Remembering the Mamba

Going to work on Monday was possibly the hardest thing I’ve had to do in a long time. Waking up Monday morning and realizing the Kobe wasn’t breathing on this Earth was honestly a crushing feeling. For as long as I can remember, my love for basketball as a sport was tied into #8 from Philly, playing in LA. Kobe was the youngest player to ever start in a NBA game, and watching him play as young as 18 gave life to the hoop dream that every young black boy has at some point. In my mind, the highest form of basketball and Kobe Bryant are one in the same, and I don’t think even death can change that.

I grew up in the era that every made jumper, whether it was into a hoop or a trash can had to be preceded with “Kobe!” Also, every time you snagged a catch over someone else it was called “Mossing” after Randy Moss. There weren’t two more idolized sports heroes by my friends and I growing up. Pulling either of these two off made you the coolest kid in school and likely to receive those “do you like me” notes in class.

As a kid from the 757, the 2001 NBA Finals series between the Lakers and the 76ers was some of the most exciting sports I’d ever seen. At the time, I was only 8 year old, but my dad used to let me stay up past my bedtime to watch the game every other night. Watching Kobe and Allen Iverson guard each other night in and night out was honestly some of the most exhilarating display of basketball on the highest level. Of course, primary guarding duties during that series fell to Tyronn Lue, who ended up getting stepped over in game one. Going to school to talk to my friends about the games the next day was the highlight of our day. At least it would’ve been until we got recess/P.E. and I got to show everyone how I thought I was the next Kobe.

The first NBA jersey I ever got was an #8 Kobe jersey at the first NBA game I ever went to, the Lakers vs. the Wizards. At the game, my dad and I thought we saw Shaq getting into a stretch limo and we saw the Lakers win by a landslide. There isn’t much more that I can remember about that night other than just being happy to be in the same room as Kobe.

When I was younger, I had a cousin named Jacobe, he looked nothing like Kobe but we always called him Cobe. He was the type of cousin that little cousins always patterned themselves after. Cobe built himself a wonderful family, an exciting life and always took time to look out for me, the younger cousin. I idolized Cobe, I patterned my life to be just like his. Maybe this is why I lost Cobe in 2011 in a plane crash, derailing any plans; I lost his guidance that day. I mention this because losing Kobe, another idol of mine who was literally just 2 or 3 years older than Jacobe in the same way as Cobe is……a lot.

Getting the news and watching the clown car that was the popular media fumble through being the first and not accurate at all just felt disrespectful. The media’s need to be the first to report anything, no matter the cost is a disgusting practice, especially when it has to do with people’s lives and loved ones. It reminded me of a certain Denzel Washington interview from a few years back, he spoke nothing but the truth.

He was at the center of a fake news story, but Denzel Washington says it's the mainstream media that's selling "BS." ..."If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you do read it, you're misinformed," Washington, the star and director behind the new film "Fences," told ITK at the Wednesday premiere inside the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Black men, it’s okay to be sad. It’s natural for us to miss Kobe, even if most of us never met him. He was an integral part to my childhood, and for a lot of us my age, he introduced us to the game of basketball. Kobe was a true renaissance man; he spoke enough Slovenian and Spanish to speak them mid-game with Pau Gasol and Sasha “The Machine” Vujacic. At the last NBA game he attended, Luka Doncic was about to inbound the ball and heard someone talking trash in Slovenian, his native language, behind him. Luka turned and to his surprise, there was Kobe smiling and laughing. Kobe was an investor, he won a Grammy for a short film; he was literally doing anything he wanted to do. Kobe was just getting started.

I think the most tragic part about all of this is Gianna. Kobe and Gianna were literally inseparable. I don’t think I noticed how often Kobe talked about Gigi until after this happened. We literally saw her growing up before our eyes and just knowing….

Yeah, okay that’s enough. Thanks for reading my rambling.