THE MAMBA MENTALITY (INTRODUCTION BY PHIL JACKSON)
It will certainly offer a deeper understanding of the detailed and dedicated way Kobe Bryant approached the game. It’s one thing to have talent, but another to have the drive to learn the nuances. James Naismith is credited with having said “basketball is an easy game to play, but a difficult game to master.” This is a window into the mind of someone who mastered it. The combination of Andy Bernstein’s exceptional photography and Kobe’s insights might make you a better player if you’re inclined.
Kobe came into the NBA with a desire and talent to become one of the greatest players of all time. He achieved that goal through his dedication and perseverance. The opportunity to play for the Lakers, a historic franchise, gave him an audience and a forum, but his level of success came entirely from within.
Kobe and I first met in 1999 at the Beverly Hills Hilton, on the day I was formally announced as the Lakers’ coach. We were in a suite, before I went down to meet members of the press assembled in the ballroom. Kobe wanted to impress upon me how happy he was to have the opportunity to play in the triangle system—and how much he already knew about it. He was already a “student of the game,” and had studied various aspects of the offense. Here he was, 20 years old, sounding like he’d been a pro for a decade.
By nature, the triangle offense is confining and disciplined. There is little room for a player to just go rogue. It was a planned, programmed way to play. Push the ball upcourt and look for an early shot; if it’s not there, build the triangle; read how the opponent’s defense is going to react; attack their weakness and apply your strengths. My twin sons are just one year younger than Kobe, so at that point I had a pretty good perspective on young men and their varying ability to focus on tasks. I had also had the privilege of coaching a number of players who had said the same thing during my tenure with the Chicago Bulls. Even at that young age, though, Kobe kept true to his word about being a student of the game.
Kobe actually broke a bone in his wrist the very first game of preseason that year, and missed the first 14 games. We had gotten of to a good start without him, and I was concerned he might require some “break-in” time to fit into the mix. It wasn’t a problem. He kept the team winning as his first priority and we kept rolling.
A month or so after he returned to active play, I received a call from Jerry West, who wanted to relay a conversation he’d had with Kobe. Kobe had called to ask him how he and Elgin Baylor had both been able to score 30-plus points a game while sharing the ball on the same team back in the 1960s. After Jerry probed a bit, Kobe admitted he was worried he wasn’t going to score enough points to become “one of the greatest players in the NBA.” This concerned me, because as a coach I didn’t care how many points a player scored—only the final numbers on the scoreboard. But Kobe knew what he was capable of doing, and felt limited by our system. That clash had all the warning signs of becoming a problem. Of course, there was real substance behind his drive—he went on to total 33,643 points in his career, ahead of Michael Jordan and just behind Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
That first year, Kobe played alongside Ron Harper in a two-guard system at the top of the floor. They were in charge of “setting the table”—recognizing when the fast break was over, secondary action was limited, and it was time to set up the triangle system. Naturally, there was always a temptation to push the envelope, and sometimes Kobe would go rogue. He’d break from the plan to create an opportunity for himself, and it would jam up our offensive flow. So we had our conversations about not trying to take over a game. We also had our film sessions, centering on what skills made a guard a good playmaker. In retrospect, Kobe was as patient with me as I was with him. We tolerated each other, and the result was that he came to understand how disciplined our team had to become in order to win that coveted championship. As much as he loved to score, Kobe usually knew or intuited what the right thing to do for the team was in the moment.
The Lakers had been a bridesmaid the past two seasons, winning a ton of games but getting swept out of successive playoffs. Shouldering the pressure that came with that history, Kobe, of course, made the plays. The Lakers got over the stigma of coming up short and went on to win three championships in a row. Each of those years was dramatic and full of memorable games and moments. Kobe was the driving force, while Shaquille O’Neal, the Diesel, was the focal point of the offense—“Get the ball to the big fella,” as we’d say. The group of Lakers went to four finals in five years, in essence creating a dynasty.
The next segment of Kobe’s career was when his maturation took place. After the Shaq-Kobe era came to a close, he became the senior statesman for a team that had lost all of its other starters via retirement or trade. He was the major thrust of the team and its nominal leader, perhaps by default. And leadership is a tough thing to master, especially when you know a championship is beyond the reach of your personnel.
At one point in our early years with the Lakers, Kobe and I stood together before practice and watched five of the other players hold a shooting contest. It was similar to the game “Cat,” where a player had to mirror and match the shooter before him, or he was eliminated. They had asked me to hold off the start of practice because the game went around the entire arc, using both corners, both wings, and the top. I asked Kobe, competitive as he was, why he didn’t play against his teammates, and he said it was because he wasn’t a three-point shooter. But in the year that followed, he was determined to fix that: During the off-season Kobe worked diligently on his three-point shot. It was always about the details. And in the 2005–06 season, Kobe went off and averaged more than 35 points a game, leading the NBA in scoring. He had become a scoring machine.
I could go on listing records and accounts of his scoring prowess, but that was really a side note to Kobe’s evolution as a player. My staff would meet at 8:30 AM at our facility before a practice or game to prepare for the coming day. More often than not, by the time I pulled in, Kobe would already be parked in the car next to my designated spot, taking a nap. He would be in the gym well before that, maybe by 6 AM to get his pre-practice workout done before anyone else showed up. That was the trademark of the final 10 years of his career. Kobe led by example for his teammates. They couldn’t keep up— but they were always challenged by the example he set.
In 2007, I met with Kobe to discuss the Olympics in China. That team was packed with stars and had practiced together that summer in preparation for the next year, when they would go on to win gold. My message to Kobe was this: If you are going to do the extra off-season things, you must recognize you only have a certain amount of time left on your legs. Practice is not a big concern of mine, you know the system. I will give you as much time as you need between games to recover if you will keep your leadership intact by being present. He would do his physical therapy while the team went through their skills and drills and come onto the court when competitive action commenced. He encouraged his team and sometimes played the coaching role for the second unit. I was watching Kobe go through extreme routines to get himself ready to play games and thought there might be a window of five or six years left in his career. Again he changed the landscape, and his determination to extend his physical prime blew out the norm. He played almost 10 more years of NBA high-intensity basketball, which stands as a measure of his character.
The photographs in this book are a testament to the manner in which Kobe has thought about the game. In fact, the way Kobe approaches basketball has prepared him for the “next” phase of his life, one that already looks as interesting and intense as his long career with the Lakers.
—PHIL JACKSON, coach 1999–2004, 2005–2011
