On the Court With... Kobe Bryant (3 page)

The shocked crowd turned silent for a moment, then
erupted in cheers. Kobe Bryant, an eighth-grader, had dunked the ball! As one of his friends said later, “I never saw a player
like that. You just don’t see guys in the eighth grade flying through the air and dunking the basketball.”

A few minutes later, exhausted his opponent gave up and the two young men shook hands. “I got my respect right there,” Kobe
remembers.

Although Kobe would still experience some awkward moments adjusting to his new school, he had taken an important first step.
In addition to his family, basketball was the only other aspect of his life in Italy that was familiar to him in America.
Even though he would occasionally have to struggle to make himself understood, he learned that basketball was a language that
everyone knew.

Kobe soon found that he was welcome to play on the local playground and began making friends. At first the other players occasionally
tried to test him and disrupt his game with trash talk and rough play. But Kobe quickly adjusted, not by adopting the same
tactics, but by using his skills to render them ineffective. Kobe responded to trash talk by making his next shot, and he
reacted to overly aggressive play by turning his game up a notch.

He also joined the eighth-grade team and quickly became the star, scoring at will. He was already looking forward to playing
basketball at his local high school, Lower Merion. Their basketball team, the Aces, was one of the best teams in suburban
Philadelphia and would soon finish the season with a stellar record of 20-5.

Aces coach Gregg Downer soon heard rumors about the eighth-grader. Curious about him, he invited Kobe to participate in one
of the Aces’ practices. He figured that watching Kobe scrimmage against better, more experienced players would give him an
idea of just how good Kobe was and what work he would have to do to play varsity basketball someday.

He saw a youthful, quiet, very thin thirteen-year-old amble into the gym. Nothing about the way he carried himself screamed
that he was a basketball player.

He inserted Kobe into a scrimmage and sat back to watch. Within moments, he was stunned.

Kobe didn’t just keep up with the varsity — he dominated them, getting off his shot with ease, stealing the ball, and rebounding.
Downer’s team included several players who had already won college scholarships. Yet Kobe already appeared to be the best
player on the floor.

Unable to believe his eyes, Downer then asked Kobe to play him one-on-one. Downer himself had played college basketball and
still played in a competitive adult league. He had to see for himself if Kobe was really that good.

He was. The coach went down to a quick defeat at the hands of the student.

Downer began to look forward to having Bryant on his team. Four of the five starting players on the Aces were scheduled to
graduate. Downer knew he would have to rebuild, and everyone was expecting Lower Merion to slip back in the pack. Despite
their current record, the suburban school just didn’t have the reputation of a basketball powerhouse.

Kobe wanted to be part of the rebuilding plan. His goal was not just to make the team, but to become a member of the starting
lineup.

Very few freshmen make the varsity team in any high school sport. Most underclassmen have to play a season or two of junior
varsity basketball against players of similar skill levels and experience before they can play effectively on the varsity.
Basketball great Michael Jordan, for instance, was cut from his team as a freshman and didn’t make the varsity until his junior
year. Even fewer freshmen make the starting lineup.

But Kobe wasn’t like most freshmen. He was more mature, both physically and mentally. By playing club basketball in Italy,
with its focus on fundamentals and team play, he already knew how to play the game in a system. Most freshmen, despite the
skills developed on the playground, have very little concept of team basketball. They have to learn to play an entirely new
way.

Kobe worked out long and hard during the offseason, adding weight training to his regimen to become stronger. As the beginning
of the basketball season approached, expectations for Kobe Bryant and the Aces were high. As the son of a former NBA player
who had been one of the best basketball players ever to come out of the Philadelphia area, everyone expected Kobe to be an
immediate star.

In practice, Coach Downer continued to be impressed. “He’s a very talented player,” he told the press at the beginning of
the season. “He has the ability to do everything well.”

But he was also cautious with his young star. “I’m not applying a lot of pressure on him,” he insisted. To help with Kobe’s
transition, Downer even asked Joe Bryant to serve as an assistant coach.

Kobe, who sprouted to six-foot-four at age fourteen,
easily earned a place in the starting lineup as a guard. Now all he had to do was play.

But by their opening game, it became clear that the 1992-93 season would be difficult for the Aces. Their two best returning
players, center Matt Sniderland and guard Sultan Shabazz, were injured and wouldn’t be able to play for the first month.

A tough schedule in the Central League, one of the best high school leagues in the state, didn’t help. Time and time again
the Aces stayed close only to lose in the final moments.

But Kobe was everything Downer had expected, and then some. He was often the best player on the floor, and always the youngest.
Although there were times he could score at will, Downer was even more impressed by his court savvy and willingness to play
in a team concept. When the opposition began double-and triple-teaming him, Bryant didn’t force his shot. Instead, he looked
to pass and involve his teammates in the game.

Although the Aces finished the season with a dismal 4-20 record, including 3-15 in league play, they played hard all season
long and didn’t give up.Bryant led the team in scoring, averaging 18 points per game,
despite breaking his kneecap and missing the final games of the season.

Kobe ended the season with a new goal. He told a friend that he wanted to play in the NBA.

