Basketball Life

Of course today is Kobe Bryant's memorial so I'm going to talk about it, and discuss my connection to him and basketball.

No sport has captivated me more and I've been introduced to several, baseball, tennis, hockey, volleyball, track, soccer but when I finally landed on basketball during the golden era of 90s, it was a wrap. I knew which sport was going to be it for me.

It's really an incredible experience, such a fully realized, complex yet simplistic experience to learn and master basketball skills. I mean it's essentially a combo of darts and soccer I suppose. You can master shooting and focus on that, or get damn good at forcing the ball to the hoop and get good at driving and dribbling, there's a whole universe of possibilities and always new methods to discover. And it's fast paced unlike many sports, which is where you're going to be tested most, running back and forth again and again, not easy stuff but that's like more or less where my leg strength comes from over the years getting used to the hustle of basketball.

So where does Kobe come in. I was more an Iverson fan than Kobe but I noted his excellence as a player growing up. I liked what he could do more than I liked him personally. Only just recently did I discover he's truly more than I thought he was back in the day. He was destined for basketball. He knew he was destined for basketball and he embraced it. Looking back I regret not paying more attention to his rise. I was there just casually watching a kobe game or something. But yeah I was always interested in seeing what kind of win he could sqeeze out last second or most memorable for me was his battles with Iverson which I watched and cemented his greatness in my mind with how he understood basketball so well and played smartly.

He was a smart player, knew what he could do, and did everything he could to win even if it lead to losing. His tenacity energized the sport that had very few great star personalities left in it after the old titans in the league started to retire. We still had him, he wasn't going anywhere. And he was a good dude. So beyond sad that we lose decent stars with passion for what they do and we get left with this current NBA which in my opinion is a shadow of the former tougher epic stuff it once was. I don't truly feel like I'm watching the nba I used to know anymore. It's like some are saying way too friendly. Used to be a warzone to be frank and let me get to that.

I love basketball but if you play basketball in my hood, you're going to come away hating it. Dudes you meet on the court are jerks and turn my sport that  I love and spent so much of my time getting better at into a big immature mean spirited negative ego fest. That's the negative side of basketball the immaturity it generates in some fools. But that's part of it, what can you do.

Those of us who love and understand what basketball's about, working with each other and self improvement, yeah we don't let it devolve into that kinda nonsense.

Kobe didn't and that's why I have so much respect for him, he did bring a lot of dignity to it. And passion, we need those passion players.

Feels like I'm in a damn nightmare to be honest. Gonna wake up soon, right... Never thought it'd be over, the Kobe legacy just ended and yeah he truly was a legendary player, dude scared entire teams he was that elite. I don't know what else to say. It's not easy to move on and yeah we need to learn from him, what did Kobe teach us in the end with his life.

Do what matters to you with everything everyday, I'm going to say.