USA TODAY International Edition
Hundreds of Kobe Bryant murals fill LA landscape
‘ An outpouring of public art’: Read the stories behind the paintings and artists.
On Jan. 9, DeMar DeRozan scored 38 points in the Spurs’ overtime victory against Minnesota. None of his made field goals was a 3- pointer. The longest shot he made came from 19 feet. It was an efficient 13- for- 23 shooting from the field and 12- for- 13 on free throws – a masterpiece of mid- range jumpers and buckets at the rim.
It was a performance Kobe Bryant would have loved. It was a trademark Bryant game, the kind he produced hundreds of times in his 20- year career.
Perhaps no current NBA player emulates the spirit of Bryant’s game than DeRozan, who grew up in Los Angeles watching Bryant emerge as one of the game’s greatest players in the late 1990s and 2000s. By the time DeRozan entered the NBA in 2009, Bryant had won four league titles, an MVP award and a Finals MVP honor.
“For me, Kobe was my imagination,” DeRozan told the All the Smoke podcast in a recent interview. “Growing up when I started to understand and comprehend basketball at a young age, it was from Kobe and being a Lakers fan.”
It’s just not DeRozan who modeled his game after Bryant.
Bryant’s influence runs deep in the NBA. Many of today’s players grew up watching Bryant and modeling aspects of their game after him.
Moves. Shots and dunks. Footwork. Mid- range dominance.
While LeBron James is in his 18th NBA season, several current players spent their early basketball years watching Bryant and the Lakers. Kobe was their guy, and even James grew up a Bryant fan.
“I admired him for so many years seeing him from afar,” James said a year ago, the day before Bryant died.
From veterans, such as James, DeRozan, Kawhi Leonard, Khris Middleton, Kyrie Irving to younger players like Jayson Tatum, Jamal Murray and Devin Booker, Bryant’s imprint remains omnipresent in today’s NBA.
But it’s not just the moves he made or the shots he took. The Mamba Mentality – the desire to compete and win at just about any price – permeates as an ethos that players can’t ignore.
“It’s the mentality,” Murray said. “My dad looked up to ( Michael Jordan) first. And then Kobe came, then Kobe became my dad’s favorite player and I started watching him. His mentality. It was his drive to win, it was his never give up on plays, his confidence level in himself and what he could do, his belief in his team, just everything. Everything that goes into a championship type of guy and team, that’s the way he acts.”
And for NBA players who grew up in Southern California, Bryant meant something more.
“He was my Michael Jordan,” Clippers forward Paul George said. “Growing up as a SoCal kid he was what everybody, every kid wanted to be here. I started playing basketball because of Kobe. I attacked the game the way he played both ends. I took so much things away from him, and he made a big impression on me as a kid, just about how to go about playing the game. I credit everything, aside from God- given talent, I credit everything else from him.”
Leonard, George’s teammate, is another SoCal native who embodies Bryant’s game, from shot- taking to footwork. Even Golden State’s Steph Curry who is more point guard than shooting guard and more long range than midrange was influenced by Bryant.
“He was our generation’s Jordan in terms of iconic moves, ISO stuff, fadeaways, game- winners. Something about his name even just rolls off the tongue nice when you’re counting down three, two, one you yell ‘ Kobe!’ when you knock it down,” Curry said.
In the early 2010s, then- Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo stood near the visiting locker room at the Wizards’ arena and rattled off a bunch of statistics for DeRozan, who was with Toronto. Colangelo wasn’t comparing DeRozan to Bryant, he was pointing out some DeRozan stats were comparable to some Bryant stats.
Comparisons aren’t always the thief of joy. DeRozan, and several other players, enjoy the comparison because Bryant meant so much to them.
“I remember begging my dad to get a newspaper so I could see what he said after the game,” DeRozan said. “Little ( expletive) like that gave me an emotional connection to one of my favorite players and made me want to push harder when it came to me wanting to play sports, especially basketball.”