, and does not wish this piece to be read as an approval or nonadmission of Kobe’s past transgressions, specifically against women.
My parents worked a lot growing up, hell they still work a lot, but when I was growing up they worked a lot. For me, that meant spending the majority of my winters and summers with my grandparents in Carmel, Indiana. I don’t know how many of you have spent meaningful time in Indiana, but here’s the short:
People are nice (very nice), people are religious (very religious), and people are conservative (very conservative). It’s cold, cornfields dominate the views, and you can bet your harvest that more people will attend a Friday night High School basketball game than will vote in a state election.
Hoosiers love basketball. It’s in their blood. It’s taught at a young age and the fervor maintains for generations. Like other sports, basketball is an equalizer that allows anyone to rise to heroism. There’s a reason why the movie Hoosiers only makes sense in a state like Indiana, why Indiana University has one of the most respected basketball programs in the country, and why the Indiana Pacers have made the playoffs in 63% of their seasons, despite being one of the smallest markets in the NBA.
It’s safe to say I adopted Indiana as my basketball home, nurturing a love and adoration for the game that continues to this day with a commitment to the Pacers signed in blood. Beginning my fandom in the late 90s, Reggie Miller (five-time all-star, second all-time in 3 pointers made, and one of only eight people to ever shoot 50% from the field, 40% from three, and 90% from the free-throw line over a whole season) was the face of the franchise. The long bombing, trash-talking, clutch-shot-making captain, Reggie Miller was the first athlete I ever loved.
In June 2000, the NBA season culminated in a matchup of two number one seeds, my Pacers, led by our fearless flamethrower, Reggie Miller, facing the ascendant Lakers led by NBA MVP Shaquille O’Neal, All-Defensive First Team and All NBA Second Team Kobe Bryant, 6x coaching champion and Jordan whisperer, Phil Jackson, and NBA Logo, general manager Jerry West.
Shaq’s dominance carried the Lakers to a 2-0 series lead more than making up for Kobe’s poor play before spraining his ankle in Game 2. He’d sit out Game 3. Back in Indianapolis, the Pacers took care of Game 3 behind 33 points from Reggie and a staunch defense. With momentum turning their way, the Pacers left Game 3 with two more games at Conseco Fieldhouse and the opportunity to return to LA needing only one win to secure the franchise’s first NBA championship.
After seeing his team falter in Game 3, Kobe decided to play in Game 4 on his injured ankle, and in the pure Mamba fashion basketball fans would grow accustomed to, Kobe’s pure grit and determination would propel him to otherworldly performance.
After a quiet first half, Kobe commits his 4th foul with 10 minutes left in the 3rd. Instead of coming out, he proceeds to take over the game, offensively and defensively, bringing the Lakers their first lead since Game 2. The game would swing back and forth, ultimately ending regulation tied and headed to overtime, where Shaq fouled out with 2:33 to play.
I’m salivating, with Shaq out of the game there’s nothing that can stop the Pacers. The next two minutes would go as follows: Lakers up 1, Kobe hits a pullup from the elbow. Rik Smits answers. Kobe fires back with another elbow J. Two made free throws at the other end. Two bad possessions, and now the Lakers had the ball up 1 with 28 seconds to go.
And then the moment that made Kobe… well, Kobe.
Brian Shaw brought up the ball, milking time off the clock, and with the shot clock down to :07, he made a move across the lane, putting up a wild runner over the 7’4” Smits. The ball bounced up, off and away from the rim. In an instant, Kobe skied over the crowd to tip it in with his back to the hoop. Lakers up three, and just 5.9 seconds to go. Reggie missed three, and just like that, 21-year-old Kobe Bryant led the Lakers to a 3-1 Finals lead. No team at that point had ever come back from 3 – 1 (Lebron wouldn’t have his day until 2016).
The Lakers closed out the Pacers in 6 games, beginning a run that would culminate in a three-peat. The Pacers have yet to return to the NBA Finals (sigh).
If you only looked at the box scores, you would assume Kobe Bryant didn’t have a great Finals. He averaged 15.6 points per game on 36.7% shooting. But in Game 4 he showed that killer instinct, displacing my hope with despair, and cemented himself as a bonafide star who would torment me and the Pacers I loved for the next decade. I was in pain. It was too early to learn these lessons. I was 5 years old, and, at that moment, I knew that I hated Kobe Bryant.
