On the Court With... Kobe Bryant

by Matt Christopher

  His teammates and coach scoffed at his apology. As one teammate said later, “Playing with Kobe makes you play better.” They all knew Kobe had done everything he could to help them win.

  But Kobe Bryant was still determined to become even better. With only one year remaining in his high school career, he hadn’t forgotten about his dream of playing in the NBA.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1995-1996

  Senior Season

  One of Bryant’s classmates was the daughter of Philadelphia 76er coach John Lucas. One day in the summer before Kobe’s senior year at Lower Merion, she told her father that he should see Kobe play. He did, and soon afterward invited Kobe to the gym at St. Joseph’s College. When Kobe arrived, Lucas said, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  In walked 76er star Jerry Stackhouse. Lucas asked him to play Kobe one-on-one. In a few moments it became clear that Kobe could keep up with the NBA star. Afterward, Lucas asked Kobe if he’d like to work out with some of the other 76er players.

  Although the 76ers didn’t hold any official practices during the summer, some members of the team and other pros who lived in the Philadelphia area regularly got together at the college gym to scrimmage. Kobe jumped at Lucas’s offer. It was another chance to play basketball and improve his skills.

  Kobe was excited, but he wasn’t nervous. Nothing about basketball made him nervous. “I had no butterflies,” he said later. “No nothing. I never felt intimidated.”

  Few young players would have had the same response, for the group included players such as New Jersey Nets’ tough guy Rich Mahorn and 76ers Dana Barros, Clarence Weatherspoon, and seven-foot-six-inch center Shawn Bradley, in addition to Stackhouse.

  Although many of the pros were initially skeptical about playing with a high school student, Kobe soon won them over with his play. As Mahorn said later, “He blended with the rest of us,” not the best player on the court, but not the worst, either. “He even tried to ‘poster’ [dunk] on me,” recalled Mahorn. The burly big man rejected Bryant’s shot, but offered, “That’s not the point. He actually tried.”

  They would play for hours, competing in a series of games to eleven baskets, then choosing new sides and playing again. The games were more than a test of skill. They were also a test of stamina and desire.

  Kobe proved he had all three. In one memorable contest, Kobe was matched up against the 76ers’ Willie Burton, an explosive offensive player who had scored a team-best 53 points in a regular-season game the previous season.

  The first time down the court, Burton took the ball to Kobe and popped in a jumper over his head. As they ran back upcourt, Burton threw some trash talk Kobe’s way.

  Kobe didn’t get mad. He got even. On defense, Kobe hounded Burton the remainder of the game, limiting him to only one more basket. On offense, he showed the veteran that he had some skills of his own, scoring every way possible — hitting long jumpers, driving to the hoop, and dunking the ball. Kobe scored ten of his team’s eleven baskets as they romped to a win.

  Burton stormed off the court after the game and never returned to the 76ers. The last anyone heard, he was playing in Europe.

  Kobe’s performance caused him to revisit the wager he had made with his friend a few years before. “After a while,” said Bryant of his experience playing ’with the pros, “it kind of popped into my mind that I can play with these guys. I could get to the hole, I could hit the jumper, I could score, although not at will, but I could get some shots. I was able to create for my teammates and rebound. Plus, the guys respected me, and when they respect you, that must mean something.”

  Before the summer was over, Kobe’s confidence received several more boosts. At the prestigious ABCD camp, a showcase of high school talent, he was named MVP. At the Adidas Big Time Tournament, a similar event, he earned first-team honors. Then he added another MVP title playing in Pennsylvania’s Keystone Games, scoring 47 points in the final to lead his Delaware Valley Team to the title over Philadelphia. Commented Gregg Downer afterward, “Kobe’s just in a league of his own, really. He just has levels of his game that no high school player has possibly ever reached.”

  By the time Kobe returned to school to begin his senior year, virtually every top-notch college in the country was trying to convince him to accept a scholarship. Most scouting services were calling him the best high school player in the country. But he was also attractive to colleges for another reason. Not only was he a great player, he was also a great student who’ carried a grade-point average above 3.0 and had scored well over 1,000 on his SAT, and important test required of most students considering college. Kobe had both the athletic and academic skills to succeed in college.

