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FOR YEARS, MICHAEL JORDAN and Kobe Bryant had been protective of their relationship.
Jordan would call Bryant his “little brother”, Bryant would call Jordan his “older brother”, and they would congratulate each other on their work ethic and accomplishments. But he would rarely volunteer much more, each man knowing full well that any glimpse would invite the kind of comparisons and debate they hated.
Only a few people had a feeling of how close Jordan and Bryant had become.
“If you only saw them interact in one game, Kobe was always like a magnet approaching Michael,” said former Los Angeles Lakers general manager Jerry West. “Usually Michael didn’t really interact with many players when he was on the court. He just played. But for some reason, he had this affinity for him.”
West was close enough to both of them to know that Bryant would text and call Jordan at all hours of the night. I knew they met for lunch and dinner, but not golf, because hell, Bryant didn’t play golf when Jordan was in Los Angeles.
So when West and Jordan got together for dinner at Craig’s in Melrose on February 23, the night before the Bryant Public Monument, West watched Jordan carefully, making sure he was supporting his friend as he cried.
“We talk a little bit about [Bryant]”West said.” But nothing I think would predict what he was going to say. “
Jordan had been working on his eulogy for a couple of weeks, trying to capture who Bryant was and how their relationship had evolved from beautiful tutoring to one of Jordan’s most cherished friends.
Those who knew Jordan well knew that he would cry as soon as he stepped onto the podium.
“Michael is going to say the right things,” said West. “He has a soul. Most people have placed him so high in life, they don’t think he has this side of him.”
“But I think it was really touched by Kobe.”
The next morning, Jordan revealed to the world how much Bryant meant to him.
“Maybe it surprised people that Kobe and I were very close,” Jordan began. “But we were very close friends.”
Michael Jordan’s 10-part documentary “The Last Dance” is here.
Tears ran down her face.
“Everyone always wanted to talk about the comparisons between him and me,” Jordan continued. “I just wanted to talk about Kobe.”
The relationship started, Jordan said, with Bryant as an annoying little brother, who “for whatever reason, always tends to get into your stuff. Your closet, your shoes, everything. It was an annoyance, if I can say that word. But that annoyance became love over a period of time. “
Bryant wanted “to know every little detail about life [he was] about to embark, “Jordan said. They were talking about basketball at first: later moves, footwork, the triangle offense. And Bryant was a sponge.
He would absorb what Jordan gave him. Work on it. Master it Then come back asking for more.
“He used to call me, text me at 11:30, 2:30, 3 in the morning,” Jordan said. “At first, it was an aggravation, but then it turned into a certain passion. This boy had a passion that you would never know.”
Jordan never stopped to dry his tears during the 10-minute speech. He made a joke about creating new fodder for another “crying Jordan” meme, but didn’t try to hide his emotions.
It was raw and revealing. And in the end, it was clear that he had learned as much from Bryant as Bryant had learned from him.
“To see this side of him,” said West. “It was very revealing and very moving.”
For those who had only seen what Bryant and Jordan had shown the world of their relationship, it was fascinating.
When were the best players of their generations so close? How did two ultracompetitive alpha dogs bond so deeply? And how the hell had they kept this a secret?
MORE: Kobe’s greatness was beautiful and maddening
YOUR FRIENDSHIP BEGINS Just like Jordan said: Bryant pissed him off enough that Jordan finally relented and got engaged.
This dynamic was illustrated in Episode 5 of “The Last Dance,” the 10-part docuseries of Jordan’s last season with the Chicago Bulls in 1997-98, which aired Sunday on ESPN.
The episode featured Bryant and Jordan in the 1998 All-Star Game, with Jordan confused and flattered by the playful and admirable teenager who was determined to go after him.
“That little Laker is going to take everyone one by one,” Jordan told Tim Hardaway in the locker room.
The truth is, this had been going on since the time Bryant entered the NBA in 1996.
“For as long as I can remember, every time the Lakers played the Bulls, Kobe waited out of the tunnel for Michael to leave,” said Tim Grover, a personal trainer who worked with Jordan in Chicago and then with Bryant in Los Angeles. “And Michael was always the last person to leave the locker room. It took forever. But Kobe would wait and wait for him.”
And the rest of the Lakers players would be on the bus, waiting for Bryant, a rookie, who was waiting for Michael.
“But Kobe said, ‘The bus will have to wait. Because I don’t know when I’m going to have this opportunity.'”
