Kobe Bryant Beyond The Glory | 2002 | Young Kobe Documentary

It was the wonder of the basketball kid. This kid was never going to be a role player. He was going to be a star. This is how you run a fast break. The

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est to play in the NBA. What would you do if you were a father and your son? He comes up to you and says: I can go to college for four years. I can earn three or four million next year. Now a boy in a man's world enjoys his privacy and his privacy vanishes as soon as he leaves his room. the high school kid from Italy who tried to take on the entire league he just had moments where he just shook his head you know this kid needs to control Tommy's game I don't think it's selfishness I think it's just him It feels like He was invincible on the court and they couldn't stop him.

He has so much skill that he feels like he shot with guys holding and with his teammates open, so I had to question his vision. Go? Did you know this? the guys were open and the wonder boy started to grow and i could see in his face i just want to win i just want to win he might be the best overall player in the game this is

kobe

bryant

absolutely june the 2000 conference finals were seen the lakers faced off against their eternal rival the portland pioneers the lakers had led 3-1 in the series, but then portland recovered by winning the next two and forcing a seventh game in the fourth quarter the lakers were down by 15 points, that was the moment in In fact, when I was a child I dreamed of those types of situations.

In each of the previous three seasons, the Lakers had been eliminated in the playoffs twice by Utah and then in 1999 by the San Antonio Spurs. Now it seemed like the Lakers were just minutes away from Another Frustrated Offseason and Portland got off to a great start, but then midway through the fourth quarter Kobe Bryant got hot, it was time for Jordan to call it quits and six games later, they had only It had been four years since 17-year-old Kobe Bryant had jumped off the high. school and directly to the NBA now he and the Lakers were world champions, but Kobe was still an enigma to his teammates, they wondered who this kid, Kobe Bryant, thought was our conflict, since basically the first day has been how much you want to do on your own. and how much are you going to do on the team's offense, but it wasn't so much about who Kobe was as much as who Kobe was determined to be the best player to ever play the game, when my dad was playing on TV, he would have prepared a little hoop in the living room and I'll play, you know, while he plays, then when they take a timeout, I sit down and take my little time off.

I remember putting on a little t-shirt like one of my mom's white tank tops. He used to help me. She used to write a script with my father's number. Kobe Bryant's first memories are of basketball. He was there when he was four or five years old. He just wanted to do it. He just wanted to play Ryan Short. Now, Kobe's father. Jellybean Bryant played eight years in the NBA, first for the 76ers and then in San Diego and Houston, when Kobe was six years old. Joe signed a contract to play in the Italian league for the next seven years.

The Bryants lived in Italy. The lifestyle in the culture was quite easy. to adapt, but I think the language was like the first day I got into a fight with this kid because he said it means "look black," you know, I guess I've never seen a black person before and I thought he said "you know, look, you know something". Otherwise, look, that guy now ends up becoming my best friend. My first years in Italy. Kobe soon began learning Italian and became fluent in it. He talks like he's not that bad. I speak English, but he speaks very well, very well, he speaks Italian. normal as if it were his language when

kobe

was seven he got his first leather basketball, it became his constant companion, he even slept with it, but finding a game was difficult unless the game was soccer . 13 boys appeared and went down to the field ready. play soccer because they would have the soccer post right under the basket.

Yeah, I just stayed in the game and when they finished I started playing basketball. Joe and Kobe kept track of their favorite NBA teams by watching videotapes. Kobe studied them for hours trying to memorize. the moves of his favorite players, magic, he was one of the best, you know, when michael was coming up, i didn't like him too much, but he was a fan of magic. Kobe hung out with Joe's Italian league teams, it was like a basketball correspondence school every day. When the players stopped his training, Kobe immediately jumped onto the basketball court, took the ball that he always had in his hands and started shooting at the end of each game here in Pistoia.

I remember Kobe coming onto the court and stealing the ball. Since the last player who had it in his hands because he wanted to practice his shots, the audience sometimes stayed longer just to see a 12-year-old boy shooting a basket on the basketball court. His personality was very strong. For example, he rarely passed the ball to the other players, but he usually made the basket, so he had a good reason for not giving the ball away in 1991. Joe Bryant retired from basketball and brought his family to Philadelphia in November while scanning the sports section, Kobe He was surprised to see magic missing from the Lakers' lineup.

