LOS ANGELES — Nothing about the game was normal. Not the tributes. Not the chants. Not the emotion. Not the reflection.
But before the Lakers could begin to move forward from the death of Kobe Bryant on Sunday, they needed to look back. Anthony Davis went back to the 2012 Olympic Games in London, when he was the youngest player on the United States men’s basketball team and the last guy off the bench. The United States was up big on Nigeria when Davis was finally summoned to shed his warm-ups and play. But there was one problem: Davis, in all his exuberance at age 19, had forgotten to put his jersey on.
Bryant, the oldest player on the team at the time, was flabbergasted and let Davis know it. The lesson stuck.
“Before every game, I check that I have my jersey on — to this day,” Davis told reporters. “He taught me how to get dressed before a game.”
It was late Friday night, and the Lakers were minutes removed from playing their first game since Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash last Sunday outside Los Angeles. Davis was sitting next to LeBron James on a dais in a large concrete room at Staples Center, and they were offering some of their most expansive comments on Bryant since his death. About their interactions with Bryant. About what he represented and why he mattered so much to them.
It was the quiet conversations more than the splashy moments that resonated with James and Davis: the bits of advice he offered, the way he pushed his peers to excel, the work ethic he exhibited. But James said he had been struck most by how Bryant, who had four daughters with his wife, Vanessa, had transitioned into retirement since he played the final game of his 20-year career with the Lakers in 2016.
“You know what’s crazy?” James asked. “These last three years, out of all the success he had — five rings, multiple M.V.P.s, an All-Star Game M.V.P., first-team everything, all-life, all-world, all-basketball — it felt like these last three years were the happiest I’ve ever seen him. I think we can all say that. Being able to just be with his daughters, be with his family. Because when we’re playing this game of basketball, we give so much to it.”
On a night that was sad and strange, inspiring and exhausting, the Lakers spent three hours paying tribute to Bryant while going about the more prosaic business of playing basketball. They wound up losing to the Portland Trail Blazers, 127-119, but the result hardly mattered.
Even the Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard, who torched the Lakers for 48 points, 10 assists and 9 rebounds as he continued to play the best basketball of his life, said he felt empty afterward.
“I don’t think anybody walks away from this moment and this situation a winner,” he said.
Bryant was everywhere at Staples Center. On the T-shirts bearing his name and uniform numbers — 24 and 8 — that thousands of fans wore. On the video clips that appeared on the scoreboard during timeouts. On the new “Mamba 4 Life” tattoo that James brandished on one of his thighs. On the “Kobe” chants that echoed throughout the building.
In recent years, Bryant had been a semiregular presence around the organization — even as he coached his daughter’s basketball team, even as he shifted to his next phase of his life with other interests. Many of the team’s current players revered him, and many of the franchise’s longest-tenured employees remained close to him.
Bryant was most recently courtside at Staples Center for a game against the Dallas Mavericks on Dec. 29, when he playfully trash-talked Luka Doncic in Slovenian. Afterward, Bryant introduced Doncic to his daughter, Gianna, who had accompanied her father to the game — as she often did. She dreamed of playing at the highest level, too.
On Friday night, the seats they sat in were left empty. Jerseys for Kobe (No. 24) and Gianna (No. 2) were draped over the backs. A bouquet of roses was placed on each cushion.
During a 15-minute ceremony before the game, Usher sang “Amazing Grace” and the cellist Ben Hong from the Los Angeles Philharmonic performed “Hallelujah” as highlights from Bryant’s career played on the large video screen. There was a moment of silence for 24.2 seconds (for Bryant’s and his daughter’s number) in the dark.
By the time Boyz II Men sang the national anthem, James was among the players who appeared to be weeping. He stepped into the spotlight and pulled some notecards from his waistband. Then, he tossed them. Who needed notes? Not James. He said he wanted to speak “straight from the heart.”
“I’m looking at this as a celebration tonight,” he said. “This is a celebration of the 20 years, of the blood, the sweat, the tears, the broken-down body, the getting up, the sitting down, the countless hours, the determination to be as great as he could be.”
It was the first time James had spoken publicly since Bryant’s death, and he crammed a lot of emotion into four minutes. He honored the nine victims by reciting their names. He touched on Bryant’s resilience. He alluded to the communal suffering that so much of the city had experienced. And he pledged to continue Bryant’s legacy with the Lakers.
“In the words of Kobe Bryant, Mamba out,” James said. “But in the words of us, not forgotten. Live on, brother.”
Lawrence Tanter, the Lakers’ longtime public-address announcer, soon used the same introduction for all five of the team’s starters, repeating it for each player: “No. 24, 6-6, 20th season from Lower Merion High School, Koooobe Bryant.”
It was a heavy night for the Trail Blazers, too. Carmelo Anthony, a 10-time All-Star who was friends with Bryant, was not with the team for what was described as “personal reasons.”
After Portland’s morning shootaround, Coach Terry Stotts visited the swelling memorial outside the arena that had sprung up in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Jerseys. Candles. Posters. Stuffed animals. Handwritten notes. Stotts said he was moved by the enormity of it all.
“Outside, with all the tributes, it’s just — the thousands and thousands of people who have felt his passing,” Stotts said. “That, to me, is the most impressive thing.”
As for the game, Lakers Coach Frank Vogel shuffled every player on the roster into his rotation by halftime. It was by design after a difficult week.
“I wanted to give everybody an opportunity to contribute,” he said.
The Lakers did not play their best basketball, though Lillard had something to do with it. Vogel said he was proud of his team anyway. He knew it would be a tough night. More are sure to come.
“It’s going to take time,” Vogel said.
Source: Basketball - nytimes.com