  Some observers expected Kobe to attend nearby LaSalle, which was Joe Bryant’s alma mater and where he now served as assistant basketball coach. Many thought that LaSalle had hired Bryant just to give them an edge in recruiting Kobe.

  Joe Bryant scoffed at that charge, and also dismissed any notion that he was pressuring his son to attend LaSalle. Early that fall he told the press, “I’m a father first. If I couldn’t look out for Kobe’s best interest, I wouldn’t have taken this job.” Then he tipped off the press to another possibility. “What I tell Kobe is that he can go to any college that he wants to. Yet, then, Kobe’s dream has always been to play in the NBA and that dream is more a reality for him now. If that’s what he wants, why should he not go?”

  The father and son had already discussed the topic, and as Kobe noted at the time, “My parents raised me to be an individual, to make my own decisions, and this is my decision.” It wasn’t a secret anymore that Kobe Bryant wanted to go straight to the NBA. His father had become convinced that Kobe could do so after he had seen the way Kobe had played against the pros that summer. He still knew many people who worked in the NBA and knew that word of Kobe’s play had filtered up to pro scouts. They were beginning to look at him as closely as the colleges were.

  But the possibility that Kobe Bryant might move directly from high school to the NBA was controversial. For many years, the NBA had not allowed its teams to sign high school players. When they finally changed the rule, only a handful successfully made the transition from high school to pro basketball. They had all been big men, like Moses Malone, Darryl Dawkins, and most recently, Minnesota Timberwolves star Kevin Garnett.

  But some observers thought it would be irresponsible for Joe Bryant to allow his son to skip college. They believed Kobe wasn’t mature enough for pro basketball or the pro lifestyle and warned that if he failed, or lost his confidence, his career could be ruined.

  Some people also thought that Joe Bryant was pressuring Kobe to play pro basketball to make up for his own disappointing NBA career. Bryant dismissed the notion. “I don’t need to live my life through Kobe,” he said. “I’ve already played in the NBA.”

  All those concerns would have been valid for most high school players, but Kobe was different. Growing up in Europe and around pro basketball for his entire life left him mature beyond his years. As Joe Bryant said, “Talking to Kobe isn’t like talking to a seventeen-year-old. It’s like talking to a twenty-three-year-old.”

  Kobe tried to deflect speculation over his future by talking about the present. All he wanted to do was lead Lower Merion to a state title.

  He knew that wasn’t going to be easy. Coach Downer had decided to challenge his team and had upgraded Lower Merion’s schedule. They were due to play some of the best high school teams in the country, including the tough competition at the Beach Ball Classic, a national tournament in South Carolina. In addition, several key players had graduated and Kobe’s surrounding cast would be relatively inexperienced. That would allow the opposition to double- and triple-team him every time Lower Merion had the ball.

  The Aces stumbled out of the blocks. In an early season meeting against Philadelphia powerhouse Roman Catholic High, Kobe was matched up against Donnie Carr, a player some observers considered his equal. Carr lived in the inner city
and was considered to be tougher and more aggressive than Kobe, who some complained played a softer, more “suburban” game. The two had faced each other before in summer camps.

  Of Kobe, Carr said disdainfully, “If he’s a pro, I’m a pro.”

  A crowd of more than 1,500 turned out to watch the contest. They got their money’s worth.

  In Lower Merion’s defensive scheme, Kobe had to guard Carr one-on-one. But Roman Catholic used a zone against Lower Merion, so when Carr guarded Bryant, he usually had help.

  It was a close game. But Roman Catholic did a better job distributing the ball than Lower Merion. Although Bryant played well, he tired in the fourth quarter. After scoring 28 points in the first three periods, in the fourth he missed five of six shots to finish with 30 points. Meanwhile, Carr exploded for 34 and Roman Catholic won, 67-61.