Lakers coach Gary Vitti was in charge of travel and logistics at the time.
“I’m the guy who counted the heads on the bus and said to the bus driver, ‘Okay. Now we can move. We have everyone,'” Vitti said. “And we always lacked a head with Kobe.”
“He used to call me, text me at 11:30, 2:30, 3 in the morning. At first, it was an aggravation, but then it became a certain passion. This boy had a passion that you would never know ”
Michael Jordan on Kobe Bryant
Grover said it generally took Jordan an hour to get out of the locker room. He received treatment, studied the box score, showered, dressed in the training room, and finally went out once the crowd had calmed down.
“I mean there was literally no one else in the building,” Grover said. “The Lakers’ safety would be like, ‘Come on, come on, Kobe, the bus is leaving,’ and you would hear different things, you know, ‘This damn boy gives, gives, gives.'”
Bryant didn’t care. I would wait as long as necessary. And as Jordan emerged from the locker room, always impeccably dressed, Bryant began to pepper him with questions about footwork or jumpers.
Grover would stay behind and let Jordan and Bryant have privacy while they went out together. Sometimes he noticed them stop, since Jordan would demonstrate a particular ability for Bryant.
“There are a lot of other athletes who approached Michael, who wanted him to ‘mentor’ them,” Grover said. “But when they discovered how difficult it was to maintain that intensity and be so unforgiving, most of them faded away.
“But Kobe kept it up. The more information Michael gave him, the more thirsty Kobe became.”
Bryant would consume every tip, he would work on every lesson Jordan offered him. Then, as an anxious student, he reported and asked for a new assignment.
“Michael thought everyone was upset,” said Grover with a smile. “But here’s the thing, that’s how he said [Kobe] It was annoying. When he spoke of Kobe as annoying, he was like your little brother who always said, ‘Come on, come on, come on, let’s do this, come on.’ “
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When Jordan gave Bryant his number, Grover knew that it really meant something. He had seen Jordan give the number of other players to the team’s security guards or a friend, who thennotPut them in contact with him. Not that Jordan didn’t care or didn’t want to help. There is only a long time and very few people who are able to do something with his advice.
“You had to earn the right to have that conversation,” Grover said. “So with Kobe, Michael wouldn’t have answered the next call if he hadn’t seen something on him.”
Whether it was youthful confidence or ignorance, Bryant never questioned whether he was worthy of Jordan’s attention and mentorship. She just chased him relentlessly.
“You can’t learn if you don’t ask,” Bryant said in 2019 during his interview for “The Last Dance.” “I know a lot of players were intimidated by him and called him ‘Black Jesus’ and all these other things. He didn’t intimidate me.”
“I think he understood my competitiveness. I think he was also looking at my journey. It was a difficult couple of years for me to get to the league, because at that time, the league was much older. It was not as young as it is today. Having teens [Bryant was 18 when he entered the NBA] or 20-year-olds weren’t the norm. And being a stranger from that point of view, I think he wanted to give me a little help, a little direction for me. “
When Jordan withdrew After the 1998 season, Bryant continued to search for Jordan. But eventually Jordan came to him too.
The first time was when Lakers coach Phil Jackson asked Jordan to meet with Bryant and talk to him about how to be patient while playing the triangle offense.
Later, when Jordan returned for the 2001 season as a member of the Washington Wizards, he would visit Bryant and Jackson in the Lakers’ locker room after the games.
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Director Jason Hehir explains why Kobe Bryant was such a complex individual to interview during the filming of “The Last Dance”.
That may seem like a small detail. But for Jordan visiting the opposite locker room was a huge sign of respect.
“For the moment [Jordan] I was in Washington, now all of a sudden the Lakers have won a couple of titles and Kobe has really established who he is as a player, “said former Bulls and Lakers coach Chip Schaefer.” So you combine that with Michael, who is kind of making the transition to this role as an elderly statesman more elegant. “
Bryant was still the little brother in the relationship, but he had grown tall enough that they could have different types of conversations.
“How do you get a group of guys to be on the same page and take them there to win a championship?” Bryant recalled in his interview for the documentary. “About dealing with teammates who care about all the wrong things. Teammates who are not so physical, but still, we are facing a team that is nothing but physical. How do you take them with you?”
How many people could Bryant have an honest conversation with about things like this? What other players had walked in these shoes? Not many.
Jordan’s advice was forceful.
Those teammates weren’t going anywhere, Jordan told Bryant. And it won’t be your legacy that is affected if you don’t figure out how to get them on board.
