Basketball

‘We all knew that we had to get Bean the ball’: Kobe’s competitiveness made an impression early in Philly


Marc Jackson couldn’t believe what Kobe Bryant had just asked him.

At first he brushed it off as the whims of an overzealous kid. Then, slowly, Jackson realized Bryant was in fact … serious.

“Yo, big Marc,” he said. “Let’s practice dunking on each other.”

“Yeah, right,” was Jackson’s initial response.

Here’s the context. At the time, Jackson was entering his senior season at Roman Catholic High as a top-100 player and one of the best high school basketball centers in the country. He was 6-foot-10 at the time, a few meals shy of 300 pounds. He would go on to become one of the best big men ever at Temple University. He would go on to become a starting center for the Golden State Warriors, New Orleans Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers.

At the time, Bryant had yet to play his first high school game for Lower Merion. He had just moved to Philadelphia with his family. He was 6-5 and about 150 pounds lighter than Jackson. In short, he shouldn’t have been trying to practice dunking on Jackson, or vice versa.

But, Bryant was nothing, if not persistent. He was nothing, if not confident. He fully believed he could pull it off. So, on this day, at a John Hardnett workout at LaSalle University, Marc Jackson and Kobe Bryant went to an isolated basket and practiced dunking on each other.

No dribbles.

One step gather.

“He was in middle school, about to go to high school,” Jackson told The Athletic. “When he first came back from Italy, his dad (Joe “Jellybean” Bryant) had him in the gym with us. We were close ever since then. Bean was always a competitor, and he always practiced what he wanted to do. He wanted to dunk  that day.”

Kobe Bryant, along with eight others, including his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were killed in a helicopter accident on Sunday morning. Bryant was 41.

The legacy he leaves is simple. He will be remembered as one of the greatest basketball players who ever lived. He will be remembered as an ambassador to the game. Kobe Bryant is Los Angeles. And not even a year after L.A. lost hip-hop icon Nipsey Hussle, Los Angeles is a city that’s dealt with too much pain in too short a time.

But, Bryant is also Philadelphia in a lot of ways. It’s the city that nurtured and honed his immense talent. It’s the city where his father ingrained himself in the basketball community with the Sixers, as an assistant at LaSalle and with the famed Sonny Hill league.

Kobe Bryant crossed paths with plenty of people in his high school days and in the days before he became Kobe Bryant!, myself included. On that day at LaSalle, I was there. The workout finished, everyone watched the two go back and forth. I had just moved to Philly from New York City, and I would become teammates with Jackson at Roman Catholic. I remember the dunk competition vividly because Bryant got the better of it. Jackson remembered as well.

After practice on the ride home that day, I asked Jackson who Bryant was. I then asked him what college he went to.

“Tone, he’s not in high school yet,” Jackson said.

My mouth dropped.

I knew at that moment, Bryant was going to be pretty good.

“People saw stardom with him at a young age,” Jackson said. “He developed this phrase, ‘I’m going to crown you.’ That meant he was going to dunk on someone’s head. He played at Lower Merion, and everyone, when he first came to Philly, wanted to say he was from the burbs. But he played with us. And that made him from Philly. We embraced him as a city, because we knew he had a city game.”

When Jackson made it to the NBA, he and Bryant maintained their close relationship. The two were intertwined by more than friendship. Jackson’s best friend, former Roman Catholic and Temple forward Mike Tabb, married Bryant’s sister. Jackson introduced the couple to each other.

Jackson said he plans on going to Bryant’s funeral, whenever arrangements are made. He and Bryant maintained their relationship through the decades. He remembers when he first established himself in the NBA, with the Golden State Warriors. One night, they were playing the Lakers, and he and Bryant held a running dialogue through much of the game.

Finally, during a free throw, Shaquille O’Neal yelled at Bryant to stop conversing with Jackson.

“Why do you keep talking to this guy?” Shaq asked Bryant.

“Shaq, he was my first great center before you,” Bryant retorted. “You never forget your first, baby.”

Everyone laughed.

That was Bryant. He was dedicated to his craft, but witty enough to keep the room light, when the situation called for it.

Today, coaching ranks are littered with guys who knew Bryant for decades. LaSalle head coach Ashley Howard. Colgate assistant Mike Jordan, who is one of the best players in Philadelphia Big 5 history. LaSalle assistant Donnie Carr, who is also one of the best players in Big 5 history.

Those are the guys who saw the work ethic. The guys who saw how competitive he was. The guys who saw the talent and knew Bryant intimately. Those are some of the guys who Bryant gave shout outs to at some of his final press conferences before he retired from the Lakers in 2016.