  A few weeks later Lower Merion faced the St. Anthony’s Friars of New Jersey, a nationally ranked power. With a big game, Kobe could score his 2,000th point in high school, a landmark reached by few other players.

  St. Anthony’s exposed Lower Merion’s lack of depth. Despite missing two starters who had been suspended for disciplinary reasons, the Friars defense collapsed. on Kobe, and the other Aces were unable to make up the difference. After Lower Merion hung close for the first three periods, the Friars pulled away in the final quarter to win going away, 62-47. Kobe scored 28 points to go over 2,000 for his career, but he found it an empty achievement. “If we won, getting two thousand would feel awfully good,” he said after the game. “Now it just feels like an ordinary accomplishment.”

  And the Aces were playing like an ordinary team. Downer admitted they were in trouble. Unless the ball was in Kobe’s hands, Lower Merion couldn’t hang on to it, or score. “There are concerns,” he said. “No question about it.”

  The Aces’ dependence on Kobe was made even more apparent in the opening game of the Beach Ball Classic against Ohio’s Central Catholic.

  Kobe played the best game of his young career, beating Central Catholic almost by himself, as he scored 43 points on 18 of 27 shooting, including three of five from behind the three-point line, and collected 16 rebounds. On defense, he guarded six-foot-eleven standout Jason Collier and held him to only 22 points. But Kobe’s teammates scored only 22 points in the 65-60 victory. Downer knew such an imbalance couldn’t continue.

  In their next game, against Jenks of Oklahoma, the Aces were dumped in overtime, dropping their record to 4-3. Once again, Kobe had been almost the entire show as his teammates stood around and watched him perform. After the game, Downer lit into his team.

  He gave a fiery speech that he called “The Cancer of Me.” He lambasted his players for not playing team basketball.

  “Everything had been me, me, me,” he said later. “It had to be about we, we, we.”

  Downer explained precisely what he expected each player to do. “We did strict role definition,” he said. “I told them, ‘You can shoot from here, you can shoot from there. This is what we expect of you.’ I told them if they couldn’t accept their roles, they could turn in their uniforms.”

  The only player doing what he should was Kobe, which was everything every other player wasn’t. As he described it later, “My job was just to plug holes. Whatever the team needed — rebounding, scoring, passing.”

  Sharpshooter Dan Panagrazio became the team’s designated long-range shooter, and gritty Jermaine Griffin their main rebounder. Brendan Pettit was supposed to focus on defense. Point guard Emory Dabney responsible for getting the ball to his teammates in the right position. The Aces got the message.

  They began playing as a team again, which took the pressure off Kobe and, at the same time, made him an even more potent threat as defenses had to focus at least some of their effort on other players. Panagrazio lit it up from outside and Griffin swept the glass. The Aces started blowing their opponents out.

  Kobe exploded for 50 points in one 95-64 rout. After another blowout, this one an 84-56 shellacking of Germantown Academy in which Kobe scored 29 and added 17 rebounds, six assists, and five steals, the opposing coach lamented, “They were more than just Kobe.” After the win, which made the Aces the first undefeated champions of the Central League, Dan Panagrazio said, “It’s amazing. Kobe is not only a great individual, but he makes everyone on the court so much better. He takes us from being a good team to a great team on any night. If we keep this up into the playoffs, there’s no limit.”

  In Kobe’s final home game a week later, he took his last bow before the home crowd in spectacular fashion. After Academy Park jumped ahead, 6-4, Kobe took over, scoring the next 12 points in every way possible —three-pointers, dunks, put-backs, and drives. Lower Merion led, 16-6, and never looked back.

  Kobe finished with 50 points, matching his career high. So far, he had done everything possible in his high school career except the one thing he wanted most of all—winning a state championship.

  Well, winning the state championship and then going straight into the NBA. In the next few weeks, both would be decided.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1996

  State Champs

  During one practice just before the beginning of the state tournament, Coach Downer watched in wonder as Kobe took off from the foul line and jammed in a monstrous dunk. “There are no limits,” he said wistfully.

