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How are we to make sense of the loss of an idol?
How can you rationalize a connection that so often defied the realms of sense?
You don’t. None of this will ever be logical. For some, it’ll never feel real.
All you can do is recognize the emotions. Reflect. Remember.
Kobe Bryant meant so much to so many people who never met him — he meant so much to the sport of basketball and those who love it. And in hearing from the people close to him and his daughter Gianna, perhaps some catharsis can be found.
Monday’s celebration of life for the global icon and his precocious daughter at Staples Center was pitch-perfect — a fitting tribute to Nos. 8, 24, and 2.
It was a reminder of how influential Bryant was as a sportsman — his societal impact, particularly in Los Angeles, eclipsed his greatness on the court. And make no mistake, he was one of the greatest players to ever grace the NBA hardwood.
It was a reminder that all of it pales in comparison to the impact one can make on those so many of us take for granted — the impact we can have as partners, siblings, children, parents, and friends.
Monday’s ceremony was able to strike tones of both intimacy and immensity. It celebrated both of Kobe’s roles: global superstar, five-time champion, 18-time All-Star; dad, friend, husband, and “little brother”.
“Little brother.” That’s what the greatest basketball player of all time, Michael Jordan, called Bryant on Monday. Jordan’s eulogy was immense. It was emotional but funny, heartfelt but controlled, profound but simple. In the same way that Bryant studied Jordan’s game, looking to re-create MJ’s secret stuff, those grieving their own, personal losses in the days, months, and years to come will likely look to Jordan themselves. It was yet another reminder of why Jordan was Bryant’s idol.
“When Kobe Bryant died, a piece of me died,” Jordan said. “And as I look in this area and across the globe, a piece of you died.”
“I admired him because of his passion. You rarely see someone who’s looking and trying to improve each and every day. Not just in sports but as a parent, as a husband,” he said.
We also heard from the new guard — a new guard.
Jordan’s speech will resonate for years, but the impact of Bryant will be carried on in players like Orinda’s Sabrina Ionescu. The Oregon point guard and the NCAA’s triple-double record holder — for both men and women — spoke at the ceremony, and, forgive the crassness, but it further cemented her place amid basketball’s elite.
“I felt some pressure early on in the season, and he wrote to me, ‘Be you, it’s been good enough, and that will continue to be good enough,'” Ionescu said. “He taught me his stepback; he told me that if I could bring that to my game, it’d be over for any defender trying to guard me. He told me how high my arc needed to be on my shot, how to angle my foot, which leg to kick out. How much power to push off. ‘Real sharpness comes without effort,’ he said.
“He was giving me the blueprint. He was giving Gigi the same blueprint. He united us. He made it so that the outsiders who outworked everyone else, who were driven to be just a little bit different every single day to make those around them, behind them and above them a little bit better every single day. And they weren’t the exception. They were the rule.”
Her engaging testimony was a reminder that we’re truly lucky to call Ionescu one of us here in the Bay, just as those who loved Bryant from up close or from afar were lucky to have him. Let’s not take her greatness for granted.
Amid all these wonderful eulogies for the Bryants, I couldn’t help remembering that sports do not matter. For all of Kobe Bryant’s professional accomplishments as a Laker, he was truly only putting a ball through a hoop.
Outside of the shock of a 41-year-old — still in playing shape and unquestionably thriving in the second chapter of his life — passing, why was Monday’s ceremony taking place in the Staples Center? Why was it being broadcast around the world?
It’s because, as frivolous as they are in nature, sports can mean everything. They’re one of the few shared experiences remaining in this individualistic, a la carté world. Bryant’s career — all 20 years of it — unfolded as our world changed in dramatic and irreversible ways. He became that idol, that icon — a unifying force in both his Hall of Fame successes and his failures. In both his greatest moments and, sadly, in his death.
To an Athlete Dying Young — A.E. Housman
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
