Kobe Bryant is wired a little bit differently. That’s been known for some time. The Black Mamba speaks fluent Italian, analyzes animal movements to try and help his shot, meditates religiously, tweets up a storm, and famously did that “White Hot” photoshoot. Yeah, you remember the one.
All of this has made Bryant one of the league’s most unique individuals, and that’s something that will be sorely missed on its own. But it also turned Kobe into an icon and one of the best players ever. As Chauncey Billups, now an analyst at ESPN, puts it, “I think he’s one of the top five greatest players in the game that I’ve seen, right behind Michael Jordan as one of the best shooting guards to play the game. I don’t think you can undervalue that.”
If anything, it’s time to appreciate Kobe for who he is, quirks and all, as he finishes out his final season. He’s flawed, fiercely competitive, and he’s all together weird. And that’s okay. That makes him more human.
It’s likely Bryant wouldn’t have been Bryant at all without an assist from Gary Vitti, the longtime Los Angeles Lakers trainer who is retiring right along with Kobe. For 32 years, Vitti has been helping players achieve greatness. Vitti helped guys so good they really only needed one name – Magic, Shaq, Kareem – but one relationship stood out among the rest. Vitti made Kobe better, but Kobe always challenged Vitti to be better too. That’s a habit of Bryant’s that he’ll probably never truly break, and it always seemed as though Vitti understood that as well as anyone.
Lee Jenkins of Sports Illustrated recently penned a column diving into a highlight reel of Vitti memories, and obviously plenty of things stood out out.
For instance:
March 2016, Lakers locker room, and Kobe wants to learn more about the Holocaust. “Did you read Anne Frank’s diary?” he asks. “Of course,” Vitti says. “Is it great?” Bryant asks. “Yeah,” Vitti says. “Is it gut-wrenching?” Bryant asks. “Yeah,” Vitti says. “Read it, but read Elie Wiesel, too.” He emails Bryant the links. In many ways, he remains the Lakers’ intellectual center, introducing words of the day on a screen in the locker room. “Enigma?” Bryant sniffs. “Loquacious? Come on. Those are too easy.”
It’s another exchange that really cut to the heart of who Kobe is, and got us thinking, what does the Black Mamba do in his spare time?
Sometimes, Vitti posts famous quotations. Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else. “Who said that?” Vitti quizzes. “Judy Garland,” Bryant responds. “How do you know this stuff?” Vitti mutters.
If Kobe has time to memorize famous quotations, he must take everything as seriously as he takes basketball. So we tried to make a definitive list of Kobe’s daily activities.
- Reads at least one chapter of The Prince
- Studies the sous-vide method just to be prepared
- Practices Chinese calligraphy
- Spends 20 minutes battle rap writing in the event he ever needs to battle rap
- Tries to get a new personal best breathing underwater
- Plays Ludwig van Beethoven‘s Piano Concerto No. 5, from memory
- Journals in Italian
- Drills daughters in proper hop-scotch technique
- Will ONLY drink Mexican coke
- Proudly displays 180-score on his LSATs when daughters don’t want to do homework
- Burns any fiction in the house because it’s not “practical,” but his secret favorite book is Farenheit 451
- Methodically shreds and buries participation ribbons stolen from his daughter’s dresser
- Privately practices catching flies with chop sticks because he can’t do it yet while blindfolded
- Watches the previous day’s Jeopardy in his study, so he can amaze family by knowing all of the answers after discretely playing the day-old one that night
- Trains to be a Swiss watchmaker
- Teaches Krav Maga
- Takes a vow never to drink wine again, unless its from Gregg Popovich’s vineyard
- Studies to take the California Bar just in case
- Gives the helicopter a wash n’ wax
- Watches every film in the Criterion Collection
- Knits
- Spend one hour daily adding to his scale-sized model of Dante’s “Nine Circles of Hell”
- Searches for the perfect cryogenic chamber online
- Completes the definitive translation of Walter Abish’s “How German Is It?”
- Eats a bagel
- Makes his own pasta, from scratch
- Works on his screenplay
- Takes 30 minutes wandering around his neighborhood eagerly telling his wife that everything she sees is a fibonacci sequence
Hey, Kobe’ll be retired soon. It’s important to have hobbies. Even if they’re extremely strange ones.
Tony Xypteras and Amy Sorlie contributed to this ridiculous and important list.
