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When the NBA was looking for an heir to Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant was one of the first names on people's minds.
He was 6'6" like Jordan. He was a shooting guard like Jordan. An elite athlete who loved to score, literally, like Jordan (go watch the mash-ups of Kobe and MJ and you'll see the similarities). It wouldn't be unfair to say Kobe copied his idol without quite having the same on-court success.
But while Jordan's impact on the NBA is impossible to overstate, Kobe, who died aged 41 in a helicopter crash on Sunday (US time), has arguably been more influential on basketball as a sport.
A global competitor
Bryant took a unique path to the NBA, moving to Italy where his dad played pro ball, and idolising European basketball and football stars there before coming back to the US when he was about eight years old.
Whether he knew it or not, that taste of the world outside America would shape the man and the player who would change the make-up of the sport.
Bryant can speak fluent Italian owing to his living in the country for two formative years, but he famously has conducted interviews in Spanish and conversed a little in Slovenian.
The story goes that Kobe learned how to speak different languages so he could throw his own trash talk and understand what his opponents were saying on the court.
He spoke in Spanish to Pau Gasol during their time together with the LA Lakers to make life easier for his championship teammate and make life harder for their less linguistically flexible opponents.
Even earlier this season, budding superstar Luka Doncic was preparing to throw an inbounds pass when he heard someone courtside speaking Slovenian. Turning around expecting to see a countryman, there was Kobe, beaming back at him. The ensuing dap from the last Mamba to one of the new ones was a beautiful passing-of-the-torch moment.
Kobe is named after a Japanese steak (seriously), but it was in China that Bryant's international flavour became most evident and important.
Kobe was one of the first American NBA players who was "big in China", to the point that when the Redeem Team travelled to Beijing for the Olympics in 2008 (his MVP year), the Americans had support from the locals as well as the travelling stars and stripes brigade.
Bryant was at the centre of former NBA commissioner David Stern's (who also died earlier this month) plan to grow the game into a global force.
And while the NBA's connection to China saw it run headlong into an international incident last year, from a purely basketball perspective, China has been a gateway to the rest of the world for the NBA.
While LeBron James is synonymous with Cleveland, and Jordan is impossible to separate from Chicago (or North Carolina, for you college fans), Bryant doesn't belong to any one place.
LA can claim him because he spent his entire professional career there. Philadelphia is where he was born and went to school. His love of the game flourished in Italy.
China, Japan … Kobe made the world his own and the world loved him for it.
Mamba Mentality and the next generation
Bryant was a one-man wrecking crew. For his most successful seasons, he was always part of a tandem, but that was just for the first 47 minutes of a game. Come the 48th — winning time — it was Kobe's ball and everyone else could get out of the way.
In the years between Shaquille O'Neal's departure and Pau Gasol's arrival, Bryant famously had some dodgy rosters around him, and that was where the legend of 'Mamba Mentality' really flourished.
Kobe gave himself the nickname of Black Mamba for the snake's ability to "strike with 99 per cent accuracy at maximum speed, in rapid succession".
No doubt, giving yourself a nickname is corny as hell, but the Mamba of it all has taken on a life of its own.
'Mamba Mentality' is a trait few possess and those on your team may rather you not possess.
It could be maddening to watch your teammate score 81 of 122 points in a team sport, as Kobe did against the Raptors in 2006.
It could be maddening to watch someone so self-possessed and so focused on winning to the point that they will slap at a teammate's broken thumb at practice because they think that player is just slacking, as Kobe did to Nick Young during scrimmage.
Hell, it might even be exhausting to watch someone take 50 shots to score 60 points, as Kobe did in the last game of his career.
But when the result is five championships, an MVP, two scoring titles, 18 all-star appearances, 15 all-NBA nods, 12 all-defence berths, the fourth-most points in NBA history and an unprecedented two jerseys retired by one team, it's hard to argue against that sort of single-minded, albeit exhausting, approach.
And that's why this generation of NBA stars look to Kobe for inspiration. In a league where so many people are buddies, finding that killer instinct can be tough, but it never was for the Mamba.
Doncic, Trae Young, Kyrie Irving, Jayson Tatum — they all embody the idea of Mamba Mentality: the idea that while they have the ball in the 94 feet between baselines, they are untouchable.
And as that next generation uses the league as their playground, Bryant's legacy will never be gone.
GiGi
As much as he shaped the next generation of men's players, it seemed he could have had even more of an impact on the women's game.
When news of Kobe's death broke, college superstar Sabrina Ionescu was preparing to play a game. She was clearly heartbroken as her Oregon team lined up to take the court, but fittingly fought through that pain to top the scoring and win the game for her team.
WNBA legend Diana Taurasi was dubbed the White Mamba for her Kobe-esque play and foul-mouthed trash talk. Only this week Bryant said Taurasi and fellow WNBA stars Elena Delle Donne and Maya Moore could cut it in the men's game.
So it's no surprise then that Bryant relished the chance of raising the next generation of gun girls.
Kobe had four daughters and told stories of people talking to him about how it was a shame he didn't have a son to carry on his legacy in the NBA. And while he certainly could have pointed out the innate stupidity of that supposition, his second-eldest, GiGi, didn't need anyone speaking for her.
"I got this," the 13-year-old would say. And that looked certain to be true.
Most Lakers home games this season have featured Kobe and GiGi courtside.
But it wasn't just watching and enjoying the novelty of sitting on the court while some of the best athletes went about their business. The Bryants were in constant conversation — dad leaning over to daughter to point out pin-down screens and heads-up plays, daughter asking why X player chose to pick and pop rather than pick and roll.
When Luka dapped him up, GiGi was there. When GiGi played, dad was there coaching.
In a simply unfair twist, their inseparable bond made a devastating tragedy that much more incomprehensible, with GiGi never getting to live out her dreams and a squad of four sisters turned to three.
As we think about the pain that Vanessa Bryant and her daughters must be experiencing, it can be hard to feel like basketball matters, but basketball mattered to Kobe and GiGi. It brought them closer together, even if it was for nowhere near long enough.
Topics: basketball, sport, united-states
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