The next morning, my mother comes and she tells me how to be positive. What does that mean? You know, is he going to be able to play? Is he going to be okay? Then he had to explain to me everything that broke my heart because of the HIV virus that I acquired. Hey, I'm going to have to retire from the Lakers. Magic's retirement meant the end of the lakers showtime it would be nine years before a boy from italy helped get it back in 1991 joe

bryant

brought his family from italy to live in philadelphia where he once played with the sixers his son kobe had spent the last seven years of his life as a stranger in a foreign land he now found himself as a stranger in his hometown most of the time he didn't understand what people talked about they used to talk slang all the time, but when it came to Kobe's basketball talent, nothing was lost in the translation universal basketball, it doesn't matter what you talk about, if you can go out and play, it just doesn't matter, you know.

It was going to fit no matter what. There was a big buzz in town about a 13 year old kid who was playing at our high school and after five minutes I turned to my assistant coaches and told them this kid is a pro. Philadelphia is a great basketball city. There was a group of guys my age who already had an established reputation of being the best players so I had to come and prove myself to them given Kobe's game, he had no problem proving himself but making friends was another story. in which he was popular. distant and friendly but he is very cautious he is very careful with who he lets in he played ball the ball was his best friend on weekend nights when he was

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er he didn't go to parties or hang out playing ball you would be like a high school senior playing at a high school no one could touch him no one can stop him in the fall of 1992 kobe started out at lower marion high school he was six foot two and the best prospect his coaches had ever seen, we heard he was a former baseball player.

His son came along supposedly was a pretty decent and flashy player and there was a tall skinny kid about six foot four and 87 pounds, he looked like he was wearing his father's Italian uniform with cox teeth on his shirt and all that and It was awkward, but as soon as he walked on the court you knew what he was about, something that made it almost easy to coach Kobe and I think maybe instantly earning the respect of his teammates was his work ethic, he would practice more than anyone I've ever seen on the court. high school I walked into the facility early in the morning at about 5 45 when I heard the basketball hit, I walked up the stairs and there was Kobe doing drills, I would stay late after practice and work on a particular aspect of my game then we went out to the game I would see that it was worth it and that was the most important thing for me because you can spend hours working on the game but if you don't have the confidence and skills to execute them during the game then they mean nothing inferior to the team marion high basketball had been nothing to write home about for half a century but now with the new kid from italy the team started drawing we started we were playing in front of maybe 100 people our parents maybe some of our friends and this and that and a As he got older and we got better, the crowd started to fill up, we went from having two or three hundred people at a men's basketball game to having 1,500 and it became a high point, we won 20 games when he was a sophomore, You looked at Kobe as an opposing coach when you were in 10th grade and you were like, "Oh my god, I have to deal with this for two more years in Colby's junior year." Marian went to the state tournament but lost in the second round, the loss left Kobe devastated, but he determined that one thing I will never forget was Kobe saying I won't let this happen again, so it's almost comical to hear him say this and We are somewhat relaxed.

It's not your fault, but he took it personally and said he would win the title the following year. The following year, Kobe fulfilled his promise. Lower Marian went all the way winning the Pennsylvania state championship for the first time in 53 years. Kobe was named American High School Player of the Year that spring, Kobe is already a celebrity and accompanied pop singer Brandy to his high school graduation party, well you know, I just found out, I didn't have a day for pride , I just asked him to go. One of Kobe's classmates was the daughter of John Lucas, then coach of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Lucas had seen Kobe play and invited him to train with the Sixers during the offseason. The big rumor at the time was that he was destroying jerry stackhouse in One on One was possibly at that moment the first seed planted that maybe college wouldn't be a part of his future. I like that Kobe was heavily recruited by all the top basketball schools, but his lifelong goal and dream was to play. in the NBA and he wanted it now I have decided to skip college and take my talent to the NBA where he is amazed at his decision, how can he say that he is going to do this?

He seemed a little arrogant. He came off as naïve, but Kobe had his own agenda and didn't care what anyone thought. They were smearing him all over the city and Joe too. So it was a difficult time, but Bobby had a dream: what would you do if you were a father and your son? He comes up to you and he says, I can go to college for four years. I can earn three or four million next year. Did you tell him that he has to get a college education at some point in his life? Oh, that's part of the deal.

