ambchang
04-12-2017, 11:56 AM
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/page/presents19137303/last-dance-black-mamba
:cry legs so tired I can't even stand up :cry
He compares the sensation to finishing a grueling series of maximum-effort dead lifts, squats and lunges, and then finding that merely standing up is nearly impossible, thanks to legs that, fighting numbness, refuse basic commands from the nervous system. "That's what you battle with," he says. "Because when that point comes, I can't get it back. It's done." So that was the mission in timeouts, or in stolen moments of rest on the court. He says it was about lungs helping legs, "trying to breathe life back into them, somehow."
:cry I didn't want to shoot, the crowd wanted it
:cry I know I said I only play to win, but :cry the crowd :cry
"After the first couple minutes, I was like, 'Oh, s---,'" Bryant says. "It became apparent really, really quickly that this night was not going to go down with me just playing OK. It was either going to have to be an epic one or the worst one ever, because they were just going to keep throwing me the damn ball and the crowd wanted me to shoot every time -- almost to the point where I felt bad for my teammates, because if they took a shot, the crowd was ready to boo. So it was like, 'Oh, s---. I gotta go.'"
:cry I didn't plan this at all, that's why I had those "Mamba Out" T-shirts printed right after I score 60 points and before the crowd started buying merchandise. It takes no time to design, produce, and distribute them. :cry I am so real
:lol popping champagne for a meaningless season game on the way to a franchise worst record
:cry we just had a franchise worst record, let's celebrate
HOURS AFTER THE GAME concluded, after Bryant removed his Champagne-soaked purple-and-gold jersey and Wednesday gave way to Thursday, he returned to the Staples Center court in a hoodie, sweatpants and a pair of his sneakers, with his wife, Vanessa, and two daughters, Natalia and Gianna. He autographed sections of the court that would later be auctioned off and then snapped photos at half court with his family. A swelling crowd of media and team employees soon joined him on the court, and Bryant remained there for a while to chat.
:cry I really care about people, I want to say goodbye to them and thank them for manipulating the ignorant masses into thinking that I am all about winning.
"We were going to take our time," Bryant says. "Because normally, you try to rush out because there's practice in the morning or the next game, but there's no next. It's not like two days off, three days off. It's saying goodbye to people that I've spent -- some [of them] 17, 20 years [with]. That means beat writers and cameramen and sound engineers and producers that I've seen over and over for years. So I wanted to spend as much time as I could to say hi or bye to every single one of them."
:cry I built downtown
He left the building at 12:26 a.m. on April 14. As the helicopter lifted off into the night sky and headed back toward his Orange County home, Bryant looked down at the arena. "I was proud of not just the game -- just the 20 years," he says today. "Flying over, I remember the day Shaq and I went and dug the shovels into the ground to build Staples Center, and now to fly over it and to see what downtown has become and to see how much we have grown, how much I have grown, how much Shaq has grown, how much the city has grown, how much my family has grown. So to fly over it one last time and to look down on it, I felt proud, man."
:cry legs so tired I can't even stand up :cry
He compares the sensation to finishing a grueling series of maximum-effort dead lifts, squats and lunges, and then finding that merely standing up is nearly impossible, thanks to legs that, fighting numbness, refuse basic commands from the nervous system. "That's what you battle with," he says. "Because when that point comes, I can't get it back. It's done." So that was the mission in timeouts, or in stolen moments of rest on the court. He says it was about lungs helping legs, "trying to breathe life back into them, somehow."
:cry I didn't want to shoot, the crowd wanted it
:cry I know I said I only play to win, but :cry the crowd :cry
"After the first couple minutes, I was like, 'Oh, s---,'" Bryant says. "It became apparent really, really quickly that this night was not going to go down with me just playing OK. It was either going to have to be an epic one or the worst one ever, because they were just going to keep throwing me the damn ball and the crowd wanted me to shoot every time -- almost to the point where I felt bad for my teammates, because if they took a shot, the crowd was ready to boo. So it was like, 'Oh, s---. I gotta go.'"
:cry I didn't plan this at all, that's why I had those "Mamba Out" T-shirts printed right after I score 60 points and before the crowd started buying merchandise. It takes no time to design, produce, and distribute them. :cry I am so real
:lol popping champagne for a meaningless season game on the way to a franchise worst record
:cry we just had a franchise worst record, let's celebrate
HOURS AFTER THE GAME concluded, after Bryant removed his Champagne-soaked purple-and-gold jersey and Wednesday gave way to Thursday, he returned to the Staples Center court in a hoodie, sweatpants and a pair of his sneakers, with his wife, Vanessa, and two daughters, Natalia and Gianna. He autographed sections of the court that would later be auctioned off and then snapped photos at half court with his family. A swelling crowd of media and team employees soon joined him on the court, and Bryant remained there for a while to chat.
:cry I really care about people, I want to say goodbye to them and thank them for manipulating the ignorant masses into thinking that I am all about winning.
"We were going to take our time," Bryant says. "Because normally, you try to rush out because there's practice in the morning or the next game, but there's no next. It's not like two days off, three days off. It's saying goodbye to people that I've spent -- some [of them] 17, 20 years [with]. That means beat writers and cameramen and sound engineers and producers that I've seen over and over for years. So I wanted to spend as much time as I could to say hi or bye to every single one of them."
:cry I built downtown
He left the building at 12:26 a.m. on April 14. As the helicopter lifted off into the night sky and headed back toward his Orange County home, Bryant looked down at the arena. "I was proud of not just the game -- just the 20 years," he says today. "Flying over, I remember the day Shaq and I went and dug the shovels into the ground to build Staples Center, and now to fly over it and to see what downtown has become and to see how much we have grown, how much I have grown, how much Shaq has grown, how much the city has grown, how much my family has grown. So to fly over it one last time and to look down on it, I felt proud, man."