That goal itself was no surprise, but when Kobe planned to enter the NBA was. He told his friend he didn’t want to go to college
first. He wanted to go straight to the NBA from high school.

His friend just laughed. Only a handful of players had ever entered the NBA directly from high school. Even Michael Jordan
hadn’t been good enough to do that.

But Kobe was serious. He and his buddy made a friendly wager over Kobe’s dream, which he kept a secret from his family.

But it wouldn’t remain a secret for very much longer.

CHAPTER FOUR
1993-1995

When his knee healed in the spring of 1993, Kobe immediately went back to work on his game. That meant playing against his
father and his uncle, John “Chubby” Cox, who had briefly played in the NBA himself. The three spent hours on the driveway
court at the Bryant home.

They worked on everything — free throw shooting, dribbling, driving to the basket, and shooting. When they played one-on-one,
Kobe got a chance to try out his offensive skills on a player bigger and more experienced than he was. He also had to play
tough defense in order to stop his father and uncle. The competition was much more intense than playing high school basketball.

As talented as Kobe was, Joe Bryant was six-foot-nine, experienced, still in shape, and still able to provide more than enough
competition for his son. In their practice sessions, he played hard, knowing that Kobe
wouldn’t improve if he took it easy on him. By the end of the summer Kobe was occasionally beating his father.

One time that summer Kobe blasted by his father, soared to the hoop, and laid the ball in the basket. As he turned the ball
back over to his father, a wry smile formed on Kobe’s face. He knew he was improving and thought his father could no longer
keep up with him.

Joe Bryant noted his son’s growing confidence and decided to teach him a lesson. He dribbled the ball slowly and moved in
toward the basket as his son guarded him, waving his hands in the air. Then Joe Bryant saw his chance. Overconfident, Kobe
had overplayed him and was just a little out of position, with his weight on his heels.

That was the only advantage a player as good as Joe Bryant needed. He swirled around his son, jumped to the hoop, and stuffed
a thunderous jam through the basket. Kobe was left behind, his feet still stuck to the ground.

He realized he still had a lot to work on. “I didn’t think he was that quick,” Kobe said later.

When basketball season started that fall, Kobe was much improved. He’d grown another inch and was
even stronger and faster than he had been the previous season. And, like his teammates, he had the added benefit of a year
of experience playing basketball at the varsity level.

Downer was impressed with the improvements in Kobe’s game. “He does it all,” he said. “He’s a very complete ballplayer and
at this time he’s got the total package. He doesn’t have a weakness.” The coach told the press he expected his team to finish
the year with a record above .500, a significant turnaround.

Kobe knew that Downer would expect even more of him in his sophomore season, but he had confidence in his game. “I don’t think
of it as pressure,” he said of the expectations that everyone had for him. “I’m young and for me it’s just fun and games.
I think we’ll be a lot better than four and twenty.”

With Kobe leading the way, the Aces were much improved. They now won many of the close contests they had lost the previous
season. Kobe upped his scoring average to 22 points and also averaged ten rebounds per game. The Aces went 16-6 and made it
into the second round of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s state basketball tournament.

After the season Kobe continued to work on his game. Basketball became a near full-time occupation,
particularly in the summer. He played in no less than six different summer leagues, including the prestigious Sonny Hill League,
whose alumni included many players, like Joe Bryant, who had become professionals. He also attended the LaSalle College basketball
camp and the ABCD camp in New Jersey, which attracted some of the best high school basketball talent in the nation. Some days,
he began playing at.9:00 A.M. and didn’t stop until 9:30 at night. Of his grueling schedule, Kobe said, “I just love the game.
I want to play as much as I can while I can. As long as I’m happy playing, I’ll play all day and all night.”

Eddie Jones, a star at Temple University who later excelled in the NBA, spotted Kobe in the Hill League and befriended him.
He became his unofficial escort, taking him to inner-city Philadelphia to play against the best collegiate talent in the area.
Kobe fit right in, as he had learned to add schoolyard moves like the crossover dribble to his game. He was virtually unstoppable.

In his junior year at Lower Merion, everyone expected Kobe to lead the team to the league title and, possibly, the state championship.
For although the Aces had lost three valuable seniors from the previous season, the remainder of the team now had the
experience they had lacked in the past. As Downer said of his team, “We have plenty of talented kids besides [Bryant]. We’ll
be more than a one-player team.”

The Aces got off to a fast start and at midseason were a stellar 11-1. Basketball fans throughout Philadelphia looked forward
to their next game, which matched them with powerhouse Coatesville, one of the best teams in the state.

Coatesville had their own superstar in forward Richard Hamilton, a player many thought was even more talented than Kobe. He
would later lead the University of Connecticut to an NCAA championship and play in the NBA.

The game was incredibly close. Kobe scored 16 points in the first half, but Coatesville still led at the half, 33-29. But
entering the final quarter, Lower Merion nursed a one-point lead.

The teams traded the lead back and forth several times before Lower Merion pulled ahead by four points with less than a minute
to play. But Coatesville didn’t give up.