I mean it's automatic, he had all the attributes where he could have gone to college, he would have survived college very well and he would have done well in the college game and he had a lot of time to come to the NBA and play, but he was eager to being here where The game was the best when people knew he was contemplating going straight to the NBA. The wolves came out immediately. I decided to skip college and take my city to the NBA when Kobe Bryant announced in 1996 that he would skip college and go straight to the NBA.

He was bombarded by a hailstorm of controversy. I saw it on the local news and I just remember thinking what's with those ridiculous glasses on his head? Who does this guy think he is? It was pretty crazy to think that there's a guy you went to high school with. who will he go to the he was all professionals the place where he was in the newspapers he was on radio shows he should do this he should do that education first you know sports this is not ready your parents are making a mistake they didn't raise him right, it's crazy, Silly stuff, only a few players had successfully made the jump from high school to the NBA and were big men.

Kobe was 6'5 by NBA standards. Lakers general manager Jerry West had heard about the brash kid from Philadelphia and wanted to see it for himself, inviting Kobe to train with the Lakers a few weeks before the draft. We put him against Michael Cooper, who was one of the great defensive players we had in the NBA. We pitted him against Larry Drew and it was a joke to see him march on these people when the kid was 17, at which point he told me that this was the best workout he had ever seen in his history training players before the NBA draft and that Kobe there was a chance to be one of the best players to ever play the game i thought it was an absolutely easy decision to try to do everything i could to get it the charlotte hornets drafted kobe bryant out of lower marion high school the charlotte hornets drafted kobe In the first round, 13th overall, Jerry West then surprised many observers by offering his starting center Vladi Devots in exchange.

There were some people upset because when we made that tradeThey could deny it, but there were some people upset that we traded a starting center for him and a very good player in bloody devops, but I've always felt that the things that set teams apart are risky. Trading Vlade seemed much less risky just a few days later, when the Lakers signed free agent Shaquille O'Neal to replace him. The dynamic duo was in place. In the summer of 1996, Kobe, along with his parents Joe and Pam, moved to Los Angeles to begin living his dream. He was playing in a Los Angeles Laker uniform and it was just amazing that 10 years ago, when this kid was 89 years old, now he's playing. the NBA against me and I play against his father, the fans were eager to see him play and Kobe wasted no time enjoying the fans, he was able to play in the rookie all-star game, he led all scorers with 31 points and then took the slam dunk contest, but despite these heroic acts, lakers coach dale harris wanted to break kobe slowly, he saw me as a little kid, and that's how it was, he turned to other players to respect me, he wanted me to work for my opportunity and I worked very hard.

He was already working harder than everyone else, but he felt like he had to be 10 times harder on me than he was on Eddie Jones or Nick Van Next or whatever, and that wasn't fair when you draft a high school kid, everyone. they want me to play, but we had a very good team and we had a particularly deep backcourt. There weren't many minutes for Kobe to play. I thought Dale did a good job with him, but he was in an awkward position because people wanted him to play. Kobe had spent most of his life as an outsider, first as an American in Italy then as an Italian in an American city now his age set him apart from his teammates when Kobe arrived he was 17 so here you have someone who is giving the jump from high school to the nba not only that but he's surrounded by grown men from 21 to you know, almost 40 years after a game, if a guy wants to meet up and go out for a drink or you know or something like that , Kobe can't participate, I want to go to the box, I don't.

I don't drink I'm underage anyway I won't go there full guys go to strip clubs so he didn't play basketball man he didn't do that kind of stuff but there was more than just an age difference that separated Kobe. Of his teammates, the Lakers had a problem with his tendency to shoot the ball almost every time he touched it. There were times when I would just shake my head. This child needs to calm down his game. He needs to learn how to use everyone else once the sky's the limit when the 1997 playoffs rolled around? Lakers coach Del Harris was frustrated with his 18-year-old star, but in overtime against the Jazz, with the season on the line, he let Kobe have the ball in the right corner as players.

I think we all questioned him not because he was Kobe but because he was a young rookie, um, even though he had all the skill in the world, you know, playing on the team, she killed a mill, you played on the Jones team, you're playing on the equipment. with nick van nexter it was a difficult position, um, i think to put kobe in next season, some in the media called kobe the next michael jordan, kobe bryant is not michael jordan, he will never be michael jordan, he does some things what michael looks like, he is a completely different player than michael jordan, but kobe had no interest in being the next jordan, he wanted to make the fans forget the number 23, his first opportunity came in the 1998 all-star game, so he didn't you're shying away at all.

