The funny thing is, I hated the Lakers. I hated all the teams that were seen as famous and rich, benefiting from being hosted in a large city like New York or Los Angeles. I literally refused to like Jordan for his entire career because I was a diehard Cleveland fan, but also because I recognized how the media aided and abetted his legend. But I was fascinated by Kobe going to the NBA straight from high school. And the more I followed his career, the more I started to see ways that he was not properly understood, even ways that I sympathized.
But first, a little time travel trip. In 2020, there are plenty of young successful people in the limelight. Billie Eilish just won a ton of Grammys. We believe that almost any talent can be discovered from Youtube or TikTok. Some of our most popular apps were started by teens and people in their early 20′s. In 2020, we have nerds everywhere, of every color and gender and type.
In 2000-2003 or so? Our president, George W Bush, based much of his campaign around the idea that older, wiser members of his cabinet were going to do much of the thinking for him, despite being 54 (yes, that old!) when elected. The prevailing wisdom in the business community was that if a young entrepreneur had a good business idea, his/her company should be run by an older, wiser CEO. There were so few younger people being showcased with talent or authority. Even look at the music charts for 2001: they’re fairly dominated by older artists and groups. So it’s 2001 or so, and I’m in college and then grad school. It’s after the Dot-Com explosion, where all those Internet companies went bankrupt or were a shell of their former selves. Nerdy or young role models are few and far between.
First and foremost, Kobe was a nerd. He was poor at the social graces, poor at bonding with his teammates, and bad at small talk. Kobe was obsessed with basketball and languages and arts, in classic male nerd form. But because society was too RACIST (I’m sorry, this still bothers me), hardly anyone recognized this or said this out. At best they thought it was because he lived in Europe for so many years, lol. “He’s not nerdy, he’s Euro!” is pretty sad, isn't it? Yet much of the coverage of Kobe was completely blind to Kobe's true personality, and kept talking about how mysterious and unique he was. It's maddening in retrospect.
You all may not remember, pre-Obama, most of society was too small-minded to realize that black men could be nerds, unless they wore glasses and talked like Steve Urkel (smh). Don't trust me about it, listen to Donald Glover tell it like it is. Honestly, I’m not even sure I properly called Kobe a nerd, but I was drawn to his obsession with things over people.
Secondly, Kobe was a young talent who was constantly being squashed by the older talents in his life. Phil Jackson constantly criticized Kobe, sometimes deservedly, sometimes because Phil intentionally liked to bully the second or third best players on the team as some sort of fake psychological motivational tactic. Quick reminder of that is Phil yelling at Pau and hitting him in the chest here: I'm not saying it's wrong, I am saying it's Phil's M.O.
Shaq worked half as much as Kobe and then continued to demand the ball and the credit for Lakers successes. And the national media mostly sided with Phil and Shaq! Kobe was seen as the greedy young talent who wasn’t willing to wait his turn.
And I know! In 2020 this sounds ridiculous. In 2020, perhaps we should be stopping some young talents rather than encouraging them. But as a graduate student, as I started my career, I constantly ran into this from well-meaning older talents. Stop trying to do this: stop trying to do that. Just keep your head down. And I was too nice to talk back, but my support of Young Kobe was one quiet way I fought back, the way I resented how older talent was constantly stifling younger skill.
I didn’t have as much use for Kobe once he made it and Shaq left his side. I no longer felt as linked, and towards the end of his career Kobe started feeling like a joke I wasn't getting. The Black Mamba self-labeling was tone-deaf. His emphasis on salvation through hard work was hardly revelatory. But look, Young Kobe was someone who I could relate to, oddly enough, at a time where there were few nerds or innovators that I could appreciate. And if a nerdy white guy from the Midwest could connect with Kobe, no wonder his passing meant so much to so many.
I won’t forget it, and I’m moved by his passing. And I’d like to think that Older Kobe, at a certain moment, was becoming a better man, was finally becoming a more well-rounded man, aware of his faults. And that he could have been a role model for me and others again, on how to change and grow from your origins. But unfortunately that part of the Kobe story has ended, and we mourn not only the present but also the potential future that was lost.
