Go inside Kobe Bryant's career with his Lakers family
LOS ANGELES – The way one of his closest friends tells it, the end of Kobe Bryant’s career should not be written as a tragedy or a farce. According to Caron Butler, Bryant’s departure from the game is simply the end of a love story.
Butler, now with the Sacramento Kings, has been one of Bryant’s confidants since they shared a Los Angeles Lakers locker room for the 2004-05 season.
During a recent steakhouse meal, Butler says, he finally came to understand how Bryant felt about retirement, and how he was able to rationalize bringing to an end a Hall of Fame career that has included five NBA titles.
“Kobe said: 'This is your life, the first love of your life, the game of basketball,' " Butler recalled in an interview with Paste BN Sports. “ ’Every athlete should understand that with the first love of your life at some point you have got to let it go. The beauty of everything and the beauty of life is that you have to try and find a way to (still) love the game and find that second love.’ ”
As the time approaches when Bryant will lace up a competitive sneaker for the final time, with the Lakers rounding out a dismal season at home to the Utah Jazz on Wednesday, Butler was not the only member of the 37-year-old’s inner circle to serve up insightful memories of a glittering career.
The Staples Center is full of working colleagues lining up to do so, and while a season of 62 defeats and counting is no fun, if there was ever a player that the organization could countenance giving up a season for in order to say farewell, it is Bryant.
“I grew up here,” Bryant told Paste BN Sports. “A lot of the people that work here actually came from The Forum, (the Lakers' previous home). So they were around when I was in The Forum, five hours, six hours before game time, or four hours before practice and the lights were off, so they have watched me grow up from 17 years old till now.”
Bryant’s fixation on improvement led to such extreme training habits and also meant that The Forum and more recently Staples Center became home just as much as his mansion in Orange County.
He spent holidays here, playing for the Lakers 16 times on Christmas Day, from his days fresh out of high school to his current standing as a figurehead of the sport.
Lakers old-timers, especially members of the medical staff, have been there through some of the lowest moments, such as the three major injuries that took unwelcome chunks out of Bryant's career.
“He played hurt all the time but never complained about it,” Lakers team physician Steve Lombardo said. “He never let on to the opponent he was playing hurt.
“Maybe he didn’t hurt, maybe he was one of these carnival people that you can stick a pin in their arm and they don’t feel anything. No, he just handles pain better than most people.
“When he leaves the game (people) will appreciate his greatness (more).”
Nowadays, Bryant is calmer and more aware of his limitations. With no playoff run to fire up for, the Lakers’ ongoing malaise meant he had little choice but to enjoy the ride.
“Maybe its fitting that (it) ended up this way so that (he) can go out having fun,” Lakers trainer Gary Vitti said.
Vitti, who is ending his own career after 32 years, says he is the only person to have seen every one of Bryant’s pro games. “If we were in the hunt (he) would be mad all the time, biting people's heads off.”
When Vitti expressed that sentiment in conversation, Bryant agreed with it wholeheartedly. Once, the suggestion that a shred of happiness could be an acceptable response to defeat would have been treated as treason.
So many of the tales and anecdotes revolve around Bryant’s need to win. Lombardo tells of him pulling up his Achilles after it tore during late in the season three years ago. Vitti had countless battles with Bryant, exhorting him not to play injured in order to preserve his long-term health. Metta World Peace talks of Bryant’s perfectionist nature.
“He expects you to do as well as he is playing out there,” the basketball player formerly known as Ron Artest said. “Which is kind of hard to do.”
Yet behind the fierceness and the "Black Mamba" persona and the maniacal desire to succeed, was a side to Bryant that cherished a human connection.
Michael Roth, vice president of communications for Staples Center owner AEG, said Bryant took an interest in the lives of even the most junior members of the stadium staff, to an extent deeper than “a passing glance or a nod of acknowledgement.”
Andrew Bernstein, the Lakers team photographer, has taken more snaps of Bryant than anyone and remembers that when the teenage Kobe arrived in Los Angeles, he told Bernstein he knew his name from the tiny credit line on NBA posters that adorned his wall as a boy.
“Who remembers that?” Bernstein said. “Especially a kid.”
That was at the beginning. This is the end. Bryant will go out with a smile Wednesday, having found good cheer once the drive to thrive found no outlet in this write-off of a season.
All season long, it is like Bryant and the Lakers have been on the clock, counting down to zero games left.
“It will end,” Butler said. “That is something that is reality we must all face.”
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