The day has finally come. This is it. Kobe Bryant is leaving the game of basketball behind.
It’s surreal. As the countdown to his final NBA game draws to an end, I find myself struggling to answer how it feels to see my good friend’s and former teammate’s career conclude, and how I think we should measure Kobe’s indelible impact upon the league.
Honestly, it’s really tough for me to come up with the words to describe what Kobe’s exit represents. Just hearing him earlier this season say he was done with the game affected me emotionally. In some ways — even more than my own retirement — the end of Kobe’s 20-year playing career represents the end of a significant part of my life, a part that otherwise would not have existed without him. Without his presence and his greatness.
Kobe and I both began our NBA careers with the Lakers in 1996, and everything since then — our working relationship, the brotherhood that developed, the times we saw eye-to-eye, the times we didn’t — has led me to where I am now. He’s been an anchor for so many of my own experiences, seeing him still out there on the court has allowed me to hold on to some of my most precious memories.
1996 feels like a lifetime ago. Even now, when people talk about the top drafts of all time, ’96 is always in the discussion. Only, the biggest stars from that draft — Ray Allen, Allen Iverson, Steve Nash, and now Kobe — have moved on to different phases of their lives. And that’s why Kobe’s retirement announcement affected me so much. He’s the last one.
When I heard the news back in November, I immediately felt the weight of a future without him in the mix. His stepping away from the NBA is a marker of sorts; the final link to an era. For me, and for the game.
If you remember, Kobe broke his wrist playing pickup ball in Venice Beach that first summer after the draft. His debut was delayed because he had to wait to have the cast removed. I remember hearing about the injury after it happened, and initially, I was kind of like, “What was he even doing down there? This guy is a top-15 pick in the NBA Draft, and he’s playing street ball by the beach?!”
Little did I know it at the time, but that was exactly the kind of person and player he was. And even though the news didn’t give me a ton of insight into the mind of the man, that was my first Kobe experience. It wasn’t until training camp started that I really started spending time around him on a day-to-day basis at practice.
We didn’t particularly hit it off right away from the first day, either.
During camp and preseason that year, we weren’t playing a lot of minutes in the games, so after practices, Kobe and I used to play full-court one-on-one. That’s right, full-court one-on-one. We beat the hell out of one another out there. I don’t remember keeping score, but if we did, he probably won them all — and he had the bruises and bumps to prove it. There was actual blood. Even back then, though, Kobe was an assassin, and with me very serious about my craft, we didn’t hold anything back.
That was how our bond was first forged. We weren’t seeking to be best friends or buddies, but from the very beginning, we wanted to win so badly that it brought us together. Our relationship as teammates and the friendship that eventually developed evolved purely through shared professional aspiration.
It was that simple.
I’ve been a part of so many of Kobe’s special moments, but there are a couple that really stand out as examples that underscored his peak greatness.
The first was during our sophomore season. We made the playoffs as a No. 3 seed in 1997–98, and faced a 62-win Utah Jazz in the Western Conference Finals. They swept us — that was an underappreciated and truly great Jazz team — and went on to face the Chicago Bulls in the Finals.
But what still stands out in my mind wasn’t the fact that we didn’t win, it was that Kobe took shots that missed everything in the Game 4 that ended our season. But he still kept trying, kept shooting, undeterred by the possibility of failure. That took courage — he was only 18 years old — and it told me a lot about who he was, and hinted at who he was to become.
Game 7 in the 2010 NBA Finals against the Celtics is another vivid Kobe memory for me. He was only 6-of-24 from the field — it was one of the worst shooting performances of his playoff career — but because of his energy and physical toughness, he was still was our best player in that game, grabbing 15 rebounds to help us reach the winner’s circle again.
And that’s what people don’t realize when they highlight the number of shots Kobe has hoisted over his career. When that shot was failing him, he would still do whatever it took to help the team get the W. Hitting the glass, collecting 15 boards, or 10 assists, or three steals, or two blocked shots; it didn’t matter. He did it all, and he did it well.
Plus, none of that accounts for the brand of physical defense that Kobe brought night in and night out. Quite simply, he made it very hard for opponents — often the other teams’ best players during crunch time — to score. And his shooting woes never impacted his defense, which is a rare thing in this game, particularly now.
To me, that’s part of what made Kobe such a rare and great commodity. Stars that can have off-shooting nights and still lead their team to victory? As a coach, those are the guys you want on your side; the guys that help you even when it seems like they are not helping you. Those are the moments — doing what is necessary, what is hard, what no one gives you credit for — that separate Kobe from those he has been and will continue to be compared to.
Over the years, Kobe literally gave every ounce of himself on the basketball court. He was willing to die out there, if necessary, to perform to the fullest of his capabilities and help his team win. Love him or hate, you can’t help but have the utmost respect for his level of commitment.
When it comes to my relationship with Kobe, it is one based upon mutual respect. Respect is what brought us close, and even though I was never the player he was — there were certainly times when I thought he was selfish or self-centered — I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I tried to emulate him on the basketball court. I wanted what he had; that drive; that relentless determination; that unwavering and absolute refusal to accept defeat.
