By Sriram Chidambaram
6'6" guuuard out of Lower Merion High Schoool, Number Twenty-four, Kobeeeeee Bryant.
This Lakers starting line-up introduction will be etched in my mind forever and for good reason.
Kobe Bryant was one of the greatest players to ever pick up a basketball. During his two decades in the NBA, the Lakers Legend won 5 NBA championships, was an 18-time all-star, made the all NBA team 15 times and is 4th on the all-time scoring list. But Kobe wasn't always that good. He wasn't the most talented player. He wasn't the tallest or even the strongest player. However, he was a player with an unparalleled work ethic and an incredibly focused mind: two qualities which seem almost unattainable for regular people and other NBA players alike. Behind all his on-court glamour, it was the constant grind and the constant pushing of his body's capabilities that allowed him to achieve the success that he did. In this article, we will go over some of the most incredible work-ethic stories that reveal why Kobe became so great.
Kobe Bryant wasn't born a basketball star. When he was 12 years old, he went to a basketball camp and left without scoring a single point. Despite the frustration, he drew inspiration from basketball greats like Michael Jordan and began to outwork everybody around him.
During high school, he was already one of the best for his age in the country. Yet, he would show up for 7 AM practices at 5 AM and after practice, he would challenge his high-school team-mates to 1v1 games to one hundred points.
After making his jump to the NBA directly from high-school, Kobe didn't stop working. According to Byron Scott, ex Lakers player and Head Coach, an 18-year-old Kobe Bryant, during his rookie season, would be shooting in a dark gym at 9 AM two and a half hours before team practice.
Sometimes, Kobe's work ethic was so insane that it got hilarious. Shaquille O'Neal, a former teammate of Kobe, mentioned in his book that during Kobe's early days in the NBA he would practice basketball without a basketball: 'You’d walk in there and he’d be cutting and grunting and motioning like he was dribbling and shooting — except there was no ball."
Kobe was relentless. He worked non-stop and here is a story that proves it. John Celestand, a former teammate of Kobe, said that he was excited when Kobe broke his right wrist, during the 1999-2000 season, because he thought with Kobe injured, he could beat him to the gym in the morning. However, when he arrived at the gym the next morning, Kobe was already in a full sweat with a cast on his right arm and dribbling and shooting with his left.”
Kobe Bryant was obsessive about basketball and his desire to get better was second to none. Even during halftime of games, Kobe would study film of himself and team-mates. In fact, in an interview, Kobe says since the age of 13 (when he decided he wanted to become an NBA basketball player) he only did things that would make him better at basketball. The food he ate, the books he read, the films he watched - every single activity of his from that young age was done only if it would make him a better at basketball. He says that once he made the decision to become a basketball player, he did not do things that would not help him get there since he simply didn't have time for them.
Even after he won three championships and was widely regarded as one of NBA's greatest players, Kobe still outworked the other top players of his time. In the build-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Kobe was known to workout before the break of dawn, when all his team USA teammates were fast asleep.
Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosch, teammates of Kobe during the Olympics, told ESPN, "We all come down for team breakfast on the very first day of training camp and Kobe comes in with ice on his knees and with his trainers and stuff. He's got sweat drenched through his workout gear. And I'm like, 'It's 8 o'clock in the morning, man. Where the hell is he coming from?"
At this point, we understand that Kobe spent hours training and working out to become the best basketball player he could be. But he didn't spend these hours training casually. Even when he trained alone, he was doing high-intensity game moves. He trained with 100% focus and was always mentally dialed in.
Jamal Crawford, current NBA player, told The Players' Tribune that he once heard Kobe practiced a single shot for an entire hour in one of his training sessions: "The same shot. For one hour. And it wasn’t like a three-pointer, it was a little shot in the mid-range area. Do you know how tedious that is? Do you know how locked in you have to be to do one shot for an hour? To trick your mind that way? That’s unbelievable.”
Let's face it, to be that discipline and driven to wake up at 4 AM and workout at a high intensity (two to three times a day) for the majority of 25 years is a quite the achievement. And that's exactly what Kobe accomplished.
I could go on and on about Kobe's work ethic, it's limitless. Even if we skip past the hundreds of basketball related stories, there is more. Whatever Kobe did, he went above and beyond to be the best at it. Whether it was playing tennis with his friends or making a movie or building a business, he would do anything to be the best and that's an understatement.
Looking back at his career, Kobe said he wanted to be remembered as an overachiever, as someone who surpassed his limits. This is understandable because he didn't have the talent like LeBron, or the size and strength like Shaq or the handles like AI, but he was disciplined, determined and relentless and soon he was the best of the best. As the saying goes,"You get what you work, for not what you wish for" and that's exactly what Kobe Bryant has taught the World. What I want you to understand from Kobe's story and take away from this article is that whatever it may be, studies, music, sports, business, arts, if you put your mind to it and work hard you will become the best of the best.
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