It seems impossible now, but there was a time that Kobe Bryant couldn’t score. After passing Michael Jordan for third on basketball’s all-time points list, Mamba talks of adolescent struggles that fueled his relentless for drive for buckets and calls MJ his “muse” in a post for The Players’ Tribune.
When Bryant was 12 years-old, he played in Philly’s Sonny Hill Future league for an entire summer without scoring a point. Disappointment gleaned from that experience, he writes, is what made him the player he is today:
Zero. That’s the number of points I scored the entire summer while playing in Philadelphia’s Sonny Hill Future League when I was 12 years old. I didn’t score. Not a free throw, not an accidental layup, not even a lucky throw-the-ball-up-oops-it-went-in basket.
My father Joe “Jellybean” Bryant and my uncle John “Chubby” Cox were Future League legends in their day. My father as a 6-10 point forward and my uncle as a 6-4 point guard.
I was putting my family to shame!
After briefly considering giving up the game, Kobe learned of a young Jordan’s infamous labor: that he was cut from his high school basketball team. This is when Bryant began to emulate every intangible that helped make His Airness great:
So I decided to take on my challenge the same way [Jordan] did. I would channel my failure as fuel to keep my competitive fire burning. I became obsessed with proving to my family — and more importantly to myself — that I CAN DO THIS.
It became an obsession. I learned everything about the game, the history, the players, the fundamentals. I wasn’t just determined to never have a summer of zero again, I was driven to inflict the same sense of failure on my competition as they unknowingly inflected on me. My killer instinct to score was born.
Twenty-four years later, I pass my muse.
We’ve been given a lens into Bryant’s life over recent months that was sorely lacking during his prime. He sees light at the end of his playing tunnel, and passing Jordan is likely the brightest its shone yet.
Over the next two seasons, we need to savor moments like last night’s and insight like this from Kobe. Like Jordan before him, Bryant will be gone long before we’re ready to see him leave.
What do you think?
Follow Jack on Twitter at @ArmstrongWinter.
Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.
Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.
