Bryant’s death weighs heavy
Silas, players reflect on loss that still feels so fresh a year later
The memories have flooded in, unstoppable, though no one wanted to avoid them anyway. With Tuesday’s one-year anniversary of the death of Kobe Bryant approaching, the feeling of shock and sorrow was fresh again. But along with that, all that Bryant had been to the NBA and its fraternity of players and coaches was clear, too.
To many, including Rockets center DeMarcus Cousins, he had been “a superhero.” To some, including Rockets guard Victor Oladipo, he was “a mentor.” To others, he was, as Rockets coach Stephen Silas described him, “a girl dad.”
To most, a year after the helicopter crash that took his life, Bryant was a combination of all that and more, leaving a void with the pain of that day a year ago.
“People still cherish Kobe and keep his name alive,” Rockets guard John Wall said. “And we know what he meant to the game of basketball and what he meant outside of basketball. And we get the opportunity to play on that same day. That’s going to be big for us, definitely be big for the entire league. We know what Kobe meant. The one-year anniversary is always tough.”
Silas recalled the final game Bryant attended. Silas was a Mavericks assistant, and Bryant sat with his daughter, Gianna, who would perish with him a few weeks later.
“He holds a special place in my heart because of his relationship with his girls,” Silas said. “I have a 16-yearold daughter and a 13-yearold daughter, and I love them to death. And you can see the love he had with his daughters when you saw him with them, wherever it was — when he was coaching them, the last game that he went to. He and his daughter that passed away with him, they came to our game at L.A.
“It’s just crazy to think that he’s not here anymore. He did so much for the NBA and made girl dads a thing. That’s pretty cool. He’s missed.”
To many around the NBA, Bryant had been a teacher, spending time
working on footwork or mentality.
“He was always willing, a willing teacher, always willing to respond, always willing to give advice, always willing to help me when I needed it,” Oladipo said. “He’s definitely missed, not only by me, but the entire world misses Kobe Bryant. I’m lucky I got to spend some type of moment with him. I miss him as well.”
For current players, Bryant was the hero they got to meet, play against and, in some cases, know. Cousins’ first NBA game came against the Lakers. When he saw Bryant, he said, “That’s when it was surreal to me. That’s when I realized I was really part of the NBA. That was my special moment.
“Kobe was almost like a superhero, someone you just thought would be here forever,” Cousins said. “Obviously,
that’s not true. I grew up watching Kobe. It’s an emotional day.”
The Rockets were in Denver, preparing to play the Nuggets, when word spread of the crash. Disbelief turned to overwhelming sadness. The game, the NBA’s first that day, was played but with thoughts far removed from the court.
“It is like it was yesterday still,” Rockets forward P.J. Tucker said. “It still hits me all the time. It’s still definitely fresh. It’s one of those things it will take a long time to get over.”
A year later, the news remains difficult to process, the anniversary inspiring different memories of an iconic star who became much more to many.
“We know how much he meant to the game of basketball, how much he affected people with just his competitive
drive, his hungriness of nothing can stop me from being what I want to be,” Wall said. “He was the Black Mamba. And everything he stood for as a man. He gave everything he had to the game of basketball while he was here on this earth and while he was competing for 20 years. And outside of that, he loved how he became a dad and what he was doing with his kids and being there for them and coaching them as he always did, being a mentor for people that looked up to him.
“So everything you see in that man was what you want to see in yourself later on down the road. And the way he loved his kids and loved his wife is something to look up to and try to do the same.”