Basketball

‘You don’t expect Superman to die’: A day later, they honored Kobe Bryant’s memory in Chicago


On West Madison Street, the writing was on the walls and on the ground.

A day after a tragic helicopter crash claimed Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gianna and seven other people in Calabasas, Calif., chalk messages ran along the sidewalks and onto the United Center itself. People wanted to say goodbye. Things were left outside: a candle honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe, a Bulls hat, flowers.

Bryant’s name and image were superimposed on the house that Michael Jordan built. The United Center was getting ready to host a game between the Spurs and the Bulls, two sub-.500 teams on a dull, gray January day, but the building was lit up in purple and yellow.

At the corner of Madison and Wood Street, Bryant was larger than life on a giant electronic billboard. Fittingly, across the street, the Bulls’ six banners were hanging in the window of the Advocate Center. Bryant, drafted in 1996, made his NBA debut during the Bulls’ second three-peat and he was an eager challenger to Jordan’s legacy. You can imagine him looking at the Bulls’ banners back then and thinking of opportunity.


Fans left chalk messages outside of the United Center on Monday. (Jon Greenberg / The Athletic)

In his 20-year career, Kobe won five titles and while LeBron James is more closely associated as being the evolutionary successor to Jordan, it is Kobe who is considered to be the most like Jordan in terms of his ferocity and hunger. LeBron can beat you in a hundred ways, Kobe had to beat you one way or another. Just like Jordan.

There was little hatred of Kobe in Chicago. Of course, the Bulls never met him in a Finals. And Kobe never surpassed Michael’s legacy.

There were connections. Phil Jackson coached both men. Kobe had his dalliances with joining the Bulls in 2004 and 2007, but the Lakers wouldn’t let him go. He belonged in Los Angeles.

On Dec. 10, 2010, just months removed from Bryant’s fifth ring, the Bulls hosted the Lakers. Kobe led the Lakers with 23 points in another high-volume shooting night, while an ascendant Derrick Rose led all scorers with 29. After one basket, Rose gave a Jordan-esque shrug.

The Bulls won 88-84 and it was their first win over the Lakers in four years. The Bulls players were ebullient, openly celebrating an early season win. You could feel a changing of the guard in the air.

“It feels great because I’ve never beat the Lake Show before,” Joakim Noah said that night. “If you say it’s just another game on the schedule, that’s a lie. That’s what coaches say. As players, that’s not true.”


Bulls players, some of whom shared their immediate reactions via social media Sunday night, elaborated on their memories of Bryant for the first time at the team’s Monday morning shootaround.

“He inspired a whole generation of kids,” Zach LaVine said. “They wanted to be like him. It’s like kids in the ’80s and ’90s wanted to be like Mike. We wanted to be like Kobe.”

LaVine learned of Bryant’s passing while eating breakfast with his girlfriend. He received the gut-wrenching call from his father, who named one of his three dogs “Kobe.”

LaVine didn’t believe his dad. “Stop messing with me,” he told him.

As the day progressed, LaVine began reminiscing on memorable moments he shared with Bryant. His first 20-point game came against Bryant and the Lakers inside Staples Center. LaVine scored 28 off the bench in a one-point win in late November 2014. It was LaVine’s 14th NBA game. And he was going head-to-head with the Black Mamba.

“I just remember Kobe was guarding me in the fourth quarter,” LaVine said. “I knew growing up and idolizing him that he always guarded the best player (late in games). I had a really good game so he was guarding me, and we were standing at the free-throw line and he tapped me on the butt and said, ‘Keep going.’ It was almost shocking to me that I was in that situation as a 19-year-old. It was, like, ‘This is a dude I idolized. He’s guarding me.’ It was just surreal.”

Two weeks later, Bryant and the Lakers were in Minnesota. Bryant needed nine points to surpass Jordan on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. It was LaVine who delivered the foul that put Bryant on the line for the points that moved him past MJ.

“I went up and congratulated him,” said LaVine, who wears No. 8 partly because it was Kobe’s first NBA jersey number.

Thaddeus Young was a member of that Timberwolves team too. He received the news upon waking Sunday morning. A friend called eager to discuss Kobe. Young initially thought Bryant was coming out of retirement.

