An oral life history as told by those who knew him best
They were his friends, and his foes. People who knew what Kobe Bryant was like on and off the basketball court — not just what you saw, but what they heard and felt. In the last couple of weeks, many of basketball’s luminaries have paused to reflect on different aspects of their relationship with Bryant. Here is some of what has been said:
Jerry West
During a private pre-draft workout in Inglewood, Bryant, 17, was matched against retired defensive stalwart Michael Cooper, 40, in a game of one-on-one. Watching, West took a matter of minutes to decide he wanted the kid from Lower Merion (Pa.) High on the Lakers. “It wasn’t much of a challenge for Kobe,” West has said. But there was a problem: The Lakers didn’t pick until No. 24 in the draft. So West made a deal with Charlotte, which picked 13th. The Hornets took Bryant and the Lakers traded for him. “I think,” West recalls telling Lakers owner Jerry Buss, “we got the best player in the draft.”
“To have been such, particularly when he was young, to be a part of his life and to watch his career grow, watch him grow, [Jan. 26 was] one of the most tragic days of my life. I know somewhere along the way I guess I’ll come to grips with it. But now I have all these different emotions regarding him. The things I watched him do on the basketball court, but more importantly he was going to make a difference off the court, and he was making a difference off the court. It’s so unexplainable. This is going to take a long time for me. I’m usually pretty callous about things, but …
“My son Ryan was driving him around because [Kobe] was 17 years old and he couldn’t drive. Watching him grow as a player and watching him really mature as a player because of his age really more than anything. When I first heard it, I said, ‘Oh, I don’t believe this. There’s no way.’ My God! The legacy. The memories. The joy he brought to so many people. I can’t even come to grips with it.
“You take life for granted, particularly when someone like him … 41 years of age. My God! He had his future, a different career ahead of him. Bright, articulate, loved by everyone. I don’t know what to say. A horrible, horrible day.
“I lost a brother in Korea, and in many ways this feels like that. I had such admiration for him as a player. And to watch him grow his career away from it was really pretty special for me. I’m just searching for words, and there are no words.
“I had such a personal connection to him for so long, and to watch him grow was a very gratifying feeling. … Just to see the joy he played the game with, the joy he brought to fans was pretty remarkable because you don’t get players of that skill and that caliber that are able to do those things and bring the joy and excitement to the game that he has.
“I went up to him, and I said, ‘What is this Black Mamba thing?’ He looked at me, and he smiled and he said, ‘The Black Mamba takes care of everyone.’ I said, ‘Really?’ and he said, ‘Yeah.’ And I asked him to tell me more about it and he said, ‘Everybody is afraid of the Black Mamba.’ I said, ‘Have you ever heard of a Mongoose?’ I said, ‘He kicks the Black Mamba’s ass every time.’
“He starts smiling, and he says, ‘Not this Black Mamba.’ I said, ‘During my time, I was the Mongoose.’ And he gave me a big hug and he laughed. It was really funny, a really great moment with him.
“He’d love to talk trash, and it was pretty funny. We’d have all these conversations, and there was one when I told him that the most efficient way to play basketball is not to dribble the ball all the time. I said, ‘Just make sure that you try to read the defense and learn how to attack the defense.’
“And he always tried to make it personal with me and he’d say, ‘You know I would have kicked your ass.’ I said, ‘You know something, you are so aggressive, you would foul out if you were guarding me in about a quarter.’ We both just laughed. Early on in his career, those were our exchanges. … We, I think, loved those conversations.”
Del Harris
Harris was the Lakers’ coach in 1996, when Bryant was a teenage rookie. He had coached Bryant’s father, Joe, with the Houston Rockets in 1982-83. Kobe was 4 when Harris met him.
“We had a 50-plus win (53-29) team [in 1995-96] and the next year we add Shaq [O’Neal] and Kobe, and it was out of necessity that we brought him along slowly. That’s exactly what Jerry West and I decided. Any major thing I did I ran past Jerry, and we always were in agreement in how we should proceed.
“When that season started, Kobe was playing pickup ball at Venice Beach and broke his [left] wrist, so he didn’t get training camp or preseason and the first time he was able to get into a game was after the season had started. It was the second game, and he had only got in for a handful of minutes and didn’t score. And in the second game, he got in a little longer and scored one point in New York.