Michael, you're going after him, aren't you, Kobe? I'm just having fun having a good time. Michael is a great player, one of the best players of all time, what better way to learn the game than to go after him. Kobe went towards him. but that night michael was the best four months later the lakers were hot when they reached the 1998 playoffs but then the jazz beat them in four games in a row 96 92 and the sweep is complete many said that the lakers' failures were due to the disharmony between stars kobe bryant and shaquille or "Neal blamed Kobe more than Shad.

Everyone knows that Shaq is a man, but why could they be two great players playing together. I don't understand that there is no need for that .There's no need for the guys to argue. You know, I mean, I even told Coca-Cola that you. I know there's no need for that, you guys need to go out and win as the new season approaches. One thing was clear if the Lakers were ever going to reach their potential, something or someone would have to give in or go in the bidding. He was 20 years old. Kobe Bryant was living the modern American dream.

He had a $71 million contract with the star team. The NBA in the most glamorous city in the country was tremendously popular with fans, especially the young ones, Kobe's talent and star quality were obvious, but to his coaching staff and teammates he was a headstrong loner whose style of exhibitionism hurt the team and cost them key victories. That's the part that many of us probably know from questioning many people outside our organization. The question is what exactly are your motives and thinking that way, you know, is it just because you feel like you're so good or are you there for other personal reasons that don't involve what's best for this basketball team?

Kobe changed alone in a cubicle outside the locker room and rarely spoke to his teammates off the court. He described the worm Dennis Rodman as the perfect teammate because the two had never spoken off the court. There is no doubt that He's not really interested in the quote-unquote personal part or the co-worker part. In the NBA, I think Kobe grew up in a different era and grew up, you know, overseas, in Italy, he's chosen to be a loner because if you looked around there was no other Kobe Bryant, the fact that we didn't go out and spend the while going out to clubs or going out together to see boobies, I think it's simply because he enjoys his privacy and his privacy fades as soon as he leaves his room in the spring of 2000.

Kobe met vanessa lane on the soundstage of a music video. I knew her like her, hey she. what's your name vanessa that was it she had like a bright little eye and everything and that was it for me the relationship left him with even less time for his teammates imagine he had a comment that he had to hang out with the team already you know and ready to go to clubs and go to bars to create camaraderie in the team so that we win and I respect magic a lot, but to me that was just an out of the ordinary statement, you know what I mean because you know how it's going to be that. win a championship for me go to a club and be with the guys and do this, there are other ways we can do this, Kobe stayed away from the other Lakers and although neither of them would admit it, he was stuck.

In an ugly rivalry with the team's other star, Shaquille O'Neal, they're like, you know, worrying about whose team has the most commercials and all this other stuff, they have their egos and they both want to be the best. They also want to be the main focus of the offense. They also want to be the main focus of all media attention. Many on the team blame their misfortunes on Kobe's refusal to meet Shaq halfway while Shaq called Kobe the Boy Wonder. in interviews he didn't mean it as a compliment, then in 1999, tensions came to the surface when Kobe and Shaq got into a fight during a scrimmage.

The relationship between Kobe and Shaquille is a relationship that would definitely remind you of two brothers. the older brother and one of them is a younger brother and the older brother has always been able to tell the younger brother what to do and the years go by and suddenly the younger brother is a little bigger, a little older, a little stronger for three seasons, the Laker management did everything possible to get the best out of Kobe Bryant. They traded Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel, giving Kobe more time on the court. They replaced Del Harris with Kurt Rambis and gave Colby the league's maximum contract of $71 million in the 1999 playoffs.

Lakers lost again, swept this time by the less talented San Antonio Spurs sweep Lakers owner Jerry Buss, who had always avoided paying big money for coaching talent, bit the bullet and coughed up $30 million to bring Phil Jackson to Los Angeles. The former Bulls coach had six championship rings and managerial talent had a strong Phil, an excellent communicator. He's an excellent coach at Teal in terms of dealing with players dealing with a team, but before Phil had a chance to reach a truce, Kobe and Shaq made their own attempt at reconciliation. The occasion was Kobe's 21st birthday at a restaurant.

