Monday, January 27, 2020

Long Live The Black Mamba

Growing up with the Kobe Bryant Renaissance Man poster on my wall to being a grown man who has had the opportunity to see him play in person twice….. I'm really feeling it right now.


Just scrolling through social media and seeing the love he's getting is overwhelming. We watched him grow from a 17 year old on draft night to a full time family man with a beard. We had time to accept that he was no longer playing basketball and have had the chance to witness the 2nd phase of his life.


Right out of the gate he struck gold with his Body Armor energy drink then before we knew it he released Dear Basketball and won an Oscar then won an Emmy. If that wasn't enough he also became a New York Times best selling author with the release of Wizenard. Then the opening of his Mamba Sports Academy where many came to train and workout. His post basketball career was looking to be even better than his NBA career. One thing that makes all of this so hard to deal with is that his 2nd born daughter had developed a love for basketball that led to him coaching her basketball team. The idea of a daughter wanting to pursue the same career as her father says enough to me about the influence he had within his household. Admirable to say the very least. What I've noticed since his retirement is that he's taken on the role of the wise old man that's constantly teaching. Kobe left this Earth with more money than he could spend and his legacy isn't about wealth. The value in the lessons he taught don't have a pricetag. Neither does his influence. Trae Young wearing number 8 last night as a tribute to Kobe is a prime example.

Yesterday I left home to workout with my gray Kobe shirt. When I came home my girlfriend was in the bathroom so I laid out in the floor in our bedroom to allow myself to stretch while I wait for her to get out so I could take a shower. She comes out the bathroom and tells me "Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash". At this moment I was stunned and ran downstairs to look at my phone and it felt like my heart sunk. I'm trying to make sense of this like everyone else. Then reading conflicting reports that all turned out to be false made me hate this journalism culture of rushing to be first instead of making sure they're right. People were even reporting that Rick Fox was in the helicopter with no legit source. Completely irresponsible. Finding out that Gigi was one of the 9 victims of the crash has fucked with me the very most. If you have problems with someone resolve that shit. If you're distant from your child(ren) fix that. Simply leaving home doesn't guarantee that you'll make it home. We can argue over who's the greatest all day but one thing that's been confirmed is that the day we lost Kobe the world stopped. It's a whole generation of ball players and fans that witnessed his career from the beginning to the end so it feels like losing a relative. Guys like Kyrie Irving and Jayson Tatum lost someone they idolized so understand that people are going to grieve. One more thing, people need to get the fuck of Lebron's back about not instantly issuing a statement via social media. He don't owe us shit or any insight into his feelings. I know I'm all over the place right now but I'm not trying to carefully construct an article. This is more of a freestyle. Peace and love everyone.







Posted by at No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)