“If basketball is the greatest thing I’ve done in my life, then I’ve failed.”—Kobe Bryant
ALMOST two years have passed since Kobe Bryant retired from professional basketball. It was only last week that I learned to truly appreciate him.
Despite having an illustrious 20-year playing career with 33,643 total points, despite winning five NBA championships for the Los Angeles Lakers and two Olympic gold medals for the United States, I found it hard to like the guy.
I blame his fans, his die-hard fans—specifically my brother.
You see, I never developed deep affinity with
any one team or player in all my years following the NBA. Whenever someone asks who’s my favorite, I always say that I’m a fan of no one in particular, just the game itself.
My Kobe-natic sibling, who you could probably guess the nickname he has given to his son, has always taken that logic of mine as a slight on his beloved idol. He cannot fathom how I can’t give even a tenth of the adoration he has for “The Black Mamba,” for “Mr. 81,” for the “Goat”—for him, at least. He even accuses me of “hating” just because I fail to care.
In regular, futile attempts to convert me to his religion, he would recite to me Kobe’s narrative, success, anything: Kobe did this, Kobe did that, he was once this, now he’s reached that, yada yada yada. And he wasn’t alone in delivering the same advertisement. I have about three other friends who talk the same Kobe language.
Amid the noise, however, were bright spots that left me intrigued. They said Kobe is wired differently not only from most players, but from most people. He’s obsessed with winning, at perfecting his craft.
In an interview with Good Morning America on April 24, 2017, just days after the one-year anniversary of his historic swan song where he scored 60 points at age 37, Kobe explained the beginnings of his madness.
“I couldn’t put the basketball down,” said Kobe, the only son of former NBA player Joe “Jelly Bean” Bryant among three children. “When my parents brought me a brand-new basketball, I found myself laying in bed and shooting with it. I was kind of
laying there and shooting it. Then I’d fall asleep with it. Then I’d get up in the morning and play again. I just could not stop.”
Stories of this nature followed Kobe throughout his career. Phrases such as “legendary work ethic” and “first one in the gym, last one out” have been attached to his name. One report in 2013 even claimed that Kobe once came seven hours early for an 11 am off-season scrimmage and started working out at 4 am.
He has mimicked that call time for his basketball camps with Nike in an exercise of what’s called as “Mamba Mentality,” or the killer instinct he displays on the court, named after his moniker The Black Mamba, a highly venomous snake.
During the Manila stop of his Nike tour in 2016, Kobe discussed that frame of mind at length. “It means to be able to constantly try to be the best version of yourself,” he said. “It’s a constant quest to try to be better today than you were yesterday.”
Last week, I came to believe that those words from Kobe are not mere lip service or empty marketing ploy. Kobe Bryant, the future basketball hall of famer, has also become an Oscar nominee.
On the same day the NBA announced the reserves for this year’s edition of the All-Star game, a yearly exhibition match featuring the season’s top performers, the Academy has also released the nominees for this year’s Oscars. Kobe received his first Academy Awards nomination for Dear Basketball, an animated short he produced.
The film chronicles Kobe’s love for the game that started when he was 6 years old, and features the narration of the poem he wrote for The Players’ Tribune that was published in November 29, 2015, as his retirement announcement.
The feat comes off the heels of Kobe’s interview with rapper Kendrick Lamar two months ago with Complex News, where he made a bold statement: “Fast-forward 20 years from now: If basketball is the best thing I’ve done in my life, then I’ve failed,” Bryant said. “It’s a very simple mission, very simple quest, very simple goal. These next 20 years need to be better than the previous 20. It’s as simple as that, and that is what drives me.”
Kobe was never one to rest on his laurels, but this statement earned him my respect that none of his game-winners or prodding from die-hard fans could.
Here’s a guy who has strived for and earned a lifetime’s worth of achievement in the hardwood, but he’s still hungry for more. Imagine Picasso leaving the art scene to make a name for himself in the field of science, and winning the Nobel Prize.
“My challenge is letting go of what was and focus on building what is to come, and that’s very, very hard,” Bryant continued in the same interview, adding that he’s intent on building a studio and creating a content company from books to films, “and everything else in between.”
“Focus on what is ahead and it takes a lot of bravery to be able to do that because what if that falls flat, then what? It’s always easier to go with what is. But that ain’t what we do,” he said. “We push forward, and that’s the biggest challenge ahead.”
To borrow from one of Kobe’s Nike tags: Different animal, same beast.