For the people who know me, they are keenly aware that when it comes to the world of sports, namely basketball, I am hardly lost for words. You, just like many times you have before, left me speechless.
I know exactly where I was when I found out. I was sitting on my dad’s couch, playing Call of Duty with a couple of friends of mine. We were in between games, so I decided to check Twitter. I checked the trending page, and you were trending. That wasn’t unusual in my eyes. Just the other night, LeBron James passed you on the all-time scoring list, so I figured that’s why you were trending. My friends and I play another game or two, and I check Twitter again, this time seeing all of the tweets saying that they couldn’t believe the news. I had to see what they were talking about, and when I did my heart sank into my stomach.
At only 41 years old, taken way too soon, we never got to see you, Gianna, or the other passengers on that helicopter again. You know how when someone passes away, especially when they’re famous, it hits harder than someone who isn’t that way? Like for me, it was sad when Michael Jackson passed away. I loved his music, he was a pop culture icon, and he was pop music in a lot of senses. It was sad, sure. I made sure to listen to more of his songs than I normally would have, and I even listened to a lot of his music today, but this was different.
I went into the kitchen to tell my dad the news. My dad isn’t a huge NBA fan, but he knew how big of a star Kobe was, and how much I thought of him. I’m a die-hard Boston Celtics fan. I have been since 2005, but I, like many other Celtics fans, couldn’t help but love Kobe. Oh we were mad when he kicked our ass, we were devastated in 2010 when he led the comeback to win the championship, but we all secretly admired and loved the legend of Kobe.
You were actually the reason that I started watching professional basketball. I knew who some of the players were in 2005, and I could keep up with a casual conversation. I saw that you were averaging a lot of points, and I have always admired players who could score, though my dad wishes I admired defensive players more. So I start causally watching your games, and you made sure to put on a show every step of the way. 62 in three quarters against the Mavericks, 45 against the Grizzlies, 50 against the Clippers, 51 against the Kings. A true scorer’s heaven. Then it happened.
January 22nd, 2006. Staples Center in Los Angeles California. Just a regular Sunday. The day that, in my eyes, Kobe Bryant became a legend. You know the story. 81 points. The second most points anyone has everscored in NBA history, behind the 100 points Wilt Chamberlain put up all those years ago. 6:30est rolls around, and I wasn’t there for the start of the game. I was probably fighting with my brother, or having dinner, or whatever. What I can tell you is that when I sat down, I couldn’t take my eyes off what you were doing on the court.
Pull-up three, jab-step mid-range jumpers, drives to the basket, dunks, post-fades, you had everything in your bag, and everything was working in your favor tonight. I’m not sure when I knew that tonight would be special, but by the 3rd quarter, it WAS special. To this day, 15 years later, it is hard for me to believe that someone was able to put up 81 points in a single game. Some players have 5 game stretches where they don’t put up that many points, and you were able to do it in one single game. Amazing. Legendary. I couldn’t even explain to anyone in my family how good of a game you had because I was so awestruck. I think I told my dad “hey, you missed a good game,” and left it at that because it was so tough to process exactly what I just saw.
The next day at school, it was all anyone could talk about. The teachers, the janitors, the lunch workers, the students, even the kids that didn’t like sports heard about your game, and couldn’t believe it. You saw more kids pick up a basketball after that game, and I can only imagine that it was the case for hundreds of thousands of kids around the world. That was the impact that you had on people of all different races, nationalities, and backgrounds. You were able to transcend barriers and connect people with the game of basketball, who otherwise wouldn’t have given it a thought.
Your legacy didn’t end that night, though. NBA Finals, 2008. Your first Finals since Shaq was traded away, fresh off your 2007-2008 NBA Regular Season MVP award, and against my Boston Celtics. I became a Celtics fan because of the games of Bill Russell and Larry Bird, but in a different reality I’m a Laker fan. Funny how life works. Not to mention that, way after the 2008 Finals, I learned that there was a chance that the Celtics drafted you in 1996. What a crazy ride that would have been for me. Celtics v. Lakers, just like when Larry Bird took on Magic Johnson so many times, but this time for my generation.