“It just shows that every day is not promised,” he said. “That’s a clear-cut picture of it not being promised. So you have to take advantage of each and every day.”

Young, like many of his teammates and peers throughout the NBA, honored Bryant through his sneakers. Several wrote tributes. Young wore a special purple pair of Bryant’s signature shoes.

“That’s the respectful thing to do,” Young said. “That’s the best thing to do, just because of what he meant to us as a basketball community and what he meant to, not just us, but the world as a global icon.”

Lauri Markkanen, who wears No. 24, declined an interview request through a team spokeswoman.

Bulls coach Jim Boylen cried.

The father of two girls, Boylen was overcome by emotion when reflecting on the many layers of Bryant, who had four daughters. He labeled Monday “a very emotional, tearful day in our building.” The coach then went down his line, sharing how so many Bulls were intrinsically connected to Bryant. It was representative of the worldwide reverence for Bryant.

Ryan Arcidiacono grew up in Philadelphia, Bryant’s hometown. Chandler Hutchison grew up in Orange County, Calif. Bulls assistant coach Roy Rogers was in Bryant’s draft class, selected nine spots after Bryant went 13th in 1996.

“What I marveled at was his confidence, his ability to miss two or three shots in a row and then make eight in a row,” Boylen said. “His ability to close games, to close quarters, to be a two-way player. Those things were what I valued.”

“He’s just always been a clear-cut assassin,” Young said. “There’s a reason they call him the Black Mamba.”

“There will never be another Kobe Bryant,” LaVine said. “There’s only one person like that ever.”


At 5 p.m. Monday, Bulls vice president John Paxson addressed reporters outside of the Bulls locker room.

Paxson is a man who takes the game of basketball very seriously, as a player and as an executive. Paxson played with Jordan and you can imagine how much he respected Bryant.

“Events like this show how connected people in sport can be,” Paxson said. “With not only the fanbase but with those of us who were in the game. You didn’t have to have the greatest type of connection, but the game itself means so much to people, the respect the great ones have, you don’t see it very often. You appreciate it. So it’s a really sad day and a really sad time for the league. Seeing some of you young guys in there, guys who have been so influenced by him over the years, you can tell they’re shaken up.”

Paxson almost landed Bryant early in his GM career and he had another chance again in 2007. And what he remembers most is that Kobe wasn’t scared of Jordan’s shadow in a time where that was still a major storyline.

“Remember, six years after Michael left or thereabouts, most guys didn’t want to follow that or have to try to live up to it,” Paxson said. “What he expressed to us was he wanted to embrace that if it happened, he wanted that challenge.”

Jackson actually tried to lure Paxson, who was briefly his assistant in Chicago, to help him coach the Lakers, but he didn’t bite. So while Paxson never got to work directly with Kobe, he appreciated him as having the same competitive gene as Jordan.

“There’s a lot of very good players and even some great players, but there are very few you put in the greatest category and obviously he’s one of those,” he said.


Two hours before the game, another one of the greatest, Tim Duncan, was on the court at the United Center working out as the Bulls did a test run for the tribute video they put together for Kobe and Gianna.

As the video played, Duncan, now an assistant coach for his old team, slowly dribbled into the paint and made a shot — a walker instead of a runner.

He didn’t betray any emotion as the video played and when the video asked for 24 seconds of silence, he stopped talking to the people he was working out with. What he must’ve been thinking.


In Game 4 of the 2008 Western Conference finals, Lakers guard Kobe Bryant is challenged by Spurs forward Tim Duncan. (Eric Gay / pool photo via AP)

Bryant and Duncan entered the league a year apart and each won five rings. Duncan was a 15-time All-Star, Bryant 18. Each made 15 All-NBA teams, won Finals MVPs, ruled the Western Conference. They faced each other seven times in playoff series, with the Lakers winning four, including two in the conference finals.

They retired the same year and this summer, they will both be inducted in the Hall of Fame. One, posthumously.

“We all remember the on-court stuff, but for me, the special parts will be the very few times I was able to spend time with him off the court and have discussions with him just one-on-one for a variety of different reasons,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “We all have special thoughts of him to varying degrees, no matter whether you knew him a little bit or not at all. Even the millions who admired and cherished just knowing they could watch a game with him in it. You feel like he was your own. That’s what happens when you’re iconic and you’re basically a superhero.”