“He got his first basket in game three, and he made two out of three [shots] in that game. So it was a slow process for him. When he first started, he didn’t have the mature body he had by his third year. At age 20, he had pretty much filled out, but at 18 and 19 — particularly 18 — he physically didn’t come into the NBA with the same body as LeBron [James] did, for example.
“He was our third-leading scorer right behind Shaq and Eddie Jones his second season. He was the runner-up to the sixth man of the year as a 19-year-old.
“By the end of the first season, he had become an important part of the rotation . ... Then the next year, it was just better for his development and for our team for him to be the sixth man. He fulfilled it great.”
Elgin Baylor
If there is a former Lakers star Bryant might be best compared to, it’s probably Baylor, who played 14 NBA seasons, all with the Lakers, and reached the Finals eight times. Like Baylor, Bryant was known for acrobatics and was able to score — big — in a variety of ways.
“With basketball, that was his life. You’d see it with how competitive he was. Watching him play, watching him with teammates, you’d see it on his face. … He played as hard as anyone I’d ever seen play. Everyone would like to have their names put in the rafters. And for a lot of them, the reason they’re there is they developed their skills. … Those guys want to be remembered, want to be remembered for something.
“The thing about Kobe that would surprise me is when he’d come to me, because Kobe was a bit of a loner. But he was really a student of the game. And he would talk, come to me and ask questions and know this and that. He really wanted to be a student.”
Shaquille O’Neal
O’Neal and Bryant joined the Lakers by trade in 1996, O’Neal from Orlando. He and Bryant won three consecutive NBA titles together, from 2000 to 2002, but their relationship became strained and O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat in 2004. Now an analyst, he spoke about Bryant on TNT’s “Inside the NBA.”
“I haven’t felt a pain that sharp in a while — 47 years old, lost two grandmothers, lost [his father] the Sarge, lost my sister. And now I’ve lost a little brother. Our names will be attached together for what we did. People always ask about our relationship, and I tell him it’s just like me and Charles [Barkley] — you’ve got two strong-minded people who are going to get it done their way and going to say certain things. The respect will never be lost. But when it comes to being inside the lines and win, that’s what me and him, that’s what we did.
“It just makes me think that in life, sometimes instead of holding back certain things we should just
do . ... The fact that we’re not going to be able to be at his Hall of Fame ceremony, the fact that we’re not going to be able to say ‘Ha, I’ve got five [NBA championships] and you’ve got four,’ the fact that we’re not going to be able to say, ‘If we would’ve stayed together, we could’ve gotten 10.’ Those are the things you can’t get back.
“I just wish I could say something to him again . ... You never know. Life is too short. You could never imagine something like this. ... People are going to say, ‘Take your time and get better,’ but it’s going to be hard for me . ... My spirit just left my body. I just wish I could say one last thing to the people we lost because once you’re gone, you’re gone forever. We shouldn’t take stuff like that for granted.”
Magic Johnson
Johnson, a career Laker, stepped away from the NBA for good before Bryant joined the team. They each won five NBA championships.
“When they went up against Boston [in 2010], I told him this would be hardest championship he would ever have to win. So when we lost the first one in 2008, he was like, ‘Magic, you were right man. This ain’t Philly. This ain’t Indiana. This ain’t Orlando.’ That was after he lost to Boston.
“Then when he won, I was in the training room with Kobe and [trainer] Gary [Vitti] and then everybody left and it was him and I and he hugged me and he said, ‘Buck, you were so right. I am so physically and emotionally tired. I didn’t understand until we just won how difficult it is to go up against the Celtics. It takes more than just talent. It takes more than just coming out there to play.’
“And it was just him and I in the locker room and he just hugged me and I hugged him. I told him, ‘This will be your defining moment more than the other ones. This is the one.’ ”
Gregg Popovich
Over 12 seasons, from 1999 to 2010, the Lakers or Popovich’s San Antonio Spurs won the Western Conference 11 times and played for the NBA championship. The Lakers, and Bryant, won five titles. Popovich’s team won four. He spoke when the Spurs visited Los Angeles for back-to-back games against the Clippers and Lakers in early February.
