The balls were bouncing Monday morning at the Pistons practice facility, the sneakers were squeaking against the floor, and surely Kobe would have approved. As he once told a young LeBron James, there's no substitute for work. But basketball felt immaterial the day after we learned Kobe wasn't immortal.
"We lost one of the greats of our game," said Pistons coach Dwane Casey. "It hurts all of us."
One by one, they sauntered across the floor, weighed down by their grief, perhaps wondering what to say. How do you find the words? How do you articulate something you don't understand? Casey came first, followed by Blake Griffin, Reggie Jackson and Andre Drummond. They all shook their heads. Griffin and Jackson blinked away tears. In the end, they expressed their love through their memories, like an epilogue to his Oscar-winning film 'Dear Basketball.'
"I remember when the young man came into the league, I was an assistant in Seattle and one of my scouts was the Lakers," said Casey. "He was a kid and I hated him -- just, 'Man, how can we stop this young kid?' He was such a competitor. But one thing that I knew about him, there was a little weight room in the Forum connected to the visitor's locker room, so I’d go in there before the game and lift a little bit. Every time I went in there, Kobe was in there eating his dinner on a little Styrofoam plate and looking at his scouting report. For a young kid coming into the league, that meant a lot. You knew there was something about him."
There were more talented players than Kobe. There was no one more dedicated to his craft. He wore 24 in the second stage of his career, in part because it represented the number of hours per day he committed himself to the game. He decided this was the only way toward greatness.
"I remember with USA Basketball, my first practice he looked, I don’t want to say old, but I was like, ‘Man, am I seeing the end? Is he starting to decline?'" said Griffin. "I didn’t tell anybody that, I would never say that out loud, but I was just thinking it in my head because he wasn’t moving as well, he was missing a lot of shots — middle of the summer so whatever. And then I found out he had gone on, like, a 40-mile bike ride at 11 that night, got in at 2 a.m. and he was in the weight room when I got down there at 7:30 (the next morning). It was just fitting to me, that in my head I was too scared to say it to anybody else, but I was like, ‘Man, am I seeing the decline?’ Oh, no, he's just worked out for 40 hours straight."
They'll never forget where they were when they heard the news. Jackson was at the practice facility, in the locker room with Christian Wood. For the next several hours he went mute. He said he drove home, shut his door, turned off the TV and "tried to tell myself it wasn’t real." Likewise, they'll always remember the first time they watched him play.
Jackson smiled.
"I definitely do," he said. "First time in person, it was the 2011-12 lockout season and it was one of the last games for us toward the end of the season in Oklahoma City. I remember going into the fourth, I think he might have had eight points and I was waving to (assistant coach) Maurice Cheeks -- (Kobe) was walking back right in front of our bench -- and I was like, 'Thabo’s locking him up. Kobe’s not looking like Kobe.' Cheeks gave me a glance, tried to shut my mouth and was like, ‘Don’t say that.' Next thing I know, after an overtime game he ended up with 26. That was just, he commenced the takeover."
Oklahoma City was the site of Griffin's first experience, too. Kobe and the Lakers were in town for an exhibition game, and a young Griffin got there early to watch the layup lines.
"I remember he did this, like, double-clutch layup in warmups and I remember the crowd went nuts. For some reason that’s the thing that stuck out the most for me. One guy in warmups in an exhibition game and the entire crowd was watching him. That’s the reach that he had," said Griffin.
More than anything, Kobe embodied what it meant to compete. He was ruthless in his quest to win. He deferred to no one. He often alienated his own teammates, for his inability to dial it down. The stage never mattered to Kobe, be it an offseason workout or the NBA Finals, because his aim was constant. If he was going to play, he was going to attack -- like in the first of his 18 All-Star Games, at Madison Square Garden in 1998.
Casey began to grin.
"Karl Malone was in the post, he had this little guy on his back, and Kobe waved him out: 'I got this, I got this! Get out, get out, get out!' And Karl was upset. I mean, Karl told (Western Conference head coach) George (Karl), 'No, look, I don’t want to play with that young guy anymore.' He had some other words for him," Casey said with a laugh, "but that just told you the kind of competitor that young man was and continued to be. His legacy will live on."
And what will that legacy be?
"He’ll live forever," said Drummond. "Kobe's done so much for this game. What he’s brought, his intensity, his drive, his fight each and every night. It will be something that’s never forgotten."
If Kobe grew up watching MJ, the next generation grew up watching Kobe. He was the player they idolized, and then the player they were chasing. As a kid, Drummond tuned in every time the Lakers were on TV. His model was Shaq, but his eyes were glued to Kobe. It was the intensity of Kobe's movements, one coiled strike after another. The "Michael Jordan of our generation," Drummond said. "Our hero."
So the first time Drummond was on the floor with him, he said, it was that, "'Oh sh*t' moment, like, 'Damn, I’m on the court with Kobe.' It was cool just to get a chance to speak to him, how humble and nice of a guy he was. Gave me different pointers on my game. Every time I see him, he was like, 'You still grabbing those rebounds?' He would always make jokes about that, too. He’s always on my heart."
Maybe that's what gets lost in all the praise for Kobe's game. Ultimately, he did it for the sport. He wanted to leave basketball in a better place than he found it, and he continued that mission until the day he was gone.
"I obviously looked up to him as a basketball player," said Griffin. "But just as a human, the way he exited the game with so much grace was inspirational. If you inspire one person, you’ve lived a positive, successful life -- he inspired millions."
"I was kind of thinking about it when I was lifting," he said, "his last tweet being about LeBron, congratulating him and talking about bringing the game forward. That’s really fitting because that’s all he ever did, was move the game forward."
Griffin paused and swallowed the lump in his throat.
"It's tough, man," he said, then paused again, this time for several seconds. His eyes welled up and he pounded his fist into his hand, trying to summon the strength. "Because that was his biggest passion."
At that, Griffin's voice trailed off and he wound up back where he began, back with the rest of us, shaking his head at something that shouldn't be.
"Sorry," he said, "I lost my train of thought."