The passing of time allows one to gain a greater perspective. It’s why we’re able to end grudges, learn from failures and retroactively cherish moments that in real time seemed so different or so inconsequential.
Take Kobe Bryant, for example.
The Los Angeles Lakers legend and his daughter, Gianna, were among nine people killed Sunday in a helicopter crash in Southern California. The stories shared in the aftermath of the unspeakable tragedy are less about Bryant breaking the hearts of opposing fan bases — which happened quite often during his 20-year NBA career — and more about his indelible impact on basketball, the NBA’s overall landscape and those carrying the torch since his retirement in 2016.
You see, Bryant transcended the Purple and Gold. He was a global superstar in every sense of the label. Even if you hated him, for whatever reason, it was hard not to respect his competitiveness — known effectively as the “Mamba Mentality” — or his commitment to growing the sport he loved and dominated for two decades.
That admiration extended to one of Bryant’s biggest rivals: the Boston Celtics.
Despite being located 3,000 miles away and residing in a different conference, the C’s wound up as main characters in Bryant’s opus, most notably in 2008, when Boston defeated Los Angeles in the NBA Finals, and in 2010, when the Lakers exacted revenge against their East Coast counterpart. The connection only grew after Bryant officially retired in 2016, following a farewell tour that included a proper, respectful send-off from Green Teamers who had grown accustomed to rooting against — not cheering for — one of the most popular figures in league history.
One even could make the case the Celtics benefited as much as any team, besides the Lakers, from Bryant’s post-retirement willingness to pass on the knowledge he attained while performing on basketball’s biggest stage. Need proof? Consider Isaiah Thomas, a spark plug who helped reinvigorate the Celtics franchise after a brief period of mediocrity.
Thomas and Bryant connected at some point during the former’s tenure with Boston, which spanned two-plus seasons (2015-17), and IT credited the five-time champion with helping him bring his game to another level during the NBA playoffs in 2017. Thomas, dealing with the sudden death of his sister, Chyna, lifted the Celtics to a seven-game victory over the Washington Wizards in the Eastern Conference semifinals that year thanks in large to the advice he received while studying film with Bryant.
“I’m a guy that watches a lot of film … and I thought what I was watching were the right things,” Thomas recalled in an article posted on the Lakers’ team website in March 2018. “When we first sat down and watched film last playoffs, he was just going in so much detail of things that I never even looked at on film.
“It was crazy, because I never even thought about basketball like that,” the former Celtics point guard added. “And then when I started to think like that, I would see it before it happened in the game and I would think, ‘Damn, Kobe really just told me that last night.’ ”
So, why was Bryant so willing to help a guy suiting up for the Celtics, long one of his greatest adversaries? Well, because Bryant, a student of the game above all, was devoted to paying it forward.
“I was happy to help him,” Bryant said in a May 2017 interview with ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan. “He had the courage to ask. I did the same thing with Michael Jordan when I was a young player.”
For Bryant, the Celtics-Lakers rivalry — and other such matters that seem so trivial whenever tragedy strikes — wasn’t a consideration when mentoring the next generation of NBA stars.
“Well that’s complete nonsense,” Bryant said, per MacMullan, when asked in May 2017 about the awkward optics of a longtime Lakers stalwart indirectly assisting the Celtics. “I love watching IT play. Is he a superstar? I don’t even know that means. All I know is he goes out and competes every single night. He’s been playing at a level rarely seen. And he’s been doing it all year.”
The Thomas-Bryant bond was far from a one-off. Bryant remained an open book for many young students of the game looking to follow in his footsteps, including current Celtics up-and-comer Jayson Tatum, who worked out with Bryant in California during the summer of 2018, and Boston veteran Gordon Hayward, who once trained with the NBA icon in Newport Beach. Tatum, especially, has drawn comparisons to Bryant, largely because of the fluid style with which he plays and the bond he’s formed with his childhood idol since entering The Association in 2017.
“A lot of our guys. A lot of our guys,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens told reporters Sunday in New Orleans, reflecting on Bryant’s lasting impact inside Boston’s locker room.
“Again, and he broke the hearts of the Celtics many times, but there’s probably not greater appreciation for him than all of us that worked for the Celtics, and certainly our fans. All of our players totally looked up to him and totally admired him.”
Loved. Hated. Respected.
Kobe Bryant was a lot of different things to a lot of different people over the years. But as we sit back and reminisce about his legacy on the heels of an inexplicably heartbreaking accident, it’s obvious few athletes in the history of sports impacted the ensuing generation quite like the Black Mamba — regardless of fandom, locale, background, etc. And what’s truly unfortunate is that he still had so much more to give.