“To be here and feel it. You feel it all over the city, in the hotel, walking the streets, when you come into the building. You can’t help but reminisce and all the thoughts go through your head emotionally.
“There are a lot of years where we watched Kobe. A lot of competitiveness playing against him, coaching against him. Being with him at All-Star games. I think everybody has their situations, even if they didn’t know him at all, they feel like they did — especially the people in Los Angeles. We all have those thoughts that pass by when you lose somebody and they just keep coming. It’ll take a while for them to stop, and the better you knew him the more you think about the times you did have with him, the things you would talk about.
“He’s special to all of us in different ways. The tragedy for the Bryant family and all the other people is something we all learn to live with. We all get lost, at a certain point, and everybody does the best they can to get through it. I can only wish for them that the process is as peaceful as possible.
“He was like a superhero who was actually human. There aren’t any superheroes who really are human, but we kind of thought of him as one of those kinds of people.”
Chris Paul
A 10-time All-Star, Paul almost became a teammate of Bryant’s on the Lakers in 2011, but his trade to the team was nixed by Commissioner David Stern. Instead, Paul came to Los Angeles as a Clipper, ushering in the “Lob City” era.
“For a lot of us, it’s still surreal. It’s not real until you start showing pictures and talking about it. But I think the best way we could honor Kobe, Gigi, and everyone involved was to play like we played, you know what I mean?
“Me and Russ [Westbrook] kept talking about it — that’s one thing about Kobe, whenever he was on our team in the All-Star game there wasn’t none of that cool stuff. There wasn’t none of that. It was like, as long as they throw the ball up, let’s get to it.”
Adam Silver
Silver has been commissioner of the NBA since 2014 and has been with the league in various capacities since 1992.
“I was at the league for the entire course of his career, and he and [former NBA commissioner] David [Stern], interestingly, had a lot in common. They were both determined to win. They could be difficult at times because they prioritized winning, and often they didn’t have time for some of the niceties around personal relationships because it was about winning, at least while Kobe was a player.
“This generation of players, so many of them grew up with Kobe as their role model as a player, as a competitor. … It’s been amazing to me, you know, in a sort of similar way that David found a way to connect to so many people, Kobe connected to so many of this current generation of players. And by connected I mean they all have stories where he was breaking down film with them. He was talking to them about the belief in winning, that extra drive — that inner beast he called it — that was necessary to truly be a champion.
“But what I also saw in Kobe, and you saw a little bit of this in David in his post in the period after he was commissioner, that aspect of their personality was a bit contrived in that they push people because they wanted them to be their very best. And recognizing that it meant at times people might not like them, but that’s what it was about — that competition is about winning. … I certainly would not be standing here today but for David Stern, and the NBA wouldn’t be where it is today but for Kobe.”
Luke Walton
A 10-year teammate of Bryant’s, they won back-to-back NBA championships in 2009 and 2010.
“I remember when I was coaching at Golden State we were playing Cleveland in the Finals. I was so excited we’re in the Finals … I called Kobe to see if he has any information that he wants to share. And this is when my [5year-old] son was born, so I’m taking him for a walk in his stroller while he’s sleeping. And I just asked Kob, ‘tell me anything, you know, about LeBron.’ And he goes for like 30 straight minutes.
“I’m sitting outside of my house and he’s still going about his tendencies, and how he likes to pass first and get people involved. All these things he studied to play against him were just on the top of his mind. That’s just how he approached being a competitor.
“Over the times through the years since then, there’s been different situations I’ve called and talked to him sometimes about advice on different things, or how he would see things, and he was always great in sharing that type of stuff.
“To be part of those [Lakers] teams, we had such a bond. Our group, it really felt like a family. I talked to [Jordan] Farmar the other day and Lamar [Odom] and even Adam Morrison, who’s just completely shook over those things.
“A lot of it is the stories of … [we] taught Kobe how to play quarters one night. We’re in the hotel room and he was awful at it. Kobe being Kobe, we kept hanging out and playing and he’s over there like practicing for an hour straight.
“Team dinners and things like that are really where a lot of those conversations I’ve found them going [back to]. Where you start to feel a little better, when you find yourself laughing and enjoying the memories.”
