How Kobe Bryant Made Everyone, Including the Haters, Respect His Game

I never hated Kobe, though I hated on him. But on the day he died, as the shock of the news morphed into an unexpected pain, I realized that I had grown up with Kobe even if I had never met him. The hurt I felt that day made me aware of the grip he had on me and his impact on my life, no matter how I may have viewed him. The air had been sucked out of Harlem; some of the air had been sucked out of me, too.

We wear our sports fandom very close to the chest. When I talk about my favorite team, the San Antonio Spurs, winning titles I will say, “We have five titles.” We.

As fans, we feel like part of the team and as though we should have a say in what athletes do with their lives. When I saw the news that Kobe had died, I wondered how we had gotten here.

In 1997, we could have never envisioned what Kobe would become on and off the court. When I saw him shoot air ball after air ball in a crucial game against the Utah Jazz in the playoffs that year, I was so happy because I felt that an arrogant guy had gotten what was coming to him. What I’ve felt this past week was the exact opposite.

Kobe dedicated his life to being better. I’m not going to pretend that I will never again dislike an athlete or talk trash about a player. It’s hard to not do that as a sports fan. But what I can do is learn to be better. And Kobe embodied that: In the end, when we thought he couldn’t let basketball go, he did. He found other avenues for his competitiveness. Kobe started realizing that no matter how seriously we take sports — we — in the end, it’s all just a game. It’s time for some of us to realize that as well.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/sports/basketball/kobe-death.html?emc=rss&partner=rss