On paper, I think everyone had the Celtics down as the favorites. After the trades for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, and going 66-16 that season, the Celtics looked hard to defeat. They took down the Hawks in 7, the Cavs in 7, and then the Pistons in 6. I as a fan couldn’t stand the fact that we had to use 7 games to beat the Hawks. I understood the 7 against the Cavs with the superstar that was, and is, LeBron James. The six games against the Pistons made me a little frustrated, just because this wasn’t anywhere near as good as the 2004 championship team, but we got the job done. Then the table was set. History repeating itself.
For the entire playoffs you went out, put the Lakers on your back, and averaged 30.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 1.7 steals a game. I thought that Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom were very good, but I knew deep down that you were the reason that the Lakers made the Finals in the first place. That year, KG, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen got the better of the Lakers, while you played out of your mind. I thought that if there was going to be a second person in NBA history that deserved to win the Finals MVP without winning the championship, it should have been you, but knowing your Mamba Mentality, I knew that you wouldn’t have accepted the award anyway.
The next two years were just revenge tours for you, I think. After that picture of you reading the newspaper, showing that Paul Pierce had been named the Finals MVP, I had a feeling that the league was in trouble, and I wasn’t wrong. After going 65-17, and after putting up MVP like numbers with basically 27/5/5 but somehow not winning the award ( I realistically think that Kobe had 7 or 8 years that he could have won an MVP award, and the fact that he only won one is a tragedy, but I won’t get into it because that could be an entire article by itself,) this was going to be your year.
The 2009 NBA Finals were memorable for a few reasons. You won your fourth ring, your first without Shaq, and the Lakers 15th championship, but I think it is better remembered for something that added to the Legend of the Black Mamba. Your killer instinct really manifested itself that season. You became the same animal, but a different beast. You became even more successful, and in everyone’s eyes, the best player in the game, if not of all-time. It truly was a marvel to see. The Lakers went on to beat the Magic 4-0, and Kobe captured his first Finals MVP award that season.
The next year is when it really got fun, and sad, for me. 2010 NBA Finals. The Rematch. With a healthy Kevin Garnett, the Celtics were able to make it back to the NBA Finals to meet the Lakers for the second time in three years. In this stretch of NBA history, in my eyes, it was Lakers-1, Celtics-1. This would be the rubber-match, so to speak. After 5 games, it seemed very much in our favor. Up 3-2, even with the next two games in Staples Center, I thought there was absolutely no chance the Lakers could win two games in a row and steal this championship away from us. Then the Mamba came to life. The Lakers tie the series in the next game to make it 3-3. No big deal, I say to myself as I am sweating profusely about the situation. Then the two most exciting words in all of sports “Game 7.” It wasn’t a high scoring game by any means, finishing at 83-79, but you came out and did your thing with 24 points (fitting) and 15(!) rebounds. This was the first time you moved me to tears. Obviously, as a Celtics fan, it hurt to see us lose any game, but especially the Finals, not to mention being up in the Finals, and losing the last two games of the season. I was a pretty emotional kid, I always wore my heart on my sleeve, and I carried those traits into my adulthood, and I say that with no shame whatsoever.
Without it being known at the time, that was your last real chance at a championship. Sure, Steve Nash and Dwight Howard came to town, and I thought that it would work, but it just wasn’t the right fit. You continue to amaze the league even after your “prime,” and proved to the league that you should have won more MVP awards. Highlight after highlight, game winner after game winner, memory after memory. I have so many Kobe Bryant highlights just stored in my memory that I’m fairly certain I forgot how to do geometry, but I think I made the right decision.
