Kobe Bryant had better access to NBA talent than most other 13-year-olds.
The future Los Angeles Lakers legend was the son of former NBA player Joe Bryant, who played for the Philadelphia 76ers, San Diego Clippers, and Houston Rockets between the mid 1970s and 1980s.
Like many teenagers of the early 1990s, Kobe grew up idolizing Michael Jordan.
The same Michael Jordan who dunked from the free throw line and won six NBA championships while becoming a global cultural phenomenon.
Kobe modeled his entire game on ‘Air Jordan’ and longed to one day meet him.
Fortunately, his dad — who still had connections within the Sixers organization from his playing days — could make that dream a reality, as retold in 2022’s ‘The Rise’ by Mike Sielski.
And so, before the 76ers’ game against the Chicago Bulls on March 8, 1992, the elder Bryant led his basketball-obsessed son into the arena’s locker room to meet his idol.
Sielski writes: “Kobe said hello to Michael Jordan. Jordan said hello back and gave him a wristband. There is no lasting indication that Kobe was nervous or stuttering or in any regard intimidated by Jordan. That was merely the entirety of their conversation; Jordan had nothing else to say. Neither did Kobe, who introduced himself to Bulls forward Horace Grant.”
It was then when Kobe made an astonishing and improbable promise.
“Do you play basketball?” Grant asked Bryant, according to Sielski.
“Yes,” Kobe said, “but I’m only in eighth grade.”
“Are you going to be a superstar one day?”
“Yes,” Kobe said, “I might be.”
Few, perhaps not even Kobe, could have predicted how prophetic his words would turn out to be.
Bryant became a Laker great, winning five NBA championships, two Finals MVPs, the 2007-08 MVP, and two scoring titles.
He was also a 15-time All-NBA selection and 18-time All-Star, carving out a Hall of Fame career that puts him in the conversation for the greatest to ever do it.
Kobe and MJ would inevitably come face-to-face on the NBA hardwood, but their paths crossed again before that, this time in 1996, when Jordan was at the peak of his powers.
A 17-year-old Kobe was invited to the Spectrum by Sixers coach John Lucas ahead of his team taking on Jordan’s Bulls, who were in the midst of a 72-10 season and on course to win their fourth world title.
Bryant was one of the hottest prospects in the country at the time and Lucas reportedly wanted to strengthen his relationship with Bryant ahead of the upcoming NBA draft, hence why he invited him to the game.
Lucas led Kobe to the visitors’ locker room for another fateful encounter with his idol.
“‘Kobe,’” Jordan said, “what’s up?’”.
Jordan extended his hand. “Hey,” he said, “nice meeting you, young man.”
Sielski recounts: “Kobe reached out his hand and shook Jordan’s. His hand is so . . . strong . . . Kobe was not nervous. This person standing in front of him, this person whom the world adored, was a human being, just like everybody else. Just a basketball player, like Kobe.
“Unlike in their previous meeting, Jordan this time talked to Kobe at some length. Enjoy the game, he told him. With the pressure and hype that’s going on, you can become easily distracted, and the game won’t be enjoyable. Don’t let people do that to you. Stay yourself. Have fun on the court, and everything will be fine.
“The last piece of advice Jordan gave him: Man, if it was up to me, you’d go to North Carolina. Go to Carolina.”
Jordan was referencing Kobe’ decision to either go to college or declare for the NBA draft.
Bryant could have gone to Carolina like MJ, but decided to capitalize on the prep-to-pro movement at the time, previously blazed by prodigious stars like Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett.
During a recent conversation, John Salley, a former teammate of Jordan and Bryant, revealed MJ was the sole reason Kobe decided to go straight to the NBA out of high school.
Bryant ended up being drafted by the Charlotte Hornets with the 13th overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft. He was traded to the Lakers almost immediately after, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Kobe and Jordan faced each other for the first in the NBA later that year, the first of eight career battles they had against one another.
Bryant enjoyed a winning record against No. 23 during his career, going 5-3. Perhaps more importantly than a winning record, though, he earned Jordan’s respect and became his ‘little brother.’
“Michael, in particular, he’s become my big brother. He’s been my big brother since I first came in the league,” Kobe said in a 2019 interview, the year before he tragically passed away.
“I don’t know if he opened up with me more than he did with other players. I’m not sure. I don’t know if other players had the balls even to ask. But we have a really, really good relationship,” he added.
Six-time champion Jordan retired in 1999 for a second time. By 2000, Kobe was the preeminent shooting guard in the league at the beginning of his own championship three-peat.
Jordan returned for two more NBA seasons from 2001 to 2003 as a member of the Washington Wizards, and the pair famously trash-talked at the 2003 All-Star Game.
Their mutual respect never wavered though.
In 2013, Jordan picked Kobe over LeBron. Years later, Bryant reiterated his reverence for the basketball GOAT in the hit Netflix documentary, ‘The Last Dance’.
“What you get from me is from him,” Kobe said during the series.
“I don’t get five championships here without him.”