Over time, he and I came to understand that at our cores, we were driven by the same thing. Our teams simply were not going to lose. We wouldn’t allow it. And I grew to understand that for Kobe, it wasn’t about putting himself first — it was just about being the best.
I can’t speak for him, of course, but I suspect that whatever thoughts or feelings he had about me and my limitations as player changed over the course of our relationship. I believe he came to think, ‘I don’t know if there’s another guy that I will ever play with that is as determined, and competitive, and fierce at trying to win as Fish is. He takes whatever are his strengths and the weaknesses, and he makes it work.’
Not that respect equals friendship. During the first few years, our relationship was strictly business. That was just the way it was on those Lakers teams; off-the-court relationships were not a part of the culture at that time. Sure, we spent a lot of time together, but we didn’t feel particularly obligated to commiserate outside of the game. It just wasn’t our thing.
Naturally, when you work with someone for 12 years, you can’t help but develop a personal relationship. My friendship with Kobe grew as we spent more hours, more practices, more plane rides, and more seasons together. Our bond was strengthened as we endured failure during those first three years before finally breaking through and winning NBA Championships in 2000, 2001 and 2002.
Ironically, the real transformational moments in our relationship occurred during the time I was away from the Lakers, after the championship core split up in 2004. Kobe stayed in L.A. Shaq was gone. I was gone. Phil was gone.
During those three years, Kobe and I probably spoke more by text and over the phone than we had at any other time before. When we were working together, we saw each other every day, but after I left Los Angeles, our communication became more personal. “How you doing? How you holding up? How’s the family? How are the kids? How are you feeling about what’s going on with your team?”
In fact, we spoke so often that by the time I re-signed with the Lakers in 2007, we had grown much closer than we ever had been during the eight years we had shared as teammates.
More important, being away from Kobe gave me a far greater appreciation for how hard he drove himself. And when I returned, that appreciation drove me to push myself even more — to find a higher level of commitment, and a willingness to make sacrifices and endure physical pain.
Waking up at 6 a.m. and lifting weights, doing the extra shooting, playing through injuries. You don’t miss games. You don’t worry about missing the last eight shots. You have unshakable confidence that the next one will fall.
I have no doubt that those traits and those beliefs (whether I had them before or not) were enhanced by my first stint with Kobe. And when I came back, it was like coming home because “his way” was the way I saw things, too.
Without Kobe Bryant, there probably is no five-time NBA Champion Derek Fisher — at least as far as the experiences and success I have enjoyed during my career go. I mean, how could he not rub off on me? He was the ultimate epitome of professional aspiration and drive; of a commitment to discipline; of what must be sacrificed to achieve success. All right in front me.
Kobe showed me that limits upon performance exist only in our minds. He made me realize that if you have the will to achieve something, and you put in the time and energy, it will happen. Given my level of talent and abilities, his belief system — which became my own — was crucial to my success. I continued to push myself to where I was able to play 537 consecutive games at one point. I played nine, full, 82-game seasons in the NBA. I was not satisfied with just one championship; I wanted to win multiple rings.
That’s what makes Kobe different. He comes from the old-school with a brand of mental and physical toughness that was much more common in players before the game became more of an entertainment product. In that sense, he’s one of the last basketball purists. For him, it’s all about passion, competition, and, ultimately, winning — not the branding, the numbers, the analytics, and everything else that has turned the game into a business commodity.
And yes, Kobe is a great businessman who’s built a very successful brand, too, but to me, what his game represents — what he represents on the court — is more renaissance. He’s a throwback. He’s a product of an era long since passed; more Magic, Larry, and MJ than he is a part of the current generation. And to me, these last couple of years — with all the injuries — haven’t taken anything away from all the greatness that came before.
The NBA is going to sorely miss Kobe Bryant once he hangs up his sneakers for good. His retirement signals the closing of a great era in the game. And while I am biased when it comes to him, I am certainly not alone. A significant part of my life is ending, and for so many fans, the end of the “Kobe Era” will have a profound effect as well. It’s an acknowledgment that things don’t last forever; that we should appreciate life’s ups and downs; and that we must acknowledge greatness when we see it because we never know when it will be gone forever.
Kobe stepping away from the game really drives that point home.
There were times when he seemed indestructible, and that he could do anything and do it forever. Charles Barkley said it best, “Father Time is undefeated,” but Kobe has put up one of the greatest fights of all time.
So while some people credit me for driving the bus and being a leader of our Lakers teams, Kobe was the pilot. At best, I was his trusty navigator. I may have been the older big brother, so to speak, but he was the one who led the way. He was the one who was always willing to be out front and take the hit, to take the brunt of everything. He cleared the way for me to be the best I could be. Nothing I accomplished would have been possible without his greatness, passion, and competitive will.
So to Kobe, my friend … Thank you for the journey.