Pau Gasol
Gasol joined the Lakers via a trade with the Memphis Grizzlies during the 2007-08 season and immediately was introduced to the “Mamba mentality.” He and Bryant were the cornerstones of the 2009-2010 championship teams.
“When I got traded [to the Lakers], I had landed late and Kobe was like, ‘Hit me up when you get to your room.’ It was close to like 1 a.m. or something and the team was playing at noon that next day in Washington. He wanted to see me right away and he came to my room and said, ‘Man, I’m so excited you’re here. Now let’s go win a championship.’
“So right off the bat he’s telling me this is where it is. This is what it’s going to be. And he hooked me. He hooked me from that point. Obviously I wanted to win. But with that type of determination, clarity, directness, he was like, ‘We got to be on the same page as I am.’ So I was like, ‘I’m in. I’m in. I’ll do whatever it takes because this is what I want too.’
“But he showed me the way, just like everybody else on that team. He understood everybody had to do their job and their part in order for us to win. We played our first [NBA] Final [against Boston in 2008], which we didn’t win, but I think it fueled us to get the next two.
“He would play mind games. He would try to, I guess, inspire you and encourage you when he needed you to be inspired and encouraged. But he would also try to intimidate you when he wanted
to get the better of you.
[Gasol played for Spain against the United States in the 2008 Olympics]. “So he did come to our [Olympic] Village, which is extremely special. But then on one of the first plays of the game, I’m setting a screen, he is chasing [Juan Carlos] Navarro, and he’s not trying to avoid the screen, he’s just trying to make me feel it. He was like, ‘If you’re going to beat me, you’re going to have to take some pounding and I’m going to set the tone’ for his [USA team]. He would make statements like that.
“When we lost to the Celtics in ’08 Finals and [the U.S.] beat us in the Olympics finals in China in 2008, he came in the next preseason in training camp and he brought his gold medal to the locker room and he put it in my locker. I’m like, ‘This is …’
“We had lost in the Finals that last year, which was very painful, had lost in the Olympics. He was like, ‘Don’t allow yourself to lose again this season. We got to win the championship. No more losing. You cannot allow yourself to lose.’ So that’s how he kind of motivated me to step it up a notch that season.
“I remember the first play of the NBA Finals against Orlando [in 2009] and I got a pass high-low and I caught it and I was off balance and I didn’t gather myself enough and I think I had Tony Battie right behind me and I didn’t finish the play, and it was a play that if I would have went up with strength and power I should have finished easily. But I didn’t and I missed it and I was short.
“The first timeout he was like, ‘Pau, let’s go man. This is no time to go … soft now. None of that.… Let’s go get this.’ He was right. He comes from that place. He wants to win. Nothing is personal. He’s not trying to insult you or diminish you. He just wants and needs you to give your very best.”
Derek Fisher
They came into the NBA at the same time, Fisher with the Lakers’ first pick, No. 24 overall, in 1996, and won five titles together. Fisher’s comments came during an interview on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”
“When I talk about my time working with Kobe and being a teammate, a friend, and a brother, it was a gift for me. For a guy from Little Rock, Arkansas, with very marginal basketball high-level skill, to be able to watch someone four years younger than I be so driven and be so laser-focused on being the greatest basketball player ever to play, that was a gift for me.
“I would not have lasted in the NBA as long as I did without having seen the way he approached his job on a daily basis . ... I think that, for me, what solidified and cemented where he’ll rest now, honestly, was in practice almost every day. Some of the plays he was able to make and compete in practice, the dunks, the multiple moves, the footwork; he was special right away.
“I never judged how determined he was to stay on his path even though other people couldn’t quite see it.
“I think that’s why our relationship, although it was never always perfect, we never always agreed, but I think he realized I never judged how he he went about being who he was.”
Dwight Howard
Howard played the 2012-13 season with the Lakers but was slowed as he recovered from offseason back surgery and, later, from a torn labrum. He and Bryant also never saw eye to eye, and Howard left for Houston after one season, leaving $30 million on the table to become an ex-Laker.
“A lot of people thought me and Kobe hated each other. … There were times where we just didn’t understand each other and I didn’t get a chance to tell him how appreciative I was for our time together and how thankful I was to be back here in L.A.