2013 was a big year for me, personally. I was a senior in high school, I was stressing out about what I wanted to do with my life, and I still am if I’m being honest. I was dealing, and still am dealing, with depression, and a general feeling of emptiness, wondering what my place in the universe is. While dealing with all of these internal struggles, the only place that I could find myself being able to not feel that way, even for a moment, was watching a basketball game, and with you, Dwight, and Steve Nash running the Lakers, it was fairly often that I got to see a Laker game on TV. On April 12th, 2013 was one of those games. Game number 80 for the Lakers, and we’re almost at the playoffs.
Going against the up and coming Golden State Warriors, you had quite the game. After a slow start, you really started to heat up. Your three-point shots were clean, your drives were powerful, and your mid-range game was spectacular, as per usual. As the game went on, you had two injury scares already, once while knocking knees with an opposing player, and again when you came up limping holding your right foot. At the time, it made my heart stop. You’re one of my favorite players in the league, and your career is closer to the end than the beginning, so I don’t want to see you miss any time with an injury. I think this was an omen for later though. After a size up against Harrison Barns, you drive left to the basket, and come down holding your ankle. I think I knew at the time that this time it was serious, but I didn’t want to admit it. It was quite obvious that you were hurt, but in this moment you showed how much of a fighter you are. The commentators were talking about the injury, and mentioning that if you weren’t well enough to shoot your free throws you earned, that you wouldn’t be able to return to the game. Limping and clearly in pain, you walked to the charity stripe, and sunk your two free throws. After this, you went back to the locker room, and it wasn’t too long after that the news came out that you had torn your Achilles tendon, and would be out for the rest of the season, and possibly the next as well. This was the second time that I cried because of you.
The next few years for the Lakers were rough. The next three years, the Lakers never had more than 30 wins on the season. They continually found themselves in the lottery, and it became very clear that this was coming to the end of Kobe’s career. With draft picks Julius Randle, D’Angelo Russell, and Jordan Clarkson, the Lakers were preparing for the future: a life without Kobe Bryant on the floor. It’s fun for me to think about now, seeing how well all three of those players are playing, that Kobe must have had an impact on them as players. That was an underrated part of you that I admired: your willingness to teach the next generation. Veteran Kobe was always looking to give back, and shed light on other players. For me, the player I’m most thankful that you mentored was Jayson Tatum. Tatum is becoming a superstar right in front of my eyes, and his mid-range game reminds me of you so much. He’ll be a future MVP one day, and I have you to thank for that.
The next time you made me cry wasn’t until April 13th, 2016. At the beginning of the season, you let the world know that this would be your last season of professional basketball. I was sad when it was announced, sure, but I was more excited to see the treatment from the entire league like you should have your whole career. The most touching thing for me obviously was when the Celtics honored you with a piece of the parquet floor. I thought it was nice that after all the ass kicking over the years you did to us, that there were no hard feelings between the Celtics and Kobe Bryant. You went to every arena in the country, and got your roses, and I loved every second of it.
On April 13th in Los Angeles against the Utah Jazz, it was finally coming to an end. All of the stars in LA were coming out to see you, and for good reason. They, just like myself, knew that this was history that we were seeing. I remember that there was some controversy that night, because the Warriors were chasing 73 wins on a season against the Grizzlies. For me, it was a no brainer. There wasn’t a chance in hell that I was missing your last game. I couldn’t care less about the Warriors breaking the Bulls 72-10 record. I was going to watch one of the greatest players of all time play his last game no matter what. I was at my mom’s house, sitting on her couch in the living room by myself, waiting for history to unfold. You, just like many other times in your career, did not disappoint.
