Kobe….Gone at 41

Like everyone else I’m stunned. The next phase of Kobe Bryant’s life was one I was looking forward to with keen interest. Not as a coach or a basketball exec, but more to the point… where Kobe would take his life and what goals he would pursue as a man.

From the basketball part of me … Kobe is clearly one of the best ten basketball players who has ever played the game. In twenty seasons– five NBA championships and eighteen All-Star selections.

Every part of his game was excellent. Like Michael, he not only scored, but he defended, rebounded, and made plays all over the court.

Kobe is in every basketball junkie’s Top Ten Pantheon. Period.

But as his career moved along his game wasn’t what endeared me to him….it was his smarts as a human and his desire to become a better person.

Of the four stars who have played for the Thunder…three of the four list Kobe as the most influential player in their youth. Westbrook, Harden, and Paul George, all California kids, cite Kobe as the basketball role model they aspired to be.

But for me, as a fan, it was what Kobe said off the court which made this even sadder for me today. Kobe went straight to the NBA from high school in Philadelphia and yet he turned out to be one of the most interesting athletes of my life-time.

He was a smart, intuitive guy. He could speak intelligently about politics, movies, sports, ….whatever. He was interesting. Never at a loss for an opinion.

It wouldn’t have surprised me a bit if Kobe one day had run for mayor of LA or maybe even considered a bid to become a senator from California. Lord knows—that great deliberative body (sarcasm) could use some new blood.

I watched him once do this movie review of the Quinton Tarantino movie Django and he just floored me. He had me wanting to listen to his other takes on the society we live in currently. He was a rare contemporary athlete who’s skills as a human ascended as his skills as an athlete went into decline.

Very sad and tragic. My prayers are with his wife and three surviving children.

Kobe wasn’t perfect, none of us are. But what we saw was a human with a heart who aspired to be something special beyond the lines of play as a man.

God bless, Kobe Bryant.

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