“All year long I just wanted to show him that I was gonna do whatever it takes to help this team win. I’ve been wearing his shoes since the season started. I wanted him in the dunk contest, all these things.
“Just to see him go away just like that. I guess the spiritual side was knowing that for all of us here we’ve got to be appreciative for the time that we have on this earth, and we can’t take any moment, take anybody or take anything for granted.
“Being a teammate of somebody that passes away, somebody like Kobe that I grew up watching, played on the same team, played against, played in the Olympics together, had dinners, movies, went to his house after he had Achilles surgery. … I probably have cried as hard as I have in a while. … It wasn’t because we were close, close friends. It’s just like, man, I just never thought that it’d be Kobe.
“After he tore his Achilles, I went to his house to check up and see how he was doing. He came out of the room and he was like, ‘Hey Dwight. Just got finished watching “Pitch Perfect.” ’
“I was thinking to myself, I know Kobe ain’t watching ‘Pitch Perfect.’ He’s lying. He said, ‘Man “Pitch Perfect” is one of my favorite movies.’ I was just like, that’s crazy. I never would have thought that Kobe Bryant would be in his room watching a movie like ‘Pitch
Perfect.’ So after that he told me about it, I started watching the movie and I ended up liking the movie myself. I’ll never forget that.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo
The NBA’s reigning MVP talked about Bryant at this year’s AllStar game.
“A guy that mentored me in the last few years of my career, a guy that was always there for me.
“In the regular season, the playoffs, a guy that told me that whenever I need something, I could just reach out to him and he was really always there. If I needed something, he would text me back, call me.
“Growing up, he was my idol. Not just my idol, probably the whole generation, a lot of people my age. For us, he was the Michael Jordan of our generation. He was one of those guys that gave back to the game so much, gave back to the players. A lot of people when they’re so great, they don’t do that.”
LeBron James
Like Bryant, James entered the NBA out of high school, and the comparisons began almost immediately — right up to the day before Bryant died, when James passed him to move into third place on the career scoring list.
“I met him when I was 15 years old for the first time, and been competing versus him since 2003. Dream come true was being on the Redeem Team, accepted the invitation to be part of the Olympic team in ’08, and those 37, 42 days that we just spent.
“So many gyms, watching him from afar, you can see a lot of the clips from a lot of our practices where me and Kobe are kind of leading the game, leading shoots, and you can tell both of us are like seeing which one is the alpha dog. … But at the same time we’ve got so much mutual respect and so much drive. Kind of just watched, see what he was able to do, why he was great, why he’s successful in this league and the reasons why he was one of the best players in the world year after year after year.
“I was telling my wife a couple days ago, I was like, ‘I’ve seen Kobe play the game of basketball for 20 years for the Lakers. Since he was 18 to 38.’ And I was like, ‘You know it’s crazy.’ She was like, ‘What?’ I was like, ‘You know what, these last three years, out of all the success he had — five rings ... MVP, All-Star game MVP, league firstteam everything, all life, all world, all basketball — it felt like these last three years were the happiest I’ve ever seen him.’ I think we all can say that. It was the happiest I’ve ever seen him, being able to just be with his daughters, be with his family.
“When you’re playing this game of basketball, we give so much to it. This is my 17th year so I know. You give so much to it where, unfortunately, your family comes to the wayside at times. Because when you want to be great at something, when you want to be the best at something, you become so driven that you won’t let nothing stand in the way of that. Not even your own family sometimes. And when you’re compared all the time to greatness, you get compared all the time to greatness, and that makes us even more driven … away from our own family. So that’s, that’s the difficult part of what we deal with as professional athletes when you want to be great. To see him these last three years just being … y’all see Girl Dad, the hashtag. I’m a Girl Dad. My brother right here [points to Anthony Davis] is a Girl Dad.
“It just puts everything in perspective of this is a beautiful game, it’s taken us all over the world, it’s given us so many things that we could never, ever complain about. … But at the end of the day when y’all punch your clocks, we punch our clocks and we’re done for the day, we’re done doing what we’re doing, just make sure you hug the [heck] out of your family. If you got kids, tell your kids you love them, try to make it to as much as you can, and don’t feel bad … if you happen to go to one of your loved one’s events or something like that to sacrifice your job.”