Kobe Bryant: An Actor Prepares.

There is something enigmatic about trying to piece together the words in this time to fit, to capture, portray a person whom you've never known but feel so inextricably connected to. To gather up the totality of a life is an impossible task, if accomplished at all most readily accomplished by the totality of opinions and feelings about said life than by any one account. All that much more when the life is as accomplished, complex, and visible as Kobe Bryant's. There will undoubtedly be opinions, and discussions regarding the darkness in Kobe's life, if not immediately, then soon. Rightfully so, not everyone whose life Kobe touched was for the positive. There are people whom he hurt deeply, a woman whom he scarred for life in one context or another no matter what your opinion of the verdict is. The anger will undoubtedly come to the surface in the light of his passing. There will be takes and discussions on his competive spirit, the trait most associated with Bryant. I won’t be discussing much of either, instead I'll be discussing the part (s) of Kobe I most enjoyed …The Performer.

I watched Jordan play during the height of his mastery, but I grew up watching Kobe. The key words are grew up. By the time I was old enough to not just watch, but truly understand and appreciate basketball MJ was gone and it was Kobe who was in his prime. I was transfixed by his attitude, not just the work ethic but the way he navigated being in the eye of the media . I’ve told many whom I know that Kobe was one of five or so people I didn't know who had an indelible effect on shaping how I see the world. On who I am. He was a black athlete who truly seemed unbothered an unconcerned by what the media or anyone else thought of him, and he was so young, though I still never grasped how to be that unfiltered, and unfazed, I nonetheless took it to heart. His confidence gave you confidence in him. I could only imagine the ways that that impacted those around him - family, friends, collaborators, and teammates. An argument that has persisted and disgusted me about Kobe is that he never made players better. Not only is that just patently false when you consider that with Shaq, Pau, Lamar Odom, Smush Parker, Mark Madsen, Luke Walton, its hard to actually name players who didn't have their best or some of their best statistical seasons alongside Bryant, but also when you consider who didn’t gain in any way from physical improvements to psychological from playing with, and sometimes under that confidence. You, the audience absorbed it , not only by osmosis, but by way of faith. A forgotten aspect of many of Kobe's scoring frenzies was that the Lakers were losing, many times with nothing left it seemed, and Kobe was unfazed, and the players followed by Faith..faith in ability, faith in consistency. This was always lost on those who insisted Kobe made no one better. What metric these folk used to make such a demonstrably false assertion I may never know, but my own suspicions are a narrow minded consideration of what “making someone better” is, a need to flush out the fans lingering fascination with a style of basketball no longer compatible with the NBA, and Kobe's initial aloofness (in and of itself no particular crime but especially punishable when you are a black person in the public eye ). His game, his brashness and to them his uppitiness, offended many white folk in the sports media who have always been obsessed with black humility, and worser still Kobes game backed it up. Kareem Abdul Jabbar had initially suffered through the same thing during his career, and truthfully his reputation and ultimately his legacy never quite recovered from the fragile agitation of various mostly white media outlets that saw his religion, and his unwillingness to kow-tow as a threat. Up until this moment I would say the same sort of disgruntled anger existed for and towards Kobe (though some of his was earned as well). Gruff, frank , and at times cruel, Kobe could and did sincerely hurt people. His admiration for MJ and the fact that it may have aligned with parts of him as it was - was a factor in much of what made him unbearable in his youth. He hurt people, he rubbed them the wrong way, and in at least one case he affected one woman for life, you dont just get that wiped clean..it matters, its becomes part of the whole, and it must be accepted as such. For some or all of these things there are those who will never forgive Kobe, never like him, and I will not argue that they should or that their stance is unrighteous. For me though, Kobe was a physical embodiment of progress, of change, of evolution, of craftsmanship, of unbridled dedication, that doesn't erase what he's done, but it frames it, making it whole. Kobe on court was an artist, which made his eventual transition to entertainment and storytelling one that we should have seen coming in retrospect. Every year it seemed, he went into his bag and brought out a new trick, a better step back, a left hand, some more intricate pump fakes, more strength, less weight, post moves, and even better -many came after he had already reached the pinnacle. Many of our greatest actors do this. They carve they craft, they develop, they evolve. These were Kobe's traits as well flourishes, his brush strokes to the canvas of a brilliant creative career. He played the tortured artist, a Van Gogh who played though the kind of injuries that today would be unheard of in an NBA that load manages players, and rest others for weeks for a tail bone bruise. There were broken fingers, metatarsals, viruses, and of course a ruptured Achilles that he returned to shoot two free throws on. It is a maniacal show of toughness, an almost magical display of will, and most definitely theater.

