He felt like an orphan who suddenly discovers he’s a Kennedy. He felt like a nomad reunited with his long-lost tribe. For once he didn’t feel alone with his priestly devotion to craft. He haunted the Olympic Village, stared at the fastest and the strongest the way people stare at him. Isn’t he among the world’s best athletes every night? He also led the Lakers to the 2008 Finals, where they ran into a hungrier, more complete Boston team. He not only appeared in all eighty-two regular-season games he was named league MVP, the first time he ever won that honor. Most players would have opted for surgery. Another avulsion fracture, this one also shredded a radial collateral ligament. He dislocated it during the 2007–08 season, trying to intercept a pass. So it feels right to do the same with him. “He uses every way, and then some, to learn more about the art of life, getting his mind out of the way.” “What sets him apart from others is his thirst for knowledge,” says his friend, actress Hilary Swank. Though not a big reader, he enjoys studying all kinds of geniuses, from da Vinci to Daniel Day-Lewis, and his method of study is to separate them into manageable components. He has nothing but praise for Bryant, but he also lets slip that he’s never been to the man’s house.īryant approaches every subject-especially basketball, which he calls his “craft”-by breaking it into parts. “ What’s Kobe really like? Do you like him? How is he really?” He imitates the confident tone of his interrogators: “He seems like-” Whatever follows, Fisher adds, is always, always wrong. “Ten million times,” he says, shaking his head. Everyone has a pet theory, and everyone wants to test his theory on Fisher. Maybe better than he can.Įveryone tries to explain him. Every athlete knows pain, but Bryant’s body charts his unique combination of pain, passion, and virtuosic skill. From alleged narcissist to tormented perfectionist to apparent masochist. With all its scars and aches, spasms and pulls, stingers and inflammations and hyperextensions, his body is a living record of his journey. (By the way, Vitti adds: Bryant also has arthritis in that knuckle.) Bryant’s index finger, however, is so traumatized, Vitti folds it in a metal-foam splint before every game and wraps the splint with thick black tape. Lakers trainer Gary Vitti doesn’t like to put so much as a tiny Band-Aid on an index finger, because that’s the feel finger, the GPS of the jump shot. Making game winners with a broken finger would be dazzling enough, but the finger that’s broken on Bryant’s hand happens to be the one he uses to guide the ball. It was Bryant’s third game winner of the young season, so most of the texts said the same thing: Again? The look very clearly said: Any questions?īy the time he’d choppered back home, his BlackBerry was blowing up with texts from friends-other ballplayers, movie stars-he’d rather not name. The look on his face was not surprise, not joy, not pride. The crowd exploded, and Bryant threw his arms over his head like Evita. He grabbed the wild, hard-to-handle pass from forward Pau Gasol and let fly a high arcing three-pointer that splashed through the net at the buzzer. Everyone in the arena knew where the ball was going, but Bryant somehow found himself wide open. Down two with 4.1 seconds left, Los Angeles ran a play for Bryant to take the last shot. After trailing by twenty, the Lakers mounted a furious comeback, and Bryant had enough bounce to lead them. Good thing Bryant took the helicopter two nights ago to the game against Sacramento. If you make $23 million a year with your body, taking a helicopter to work is actually quite practical. The helicopter, therefore, ensures that he gets to Staples Center feeling fresh, that his body is warm and loose and fluid as mercury when he steps onto the court. Given his broken finger, his fragile knees, his sore back and achy feet, not to mention his chronic agita, Bryant can’t sit in a car for two hours. It’s no different than his weights or his whirlpool tubs or his custom-made Nikes. But sexy as it might seem, Bryant says the helicopter is just another tool for maintaining his body. It’s a nice dash of glitz, a touch of showbiz that goes well with the Hollywood sign in the hazy distance. He takes a private helicopter from Orange County, where he lives with his wife and two children, to every home game. This is how the 31-year-old co-captain of the Lakers, the eleven-time All-Star, the four-time world champion, the most prolific and accomplished scorer currently drawing breath and an NBA paycheck, commutes.
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