For a person I didn’t know at all personally, this shook me pretty hard. I’ve long been a Kobe fan, lived in LA for the second and third Shaq-Kobe championships. I’m old, already in my 40s, and I haven’t had an emotional reaction to a celebrity death like this since Biggie. No joke, this one hurt me.
I don’t disparage anyone for jokes or for throwing shade or hate. Over the years, I’ve seen worse things said on these boards. I actually expected more and worse. And death is always tragic, especially to those personally affected. But sometimes celebrity, public figure deaths carry more weight in how many people it reaches. Doesn’t make it any more tragic, only how many people are affected.
But talking seriously for a minute, as much of a sociopath and megalomaniac as he was early on in his career, I do feel like he did grow up over the course of his playing career and post career. He may forever be viewed by some as a s bag for Colorado and the snitching aftermath. But I do believe he not only grew from that, but proactively tried to become a better person for it. Obviously, I don’t know for sure, as I have zero personal insight. But most personal reports indicate he developed into a pretty good dude later on and pretty much everything we read now about him being a good father, a generous mentor to young basketball players, and a determined and ambitious media (not social media, but film and print media) personality relate a different person than the young, arrogant Kobe.
I believe the 2008 Olympics began to paint a different portrait of Kobe, when young stars like LeBron and Wade who may have respected Kobe but viewed him as aloof and weird got to know him on a more personal level. And they started to understand him as a person. And after retirement, Dear Basketball, and his basketball relationship with his daughter, people started to see a different side. But hey, maybe he still was a s bag and sociopath when he went down in the helicopter. As a Kobe fan, I’m hoping he did grow up from young Kobe, Colorado Kobe, snitching Kobe, megalomaniac Kobe.
And I was still sad today.