Like another one of my five most influential people Bruce Lee, Kobe's defining trait for me was his theatricality. Like actors, his performances ultimately came from preparation, imagination, and purpose. Like Bruce he shares this with Muhammad Ali. Not necessarily in chosen form of presentation, but in an instinctive understanding of theater, of how it works, of what it consists of, how it is made. Like Bruce Lee neither were the best because they could beat everyone, or in Kobe's case because their stats and accolades towered above everyone else's. Neither Bryant or Lee were exceptionally big, or exceptionally fast by nature. The largest chunk of their greatness came from working so tirelessly at their craft until it didn't matter. The craft became their gift, their genius. Thier greatest skill was in using their minds to break down their opponents. The pagoda from Game of Death. A gallery of foes who had unnatural skills and body types that posed natural problems, that they must overcome.

Creativity, Improvisation, study, movement, body control , in a way very akin to actors that no other athlete I’ve ever seen could come close to. It’s why he was so much more tolerable than most athletes in both acting as a discipline and comedy as a form. He was intelligent, focused, he had great timing, and a sense for what worked on camera, and on court, so it came much more naturally for him off court and in front of the camera like in this wonderful Apple TV commercial…

He had an inate sense for the moment, for time. He cuts in at exactly the right time, he listens, and he shuts up at exactly the right time. He has complete control of his body and ignores every young actors instinct to move to make something happen (Something Constantin Stanislavski spoke of at length in “An Actor Prepares”). You watch any one of his many highlight reels you will see all of this on display . His body could seem incredibly elastic at times, he had incredible timing. A sense for the time to strike, and to back up, he performed balletic-like movements in mid air which required an uncanny amount of control and made it seem effortless .

What great actors get, what movie stars get, what Bruce Lee, and Robert Redford, Paul Newman, and Denzel Washington, got/get is the game is not just to be skilled, or knowledgeable - many others are those things, they understood the vital importance of theater, of narrative of magic. Watch Bruce Lee completely unfazed by a board being broken in his face , and Kobe completely unfazed by a ball being faux tossed at his face…

Same Energy. This is presence, swagger, toughness, character, and poise. Are you not entertained? Kobe provided that, he gave narrative to the “Kobe stoppers” that he always studied and then avenged his defeats, team defeats, thriving on the inherent storytelling aspect of these triumphs. The Celtics, the Shaq's, the clutch shots, the growl, the chest thumping, the shirt biting, the mid-air pirouettes, the arms extended in the midst of raining confetti, all theater..Stanislavski the actor prepares. He continued to evolve as a player, much more importantly as a man. Kobe went from a brash arrogant 18 year old kid trying to prove his worth at the cost of others, to a man whose worth was found in sharing his gifts with others. From problematic slurs against the gay community, to standing up for them. From eviscerating teammates, to lifting them up. Touting the importance of the WNBA, and intimate moments with his daughters and wife on the sidelines of games he admitted he had previously sworn off. His legacy is that of storytelling not only through his work, but his life. He left us all with the timeless message of tireless preparation, and will, at the intersection of fearless improvisation, and accountability. He left us with the Mamba mentality, a litany of games where we witnessed scenes akin to many films we've seen before. His 81 point masterpiece…definitely Wonder Woman in the trenches …

Story …the men were in the trenches and they were afraid and outmatched, and rather than leaving them to fend for themselves, I went out and became an inspiration. Whether you believe that's what happened or not, it’s clearly a demonstration of how Kobe used storytelling as a framework for his awe inspiring performance on court, as a father, as an artist. Kobe refused to leave his legacy with those who watched him. He created his own, he authored his own, and did it while giving his all in performances the likes of which we may never see again, and it is why Kobe is and may always be my favorite player/athlete all time and this actor is not yet prepared to let him go.