BY DAN WOIKE
Bryant was idolized by some of the stars who came after him and hoped to earn his respect on court
It would be late and Klay Thompson would have school the next morning, but he’d want to hang out around the subterranean parking lot at Staples Center.
He had access because his father, Mychal, had been a champion with the Lakers and was one of their radio voices, but Thompson didn’t care much about that.
No, he went to wait in a cavernous cement lot beneath the building, a place Kobe Bryant would walk past after every one of his games.
“My favorite part of the night was going down to the tarmac to see him leave, just so I could say, ‘Hey,’ to him and see what he was driving, what he was wearing, how he’s walking,” Thompson said. “Those were just such fond memories for me, being in the Staples Center parking lot. Him just knowing my name was enough for me to tell people he was my ‘good friend.’ ”
The modern NBA is filled with players who either wanted to be just like Bryant or were influenced by players who wanted to be just like Bryant. While that legacy will be formally recognized Saturday when he’s enshrined posthumously into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, it’s already cemented throughout multiple generations of stars in the NBA, some of whom consider him the Greatest of All Time — at least in their era.
“He’s the G.O.A.T. of my era. He was the Michael Jordan of my era — the Kobe of my era. He did everything,” Milwaukee Bucks guard Jrue Holiday said. “… I just felt like he was the leader of the era of basketball I grew up watching, especially being from Los Angeles County, from L.A., he’s our G.O.A.T.”
For Thompson, now a star with the Golden State Warriors, the childhood thrill of sharing a few seconds with Bryant never wore off, even as he became a pro.
In Thompson’s first trip to Staples Center as an NBA player to face the
Lakers, Bryant scored 39, some coming with Thompson trying to defend his favorite player. He’s played more than 600 regular-season games since then, but he still remembers his stats from that night.
“I’ll never forget that stat line: I went six for eight, 14 points, with just the hope that he noticed that I was a good player,” Thompson said.
There was the time the Warriors and the Lakers were in China for preseason games, and a jet-lagged Thompson decided to get in a latenight weightlifting session at the hotel gym. In between bench press reps, he felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up to see a hooded Bryant in sunglasses.
“I was so taken aback,” Thompson remembered. “I said, ‘Oh, what’s up, man?’ And all he said was, ‘Sup.’ That’s all he said and he got to his workout. The fact that he even came over ... ”
Video of Bryant recounting the meeting still gives Thompson chills today.
For other players too young to have competed against Bryant, he was the counterbalance to the older generation in their life who wouldn’t stop talking about Jordan. That was the past; watching Bryant was the present.
“He was my Jordan. Everybody talked about Jordan’s game, like my dad,” Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young said. “They got to see him live and they got to see the mid-range and all his moves and things like that. …
“I didn’t get to see Jordan live, but everything Kobe did, on and off the court, he tried to be like Jordan. And you could tell. The impact he’s made, the legacy he has, its untouchable. That’s the biggest thing for me; his legacy will last forever.”
Part of that legacy is Bryant’s maniacal work ethic — the “Mamba mentality.” The 2008 and 2012 Olympics were critical to exposing young stars such as LeBron James and Anthony Davis to Bryant’s now-famous work habits.
Hawks coach Nate McMillan was an assistant on those teams. He remembered Bryant doing strength training before breakfast, working out before noon practices and requesting all the scouting film he could get his hands on.
“There’s a reason why some people are successful,” McMillan said. “And Kobe put in the work on his craft to be the player he became. I saw that