The United Center was unusually filled up for the start of the game. During a walk around the concourse before the game, The Athletic spotted a dozen Kobe jerseys. One man wore a backward Zach LaVine jersey and wrote Kobe’s name on a piece of electrical tape.

The game began with a tribute video and a moment of silence. After the moment ended, one man yelled, “Kobe!” A couple of others followed. Tomáš Satoranský held the ball for an eight-second violation. DeMar DeRozan followed with a 24-second shot clock turnover. Eight and 24, Kobe’s numbers.

The chants of “Kobe!” grew louder.

“I think it was good,” LaVine said of the tributes. “Especially the way the crowd got into it.”

Once the game started, the normal rhythm of a Bulls game took over. Loud music. Missed shots. The Dunkin’ Donuts race.

“Due to the circumstances, it was just a little bit heavier,” LaVine said. “I think everybody understands why.”


Satoranský was a budding teenage star in the Czech Republic when Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol won two titles together. Other players on USK Praha were Celtics fans.

Kobe vs. Keven Garnett. NBA fans from Prague to Pittsburgh could pick sides and there was no loser.

“My teammates were big Boston fans and they didn’t like Kobe,” Satoranský said at his locker before the game. “I remember those days, going back and forth with my friends who didn’t want him to win. It was a cool time.”

Bryant was a global star and given his partial upbringing in Italy, essentially an adopted European player. Satoranský would wake up in the morning and check Kobe’s stats. He didn’t play like Kobe, so he wasn’t replicating his fadeaway in the Czech league, but he paid attention to the finer points of Bryant’s game, like his footwork and his toughness.

“You obviously want to copy all his moves because he was the Michael Jordan of our generation,” he said.

Sunday was a tough day for Satoranský, and he wasn’t alone. Bulls radio broadcaster Bill Wennington said he was glad the Bulls didn’t have a game, because he didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Neither did Kendall Gill, another Bulls broadcaster who played against Bryant.

That so many young players, the ones who never really matched up against him or got him at his best, were so broken up over Bryant’s death makes perfect sense. He was their Jordan.

“I can imagine players who didn’t know him or didn’t play against him being devastated, because those are the guys who grew up watching him,” Gill said in the Bulls media room. “The guys that are in the NBA today, after Michael passed the torch, that was their guy, Kobe. So that’s why you saw all the devastation in the league yesterday and all the tears shed. Kobe transcended the sport. He was more than just a basketball player to a lot of people, he was an international citizen.”

Gill played against Bryant for years and their biggest matchup was in the 2003 playoffs. The Timberwolves went up 2-1 in that first-round series, but the Lakers tied it up and then rolled the Wolves by 30 at the Target Center in Game 5. What does Gill remember from that game?

“That one dunk that he had,” he said. “He had one of the most emphatic dunks in Game 5 that I have ever witnessed. You have to go back and look at it one of the best dunks I’ve ever seen in a game.”

The Lakers wrapped it up in six games but got bounced in the next round by the Spurs.

For the retired players who watched a young Kobe blossom into a champion, the ones who understand a thing or two now about mortality, this is an especially emotional time.

“We were all texting like we can’t believe this,” Gill said. “You don’t expect Superman to die. And yesterday, unfortunately for us, one of our Supermen died.”

That it happened just hours after LeBron James passed up Kobe Bryant on the NBA career scoring list struck Gill as meaningful.

“It was just really eerie how it happened,” Gill said. “But if I knew Kobe, he would be OK with you mourning for a day but the next day he would say you’ve got to wake up and get over this. That’s what the NBA family has to do.”

On Monday night, the Bulls beat the Spurs, 110-109 in a game that few truly cared about. But wearing No. 8, Bryant’s first number in the NBA, LaVine scored 14 of his team-high 23 points in the fourth quarter, including the game-winning free throws.

“Like I was telling the coach and the team,” LaVine said. “I don’t think he’d like anybody to go out there and not compete and mourn too much because he was the ultimate competitor.”

(Top photo: Gary Dineen / NBAE via Getty Images)





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