“Fast forward the next few years,” Bryant recalled Jordan saying. “No one is going to look at it and say, OK, [you] lost because that person had a bad attitude. No one is going to say that. They’re going to say you couldn’t do it. So, you have to solve it. Come to hell or high tide, you have to figure it out. “
Bryant never lacked self-confidence. But hearing this from his mentor underscored everything he had come to believe in.
“It was incredible advice,” said Bryant.
BRYANT NOT ONLY however, ask Jordan questions. He studied it. The way his game evolved as he got older and lost some athletics. The way you handled yourself in retirement. The objectives that were proposed. The mistakes he made.
When Jordan last retired in 2003, Bryant watched closely as Jordan moved into front office and ownership positions.
Jordan would go to the Lakers’ locker room to see Jackson and Bryant whenever they were in Washington, D.C. and then Charlotte.
“I was dating Phil and [assistant coaches] Frank Hamblen and Tex Winter: They had all been in Chicago together, “Vitti recalled.” So we all went to the bus. And he and Kobe would do their thing, and then we would have to wait for it. “
At that point, waiting for Bryant to speak to Jordan was not something anyone bothered with.
“We knew that was going to happen, and it happened, and that was it,” said Vitti. “From time to time Phil got very angry, but for the most part, it was just part of the deal.”
In 2007, when Bryant’s knees started to ache, he hired Grover, Jordan’s coach, and asked him to help him rebuild his body as he had when Jordan returned from his first retirement.
It was then that Grover began to see some key differences in the two men.
“Kobe needed to know everything,” said Grover. “He wanted to know why we did this exercise? Why so many repetitions? Why this? Why that? Kobe always said, ‘Why, why, why?’ Because I was a student, I was learning.
“If you only saw them interact in a game, Kobe was always like a magnet approaching Michael.”
Jerry west
“Michael said, ‘I hired you to do a job. Just give me the bottom line. I don’t need to know why I’m doing this, what’s going on. But when I ask, you’d better have to answer.'”
Both men had a relentless drive and a work ethic. But Bryant seemed to come from a different well.
“Michael knew when it was enough,” Grover said. “Like, ‘OK, I have to close my body. I need to relax.’ With Kobe, it was just the opposite. If he couldn’t sleep, Kobe said,” My time is being wasted. I need to go to the gym and get some shots. “
As BRYANT approaches At the end of his playing career, he started asking different questions.
Was there something he could do after basketball that filled him with as much passion and purpose as the game?
He didn’t want to back out and back out twice like Jordan had. He didn’t want to leave the game, but still be around him as a coach or owner. He needed something entirely new to launch himself, not something to remind him of his past glories.
“Once I ripped my Achilles,” Bryant said in 2016, “I needed to fine-tune what the purpose would be. I had been searching for 15 years, but now, ‘Rubber has to hit the road.’
“I would be lying in bed in my cast, thinking, ‘You must find out what you want to do next. Because I would be damned if I retire without a purpose. That is not going to happen to me.'”
He started talking to Jordan about it. Who else would understand how difficult it was to let go?
Bryant started working on something completely different in the last years of his career. I would call authors like J.K. Rowling and directors like Darren Aronofsky. He asked to visit the set of “Modern Family” and sit in the writers’ rooms.
He kept diaries of film and television projects that he would like to solve. Developed characters and story arcs for children’s books. It was full of ideas and concepts that he had put into production as soon as basketball ended.
When he learned that Jordan had the filming rights for his final season, Bryant commissioned a team of cameramen to film his final seasons. Bryant even asked about the production of the documentary about Jordan’s last season.
But this was Jordan’s story to tell. And he dedicated Episode 5 of “The Last Dance” to Bryant, who died along with eight others in a helicopter crash on January 26.
“I admired him,” Jordan said in praise. “Because of his passion. You rarely see someone who seeks and tries to improve every day, not only in sports, but as a father, as a husband.
“I am inspired by what he did and what he shared with Vanessa and what he shared with his children.”
Jordan walked over and took a deep breath, realizing that he had learned as much as he had taught.
“I have a daughter who is 30. I just became a grandfather. And I have two twins, I have twins who are 6,” he said.
“I can’t wait to get home to become a dad and hug them and see the love and smiles they bring us as parents. He taught me that just by looking at this tonight, by seeing how he responded and reacted with the people he really loved. These are the things we will continue to learn from Kobe Bryant. “
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