Shea Serrano, 3-time New York Times best-selling author and noted 6 footer, wrote about “Sports Hate” and his relationship with Shaquille O’Neal and Dirk Nowitizki. He writes,
“Sports Hate is the highest level of recreational dislike you can have for a player on an opposing team. It seeps into everything about them. You suddenly realize that you hate their commercials, for example, or you hate their face, or the way that they pronounce a word, or their haircut, even if their haircut is the exact same as yours. …. If you unpack the Sports Hate, though, you find that, beyond it being the highest level of recreational dislike you can have for a player on an opposing team, it’s also the highest compliment you can give them. Because Sports Hate is, ultimately and forever, rooted in respect. And fear. And admiration. Or some combination of the three …. Sports Hate wears off. It goes away. Once the player retires, or even once they’re no longer a threat, the hostility you feel toward them just sort of dissipates”
Reading Serrano’s article back in January of this year, only a few weeks prior to Kobe’s death, I knew what he was getting at. I knew that feeling. I Sports Hated Kobe. Everything Kobe did produced pure vitriol. If he was on Sportscenter for scoring 40, I discounted him as a selfish scorer. I didn’t like his Reeboks, or his adidas, or his Nikes. I didn’t trust the guy my aunt dated because he asked if he could play with Kobe in NBA Live 2004 the first time we met (he is now the uncle and father to two of my little cousins).
Once Reggie retired at the end of the 2005 season and the Pacers title window closed, Kobe no longer stood in the way of my hoop dreams, and all the negative energy keyed in on hating Kobe Bryant morphed into awe, a blissful awareness of his greatness, and the respect suited for the best basketball player in the world.
In studying Kobe Bryant, one gets the privilege of seeing an almost complete hero’s journey: After the Shaq trade, Kobe fell from grace. With the birth of the Black Mamba moniker, Kobe spent two years lighting the world on fire, scoring with reckless abandon while never making it out of the first round. With Pau Gasol by his side in 2008, he got the chance to reclaim his throne but fell to the Celtics Big 3. Denied his dreams yet again, Kobe recommitted himself to the team and shifted his energy to building up his teammates, culminating in back to back championships in 2009 and 2010.
But failure cycles started again. Faltering to younger teams in 2011 and 2012, the Lakers reconstructed the roster, providing Kobe another opportunity at a sixth championship. But he would never get that chance, however, as he tore his achilles before the playoffs in 2013. He never got back to the playoffs and would never come close to reaching the same level of play pre-injury. Kobe’s final act in basketball was robbed from him and his fans in an eerily similar vein as his untimely death robbed Kobe and his loved ones of his next act as a mentor and artist.
Since Kobe’s passing in January, the country has fallen into a dark, divided place. At the time of writing, nearly 180,000 US citizens have died due to COVID-19, multiple unarmed Black men have been murdered by police, protesters have taken to the streets where they have been met by federal troops, the postal service is in jeopardy, and we inch closer and closer to an election day that, regardless of victor, will further enrage 49% of Americans. Our country is broken and hurting, and this is felt from big cities to remote rural areas.
I think to Indiana, my family there, the people I grew up near, and how a few hundred miles can paint a very different picture of the problems with America in 2020. As I have the necessary, difficult conversations with my immigrant family – whose views are far from singular – I can’t help myself but find analogies to basketball to try to ease the conversation. Say what you will of using basketball to help educate grown men and women about inequality, but I find that it works for me. Ball is life.
I picture the last image we have of Kobe’s prime – Kobe on the ground, holding his ankle, struggling to stand, limping to the free-throw line, hitting two free throws, on a torn achilles.
Kobe preached preparation of the mind and body. This requires self-awareness to understand your strengths and weaknesses, empathy and understanding of what the other team will do to attack you, determination and courage to take that knowledge and put action against it, and the belief in yourself to accept that although change takes time and the fruits of your labor don’t always show themselves so willingly, that you’ve done everything within your power to prepare yourself for the moment at hand.
Self-awareness, empathy and understanding, determination and courage, and belief in yourself. Whether it’s on the basketball court, in candid conversations with friends and family, acing an exam, getting a promotion, or generally growing into a fuller, more nuanced version of yourself, Kobe left the foundation through which anyone can push themselves to reach their goals.
