• 3 days ago
Kobe Bryant, a life beyond basketball.
Transcript
00:00To be honest with you, I don't miss playing in the NBA and I don't miss the career.
00:06You know, it was 20 great years, I was very fortunate to play that long.
00:10But now I watch it through my daughter.
00:13My daughter plays every day, so I enjoy watching her develop, but that's about it.
00:31You get better every single day.
00:33It sounds cliché, but if you really think about it, it's true as form.
00:38And I think really that's the key, because when you're getting better every single day,
00:42you can't help but be phenomenal.
01:00When I grew up, I went to an Italian school at the age of six.
01:14And so I think it's important for kids to kind of learn more than just the world that is around them.
01:30How to be tough.
01:39How to have thick skin.
01:41I mean, there's not one playground around here where people just play basketball and don't talk trash.
01:46It's just non-existent.
01:48It's non-existent.
01:50So, you know, my family, we're just a bunch of trash talkers.
01:53Every park I went to was a bunch of trash talking.
01:56And it teaches you how to have thick skin.
02:26Follow me! Follow me! Follow me! Follow me!
03:26If I had to pick what player right now represents the future, it would have to be Kobe Bryant.
03:34It's a big honor for us to represent our country and to come out here and try to bring back a gold medal,
03:45as it is for all U.S. athletes.
03:47We just want to try to make the country proud and represent it the best way we can.
04:27Kobe, at Lower Merion High School, you wanted to be great.
04:31You were looking for greatness, but could you have seen the career that you had?
04:35Could you have pictured it at that point?
04:37I played 20 years.
04:39It wasn't even a thought for me in terms of how long I would play.
04:43I kind of assumed it was like 13, 14 years.
04:45I tended to be the average, you know.
04:47And then the years just kept coming, just kept piling up.
04:52So no, I never imagined playing this many years.
05:11I feel better than winning a championship, to be honest with you.
05:14I swear I do.
05:16Growing up as a kid, I dreamt of winning championships, you know,
05:19and working really hard to make that dream come true.
05:22But then to have something like this seemingly come out of left field, you know.
05:28I heard a lot of people tell me when I started writing,
05:31and they would ask me, what are you going to do when you retire?
05:33And I'd say, well, I want to be a writer, I want to be a storyteller.
05:35And I got a lot of, that's cute, that's cute.
05:38You'll be depressed when your career is over and you'll come back to playing.
05:41And I got that a lot.
05:42And so to be here right now and to have like a sense of validation is,
05:47dude, this is crazy, man.
05:50It's crazy.
06:12It's crazy.