The death yesterday of former NBA superstar Kobe Bryant, only 41 years young, has really bummed me out.
Kobe was the heart and soul of the Los Angeles Lakers for twenty seasons, during which they won 5 world championships. Not only was he a scoring prodigy and a fierce defensive presence on the court, but he was the hardest worker on his team, as well.
Kobe was a gladiator in a league where a lot of players just show up for a paycheck. He had a relentless hunger to learn new moves, perfect his shots, improve all facets of his game and help his teammates do the same.
Some of his teammates didn’t share his pursuit of excellence.
Shaquille O’Neal, an enormously gifted player who teamed with Kobe to win three NBA titles, exhibited no desire to improve his game. This annoyed Kobe (and many L.A. Laker fans) tremendously. Shaq was a lackluster free thrower, who made about 50 percent of his shots…which is crappy for an NBA player, let alone a superstar. Many teams would foul him just to get him to the free throw line…they called it the “Hack a Shack” defense. He didn’t care, probably costing his team a couple of points each game.
Kobe hardly disguised his contempt for Shaq’s half-assed effort, and seemed pleased when the Lakers traded O’Neal after the 2004 season.
Kobe went on win two more NBA titles without Shaquille O’Neal. And two Olympic Gold Medals. (O’Neal won zero more titles, and the affable lug is now hawking numerous commercial products on cable TV.)
Bryant decided to hang up his sneakers after his 20th season with the Lakers in 2016 when he was 37 years old. Out of his twenty years in the league, he was an NBA All-Star 15 times and made the NBA All-Defensive Team 12 times…demonstrating what a relentless competitor he was on both ends of the basketball court.
In his last game as a Los Angeles Laker, at age 37, Kobe Bryant scored 60 points. In the seventy-year history of the NBA, only six players have ever scored that much in a game. Kobe did it six times in his career, including an 81 point game in 2006; only Wilt Chamberlain ever scored more points in a game.
Kobe never went to college; he joined the NBA as a teenager, right out of high school. Very few NBA players have done this and then went on to become legendary superstars. Just a handful: LeBron James is another.
Kobe Bryant could have had just about any position in the Lakers’ organization when he retired as a player in 2016. Yet, he walked away from the game and never looked back. He had other world’s to conquer and an inherent thirst to excel in whatever he tackled.
Two years after hanging up his jockstrap, Kobe produced an animated short cartoon feature that won him an Academy Award!
Who knows what this man would have accomplished in his 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s, etc.? He seemed to have a thirst for knowledge and a desire to excel. He was just starting to develop business entities and charitable organizations when he died. He could have, and would have, accomplished much more.
Among his proudest accomplishments was being a husband to wife Vanessa and father to four daughters.
He was a coach for his 13 year-old daughter’s basketball team; in fact, he and daughter Gigi were on the way to a youth basketball game yesterday when the helicopter crashed into the mountain.
I am so saddened that this great man and devoted father died at such a young age.
What was God thinking?