Shaq surprised everyone by appearing. Phil Jackson's most immediate challenge was how to attract his young guard. At some points he was totally horrified that he would outrun his teammates and chase the ball. offense to get to the basketball took shots with guys holding with teammates wide open phil worked to convince kobe that the team's best route to winning was through shaq that it was okay to pass the ball because he would get it back this message was not new kobe i had heard it countless times from jerry west magic johnson dell harris and kurt rambis but it took phil jackson to finally get to it which is why i had genuine respect for phil because i could tell right away that he was serious about it game and he loved the game, I think Phil Jackson has been great for Kobe Bryant, he's stern but he'll still give him a little bit of a role, but when he makes mistakes that are costly and he makes mistakes, that's where he tries. doing too much phil will remind you and also take you out of the game that the team really came together as a culmination of so many different things and it was exciting to have phil come in and all the ingredients he brought instituted tremendous team play once they realized, everything fell into place the Lakers took down Portland and then beat the Pacers in the finals, they were finally world champions and once we finally won, it tastes really, much sweeter after you've been through some kind of adversity you just want to win that's his attitude he just wants to win the game win games that's all both kobe and shaq had realized that the whole of their talents combined was greater than the sum of the parts I think we just wanted to I think if you look back how you look to Kareem, you look at the magic.

He just passed the ball. Cream. He fired the magic. I love doing that on this team. Shaq and now we are both quote-unquote killers. You have to go for your throat, it's just a matter of us figuring out how we can do that and do it together. Kobe Bryant was on his way to achieving his ultimate goal of being the greatest of all time, but now even he knew he couldn't do it alone in April 2001. Before the first round of the playoffs, Kobe Bryant married his girlfriend 18 year old vanessa lane, in a private ceremony, it's hard because you know she misses a lot, like when I travel and go on tour and she's not like me, but when they come, I come home, you know, I'm very happy to see the person, she knows that this is my job and that's what I have to do, and she knows how dedicated I am to this game, so our relationship was great when the next season started, a lot of the old ones. the conflicts returned shaq complained that kobe was hogging the ball again and shaq was throwing bricks from the free throw line but when the playoffs came the lakers got to work and played as a team the best team in the league they reached the finals and then defeated allen iverson and the sixers to defend their title.

Kobe recovered from an ankle injury and stepped up making the big shots, but Shaq won the most valuable player award. kobe ​​if it wasn't for shaquille you know he definitely could have been in the mvp he ran the finals um I think he showed that you know he will go down in history as you know one of the two best three four five players to ever play this game then in February

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, the son of Chronicles returned to Philadelphia for the NBA. all-star game were not happy to see him kobe scored 31 points he was named mvp but it was a painful reminder that to philadelphia fans kobe was not a local hero, he was gone too quickly and too often in their eyes he would always be a strange, but maybe Kobe, the loner, liked it that way.

It took Kobe Bryant four years to mature to the level where he could help the Lakers win the NBA championship. Some thought those four years could have been better spent in college, away from the NBA spotlight. Kobe transgressed one of the things that I think is really a mistake. College is our farm system basically in the NBA and I think it's important for players to go through that process and learn how to be successful in a peer group environment that is primarily their own age group, but if Kobe's It was the road less traveled, there's no doubt that it took him where he'd always wanted to go, you know the saying people say, uh,the guy couldn't chew gum and walk at the same time, he was like that from the beginning, man.

He worked hard to get to the point he is at now, it's incredible that at the age of 23 he was already a five-year veteran of the NBA, helping lead his team to two world championships and was headed for a third, but Kobe Bryant was still a job. In progress, no one among us expected him to become the number one American basketball player. I think he will play in the league for about 10 more years and he will leave the NBA with five or six rings and a legacy similar to Jordan's. He's going to be one of the best players to ever play this game.

He's really slowed things down and learned to use his teammates better. There is tremendous room for improvement in it. He's going to be better than he is today and that's pretty scary. He was now a team player, but Kobe Bryant followed his own path. I constantly tell people, man, if you have a dream and you want to achieve something, don't let anyone tell you that you can't achieve it, that you can be anything you want. You can strive for whatever you want to strive for, don't let anyone bring you down.