Kobe Bryant (lower left) and Mike Jordan (No. 13) played AAU ball together in Philadelphia. (Photo courtesy of Mike Jordan)

Jordan, who played at the University of Pennsylvania and went on to have a successful career overseas, played Sonny Hill and AAU ball with Bryant. Philly’s high school class of 1996 was loaded, and that Sonny Hill team that stayed together four years encapsulated how good the class was as a whole.

Bryant’s presence spoke for itself. Malik Allen went on to play in the league for a long time. Jordan became a Big 5 legend. Julius Williams, Petrick Sanders (with whom I played during my senior season at Frankford High, after transferring from Roman), and Bryant Coursey all went on to play at Drexel. But Bryant was the star. He was the reason that team became nationally good. And his dominance taught his teammates humility among their own individual stardom.

“We all knew that we had to get Bean the ball,” Jordan told The Athletic. “And that was an adjustment that a lot of us had to make. We were all used to being the man on our individual teams. But on that team, we all knew how good Kobe was. It helped us figure out how to play differently in different situations. It helped all of our careers.”

Bryant was hell-bent on being great. And hell-bent on proving himself against the best. The late Hardnett, famed for his workouts at a hotbox small gym at Gustine Lake, would gather all of his players, past and present, for skills sessions during the spring and summer. The elite high school guys, the college and the pros. One-on-ones, two-on-twos, conditioning in a conditionless gym. If you could survive a Hardnett workout, you were more than likely to have a successful career.

Kobe was a standout from day one. He was always the first to arrive, the last to leave. He was always a worldly kid, but he knew from a young age that he wanted to be great. And he worked day and night on the craft that would one day make him great.

“I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus, but he was cooking pros,” Jordan said. “We knew then he was special. Those weren’t rookies. They were proven vets, guys who had proven themselves in the league. We knew he was good, but watching Bean cook those guys? It gave us a new perspective.”

One day, in a future stars tournament, Bryant squared off with Laron Profit, who ironically would go on to become Bryant’s teammate in 2005 with the Lakers. Profit was a year older, and at that time, the more heralded prospect.

Bryant began that game feeling Profit out. Suddenly, Jellybean Bryant, who played professional basketball in Italy, yelled at Bryant in Italian from the stands.

Kobe flipped the switch.

“Kobe started destroying everything,” Jordan said. “His competitiveness was crazy, that was the biggest thing about him. He would coast a little bit, get a feel for things, and then he would just take over. From that day on, we knew when his father started speaking in Italian, it was over for the opposition.”


Winning a championship

By 2014, the Lakers were nowhere near a title contender.

They finished 21-61 on the season. Bryant was clearly on the downside of his career. They were in the beginning stages of the rebuild that’s finally gotten them to their current state of title contention.

Ed Davis still has the text in his phone.

“To win a championship, this is what has to happen.”

At the time, Davis couldn’t believe what he was reading. He knew he wasn’t going to a contender when he signed with Los Angeles. He hoped he could make the playoffs.

But Bryant wasn’t going to settle for less. By this time, he had won five rings. By this time, he was already immortal. But, the competitiveness was still there. And that competitiveness would never waver.

“That’s the main thing that I will always remember,” Davis told The Athletic. “No matter what, he always thought that he had a chance to win. He wouldn’t settle for anything less than winning. I remember when I got there, he was in like his 16th season. He put so much detail into everything he did. Sprints. Full court one-on-one. Everything. I was in awe of his work ethic.”

On Sunday, the Utah Jazz center was in the practice facility with his teammates when news first broke on Twitter.

Nobody wanted to believe it.

“We all thought it was a joke at first,” Davis said.

But, then, phones started to ring. Text messages began to pile up. Confirmation began to leak.

“That’s when things started to get real,” Davis said. “When we found out he was with his daughter, everyone was shook. That’s when it really started to hit people.”

Davis played one season with Bryant. But he and Bryant shared a common agent in Rob Pelinka, who is now a front office executive with the Lakers. When Davis was drafted by the Toronto Raptors in 2010, he and Bryant talked that night for almost a half-hour. Like many, Bryant was a mentor for Davis, who along with Jordan Clarkson, are the two players on the Jazz roster that played with Bryant.

“He always watched film,” Davis said. “He was always trying to better himself. His attention to detail is what stood out.”

In a career that spanned decades, that’s what separated Bryant. Whether it was with Sonny Hill, or at a Gustine Lake workout, or with Lower Merion, or with the Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe wanted to be the best at what he did.

And that’s why his life, his career, his legacy, will never be forgotten.

(Top photo: Stephen Dunn / Getty Images)





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