Kobe Bryant

Everyone else is doing this so I am too. I do have some things to say here.

Last Sunday evening my wife handed me her phone. Kobe Bryant. Helicopter. Dead. Wow! I mean...shock! Too young. Far, far too young. After that first reaction, my thought was honestly about his 13 year old daughter Gianna (also known as Gigi). I'd seen her and Kobe on some Twitter post or ESPN or somewhere sitting courtside at an NBA game and talking. My very first thought was that girl (I didn't know her name last Sunday) will never have another moment like that. She'll grow up without a father. At that point I didn't know she was also in the helicopter with her dad and was also one of the victims.

Over the past week, the entire NBA and beyond has paid tribute to Kobe Bryant and his legacy. Some of these tributes have been incredibly creative and inventive: 8 second and 24 second violations to start a game in honor of Kobe's two numbers he wore while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers for 20 seasons. Others like players switching their jersey numbers away from 8 and 24 to honor Kobe show how personal this loss is to some players. Still other ideas, like proposing the NBA logo be revised to Kobe's silhouette or the convoluted first one to three quarters plus 24 rule to win the All-Star Game are a little reactionary of just plain confusing; I can't imagine Kobe would want anyone to go to some of these lengths.

Last night the Washington Wizards staged their own tributes to Kobe before their game against the Charlotte Hornets. Warm-ups with 8 and 24 Bryant jerseys; a 24.8 second moment of silence; tributes from key personnel within the Wizards organization; and 8 and 24 second violations to start the game. The Hornets participated in that last one.

I was not a fan of Kobe Bryant while he was in the NBA for one reason and one reason only: he didn't play for the New York Knicks during the 1990s or for the Washington Wizards after that. Those were the only two teams I've rooted for in my time as an NBA fan and I don't root for other players on other teams. I'm not at the games to see other teams' players play ball. I don't care how great they are. I'll maybe make an exception for former Wizards that left on the right terms (I define what's right there) but other players? Nope.

A lot of people have posted this week their favorite Kobe memories. The 81 point game vs. Toronto, first Championship, scoring 60 vs. Utah in his final game, whatever. I had to search for mine. Over the past 20 years as a Wizards fan, I've seen Kobe Bryant play a bunch of times. I can only remember two: the 2002 game when Jerry Stackhouse dunked at the buzzer off the in bounds play to beat the Shaq and Kobe Lakers in a game the Wiz had no business winning and Kobe's final game in Washington in 2015 when the Verizon Center was making way more noise for Kobe and the Lakers than it was for the Wiz. I loved the first one; I hated the second. Neither of those are my favorite Kobe memory.

My favorite Kobe memory was watching the conversation he had with Gigi just a few weeks ago and which I referenced earlier in this post. Kobe is breaking down plays for his daughter while sitting courtside. The discussion is so detailed and animated and it's clearly being had between two very smart people. And she looks like she's holding her own, although she looks like she doubts him at one point only to remember he's one of the best players in the history of basketball. It's an awesome clip, even without sound, which I'm not sure anyone has. To me, Kobe was always the guy to root against, because he was either playing against the Wizards or I just always rooted against the Lakers. That clip got me beyond that, which is why my first thought when I heard the news about the helicopter crash was about Gianna as well as Kobe.

As I get older, I think I'm getting softer. But these kinds of events, where young people with promise are taken (and yes, I'm including Kobe in that group) are truly tragic. There were seven other people on that helicopter. Just like Kevin Blackistone said on ESPN's Around The Horn on Monday, I feel bad just commenting on two of the nine who died, but I don't know anything really about the other seven. I got nothing else here. Rest in peace. Never forget.