Rip Kobe Bryant

I was a basketball player and used to follow recruiting as well. I remember having a little magazine where he was ranked right behind Tim Thomas in his given class, and not really thinking too much about him.

Then he went pro, and without knowing or thinking, I'd thought he would be a bust. I hated him because he clearly copied and mimiced everything MJ. I thought his swagger was fake and he would be another in the lineage of bust Jordan imitators.

That said, I misunderstood him, and what he represented to the game of basketball. When he came into the league, everyone thought MJ was God (maybe he still is), but Kobe wasn't afraid to challenge God and try to beat him. Among the younger players at that time (and today) he was the first guy to truly challenge the possibility that someone could be as good or better than MJ. It was inconceivable in the mid-to-late 90s to think of the impossible. While he wasn't as good overall as MJ, as a scorer he came very close. Kobe was actual proof that someone else could fly and touch the sky. Nowadays: Westbrook, Harden, Irving.....all these guys are more correlative as to the direct impact of Kobe and what he took and expanded from MJ than MJ directly himself.

You will be missed Kobe: from a kid in high school playing, who quasi-made fun of you, to despising you with the Lakers, to watching dumbfoundedly at your 35 ppg season or your ball handling ability, or ability to make impossible shots or to be as clutch as Bird or MJ or to seeing your final game with 60 or to watching and gaining respect for you while you did everything you could with those injuries, I will miss you.

Never has an athlete, performer, anyone, so radically changed my opinion of them from one extreme of another. I thought about my teendom, growing up as a young adult, and all the memories you reminded me of in my own life, today.

Thanks for being unique: a guy who found his passion and actually giving a crap about how you did it.

RIP my underrated icon (and who cares you weren't as good as MJ. What difference does that debate make: you were special and unique).
 
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If you have Super Bowl tickets you should sell those and get a ticket to the Clips v Lakers on Tuesday.
 


Is this fūcking shlt for real?

They bring that shlt up now.

I’m the last person to cape for a sexual assault, but that is not what happened, so fūcking miss me with the bringing up some sloot that had second thoughts and wanted to get paid. Nothing like this ever happened before or after the supposed incident. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Bringing this horseshlt up today is totally uncalled for, especially when his family and close friends are just digesting this horrible news.
 
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We’ve lost a lot of iconic personalities in the last 25 yrs alone. No one is invisible, and life is too short.

Should b a reminder that whatever beef u have, if u haven’t told ur fam u love them, if u have a grudge, man let that go. Live life w love & gratitude b/c tomorrow is not promised.
 
Is this fūcking shlt for real?

They bring that shlt up now.

I’m the last person to cape for a sexual assault, but that is not what happened, so fūcking miss me with the bringing up some sloot that had second thoughts and wanted to get paid. Nothing like this ever happened before or after the supposeEd incident. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Bringing this horseshlt up today is totally uncalled for, when his family and close friends are just digesting this horrible news.
That's what media does now. They filter everything through their target issues.

If Jonas Salk had smacked a girl on the *** once, the headline would have read, "Sexual predator develops vaccine for Polio."
 
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Tragic! Feels like a family friend passed away. Been following this dude since I was 15 years old.

I remember watching him against the jazz in the playoffs , dude shot like 2-3 consecutive air balls in the last minute. Now at that moment I’m also seventeen, still in high school , this dude is seventeen shooting clutch jumpers in the playoffs. I couldn’t wrap my head around that and having the balls to do it.

I hated the Lakers and hence I rooted against him but at the moment I knew this dude was wired different.
 
That's what media does now. They filter everything through their target issues.

If Jonas Salk had smacked a girl on the *** once, the headline would have read, "Sexual predator develops vaccine for Polio."

I mean, it’s truly sickening, people are still trying to process this, and somebody has to virtue signal and **** on him
 
This one really hurts. I was lucky enough to hear him speak at a luncheon in LA in 2017 (have a friend who is a notable attorney in LA). He couldn’t have been nicer (I told him he got jobbed on 2 MVPs), and he wasn’t just “smart for an athlete” he was a really intelligent person, and he would have been a force in the business world in another 5 years. Wish like **** I had gotten a picture.

A ******* legend
 
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Will is what made him what he was , MJ too. Two of the most coat throat , strong willed athletes I’ve ever seen.
I can’t remember who it was but one of mJay’s college teammates caught him cheating while playing gin with his grandma. MJ wasn’t even going to take an L to a grandma during a gin game at a teammates house.
 
I can’t remember who it was but one of mJay’s college teammates caught him cheating while playing gin with his grandma. MJ wasn’t even going to take an L to a grandma during a gin game at a teammates house.

Jordan took it to an unhealthy level , he was a competitionaholic. Hence why he had such gambling issues , he needed that competition 24/7.
 
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