  Downer’s summation appeared correct as the Aces knifed through the competition to reach the state semifinals with ease. But in order to reach the championship game, they would have to defeat their old nemesis Chester, regarded as perhaps the best defensive, team in the state.

  The previous season, Chester had embarrassed Kobe and Lower Merion, beating them by 27 points. To remind themselves of that, each member of the Aces wrote the number 27 on his basketball jersey.

  Early in the game it appeared as if Chester still had Kobe’s number. They swarmed over him, daring him to shoot through double- and triple-teams. Kobe began pressing, and instead of involving his teammates in the game, he tried to do everything himself. Rather than passing the ball to another player, he’d drive and try to cut between defenders and throw up spectacular-looking but incredibly difficult shots. As Kobe said later of his first-half effort, “I was making too many moves. There was too much jelly on my jam.”

  That style caused his teammates to become spectators. Instead of moving without the ball and trying to get themselves open, they stood around on offense and watched Kobe.

  At the end of the first quarter Chester held a narrow lead. At halftime they still led, 31-29. Kobe had shot an uncharacteristic 4-for-14 from the field.

  Fortunately, Kobe and his teammates had played much better on the defensive end of the floor. Although Chester had tossed up 43 shots in the first two quarters, few went unchallenged and they managed to make only 14. So far, defense had kept Lower Merion in the game, but everyone watching knew that if Kobe didn’t get going in the second half, his dream of winning a state championship would go unfulfilled.

  At the half Coach Downer tried to remind his players of their roles and the need to remain patient on offense. He didn’t want Kobe to stop shooting, but he wanted to make sure he took his shots in the context of his team’s offense.

  In the third quarter, Kobe started heating up. Instead of forcing the issue, he took what the defense gave him and started pouring in shots from the outside. On defense, Lower Merion continued to contest every shot, and in the fourth quarter they pulled ahead.

  Chester was becoming desperate. Nearly every time Kobe touched the ball, they fouled him. He calmly sank free throw after free throw, helping the Aces to a five-point lead with only two minutes left to play.

  But Chester clawed back, tying the game at 61 with only 41 seconds remaining. Then Dan Panagrazio, Lower Merion’s second-highest scorer and three-point specialist, went down with a leg injury and was forced from the game.

  For the next 41 seconds, the teams went at each other hard. But as they flew up and down the court, fi
ghting for every rebound, neither team could put the ball in the basket. The game entered overtime.

  Kobe took over. The exhausted Chester defense couldn’t keep up with him anymore. With less than 20 seconds left to play and the Aces leading, 75-69, the ball ended up in Kobe’s hands.

  He dribbled down the court and the defeated Chester team let him go. At the free throw line he left the court and launched himself into the air. Raising the ball high above his head with one hand, he took aim at the basket.

  Slam! He jammed the ball home, providing an exclamation point to the Aces’ well deserved, hard fought 77-69 victory. They were going to the finals!

  “We knew it was going to be a war coming in,” said Kobe later. He had proven to be the best soldier on the court when it had mattered most, scoring 20 of his game-high 39 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to secure the win.

  In the finals, Lower Merion faced Erie Cathedral Prep. Erie was determined not to let Kobe run wild in the final.

  Erie decided to approach the game with a two-pronged strategy. On offense, they planned to slow everything down and control the tempo. That way they hoped to keep Lower Merion from running and keep the ball out of Kobe’s hands on the fast break, where he was most dangerous. And when Lower Merion did get the ball, they decided to double— and triple-team Kobe, knowing that with Panagrazio still sidelined, the Aces didn’t really have another scoring threat. The strategy wasn’t pretty to watch, but Erie was willing to do anything to win.

  The first quarter went just the way Erie had planned. Kobe went scoreless and Erie took a small lead in the low-scoring game.

  Coach Downer cautioned his team to remain patient and not try to force things. They listened well, and in the second quarter Kobe managed to shake free for eight points. But the Aces shot only 6-for-22 in the first half and Erie led at halftime, 21-15.

  Downer wasn’t too concerned. The Aces had been taking good shots; they just hadn’t fallen.