Shot after shot, dunks, three-pointers, post-fades, elbow jumpers. Everything that I had seen for the past 11 years was happening for one last time. It was a close game, closer than most thought. Of course there was a lot of in-game interviews with you during the game, and there was some chatter that you were going to be on a minutes restriction for your last game, and I’m not going to lie. That bummed me out. I wanted to see you show out one last time. Just as I was accepting the fact that you were going to play less than what I wanted, you called an audible. With three minutes left in the game, and with the Lakers down 10, the Mamba took over. Every shot you took, it seemed, went in. It didn’t matter who was guarding you, because they stood no chance. Staples Center might as well have been a rock concert with how loud the crowd was. Chants of “Kobe” and “MVP” filled the entire arena, and maybe even the entire universe. Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Shaq, Jack Nicholson; all of the stars in the world, and you were the one that everyone couldn’t take their eyes off of. The game is coming down to the wire. You just hit a three-pointer on the wing to bring it to a one point game, and the Jazz call a timeout. I think deep down they were just as amazed as we all were. They bring up the ball, shoot and miss, and the ball ends up in your hands with a chance to take the lead. With the aid of a Julius Randle screen, you take a 21 foot jumper and drill it. Lakers 97, Jazz 96. 31.6 seconds left to go. Jazz come down, and they don’t convert on a chance to take back the lead, and with 14.8 seconds you get fouled to go to the line for a chance at 60 points. I found this kind of poetic. Your first points in the league were from the free throw line. You hit two free throws when you tore your Achilles. Now you have a chance to end your career at the line, going out with 60 points. Of course you knocked them both down with ease. At this moment you scored the last 15 points for the Lakers. After the second free throw, Gordon Hayward comes up the floor with the ball, drives to the basket and misses. The ball ends up in your hands, and with the final stat of your career, you throw a full-court pass to Jordan Clarkson for a monster jam to end the game. What a ride.
The post game is what got me the most. I was hanging on to every word you said, and then the two words that broke me, and became iconic in that instant. “Mamba Out.” It was then that I realized that this was the end. No more Kobe Bryant in the NBA. Something that I didn’t ever think was a possibility, not due to lack of attention to reality, but rather me not wanting to believe that a sort of reality could exist in the first place. I cried for the third time over you that night.
Over the next few years, we got to see Kobe the business man, and more importantly, Kobe the dad. Fun fact, Kobe is the sole reason that I drink BodyArmour over Gatorade or Powerade, just because of his business mind and his ability to make things better. There were so many things that I was glad I got to witness in your post-playing career. You winning an Oscar with “Dear Basketball,” you highlighting and promoting the WNBA and the amazing things they’re doing on a yearly basis, and giving back to the game of basketball in general. My favorite moment of your post-playing career was seeing you with Gianna at a game, breaking down what was happening in front of you. Such a pure moment caught on camera that lives with me to this day. I think the world was a better place because they were able to see Kobe the dad. It showed a more human side to this esoteric being that was the “Black Mamba.”
The fourth time you made me cry was the day you left us. I was broken. Legends aren’t supposed to die young, you know? We still have Bill Russell, which I’m thankful for. It just seems odd that we live in a world where we never got to see Kobe grow old. For the next few weeks, every single day, I cried. Everywhere I looked was another article about you that I had to read, or an old highlight that I had to watch, or an interview of a friend of yours I had to listen to. The world lost something that day. The basketball world lost a hero that day. Even writing this article, I have cried multiple times, just because it is still hard for me to believe that you’re actually gone. I know that I’m not the only one that feels this way. Sometimes I just find myself replaying your games and moves in my head. You left an impact on me, along with millions of other people, that can never be forgotten.
I don’t know how else to show my gratitude to someone I’ve never met. Someone who doesn’t know I exist, and yet has left such a mark on me. Thank you for allowing me to love this game the way I do. Thank you for showing me true work ethic and determination. Thank you for the example that you’ve displayed on and off the court for your entire career. Thank you for being a part of my life. Gone, but never forgotten. We miss you, and we love you. Mamba Out.
I know that this is much longer than what I normally write, and I don’t expect anyone to read the whole thing. This is more for me to get out my feelings and vent. It’s been a rough year since Kobe’s passing, and this is the best way I know how to vent. If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this. Make sure you tell someone you love them today.
Round The Game 
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