The anguish and sorrow are discernible in Peja Stojakovic’s voice as he speaks about Kobe Bryant, the global icon revered by those who played with or against him and idolized by generations of athletes who came after him, in the past tense.
Days after the tragic Southern California helicopter crash, Stojakovic, like so many worldwide, is still struggling to process that the unimaginable is numbingly real.
“I’m still personally in disbelief,” he said. “This tragedy has affected all of us. From the first moment when I heard (reports), I thought it was fake news. And then later, it was just hard to accept it. I just feel for the whole Bryant family – losing a husband, losing a daughter – and also for the other victims that were involved in this tragic event.”
For Stojakovic, now Kings assistant general manager, memories of the 41-year-old legend are still vivid in his mind, from epic battles in the postseason to private conversations when the two were teammates at All-Star Weekends. Bryant, Stojakovic says, inspired him with his immeasurable work ethic and competitiveness.
“He was a fierce competitor, somebody who always had that confidence and anything that he was doing, you had a feeling that he’s going to do that at the highest level,” Stojakovic said. “He was always striving to be the best at anything that he was trying to do, so his legacy will live forever.”
Throughout the length of his 20-year career, Bryant was Sacramento’s biggest and most-feared rival, a heel who tightly clenched his fist after taking the reins of countless games and sinking last-second shots that broke hearts and spirits. Night after night, the five-time champion had an uncanny knack for demoralizing overmatched defenders while maintaining his steely scowl in the processes.
In the early 2000s, the Kings came agonizingly close to toppling Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and the Lakers for Western Conference superiority in three consecutive postseason clashes; none more memorable or more gut-wrenching than the 2002 Western Conference Finals.
The two-time Finals MVP, on multiple occasions, impeded Sacramento from winning a championship, but Kings players who faced him share deep respect for his profound greatness, his quick feet and even quicker instincts, and his unyielding determination.
“Kobe’s legacy is definitely one of the best players to play this game ever,” said former Kings center and current general manager Vlade Divac. “Kobe made an impact on basketball in a big way. He came in the League when he was 17 years old, but he was working on his game every day. … The way he played, people all around the world loved the passion that he put in for basketball.”
The basketball journeys of Divac and Bryant were intertwined before the NBA’s most famous No. 8 checked into a game. During the 1996 NBA Draft, the Lakers boldly traded the Serbian center to Charlotte for the rights to Bryant, a high school phenom selected with the No. 13 pick.
In 2004-05, Divac’s final season as a player, the two were briefly teammates in Los Angeles, where the slick-passing big man marveled at the way Bryant, by then a three-time champion, would still push himself as hard in scrimmages as he would in a Game 7.
“It was amazing to see how much work he puts in his game in practice,” Divac said. “And what you see in practice, he’d just do the same thing in the game. He really worked on his game a lot.”
Those marathon training sessions combined with a burning desire to win at all costs are what drew an entire new era of NBA players to follow in Bryant’s footsteps. Inside and outside the borders of the U.S., young athletes heard the lore of the 18-time All-Star's exhaustive drills and studied his unimpeachable offensive arsenal.
As a child in Eight Mile Rock, a coastal region in the Bahamas some 2,500 miles outside of Los Angeles, Buddy Hield grew up emulating Bryant and fell in love with the game because of him. The Kings guard learned how to shoot on homemade hoops assembled out of milk crates or bicycle rims, nailing jumpers from deep and near while imitating the larger-than-life Lakers superstar.
On organized teams, he’d always pick one of Bryant’s two jersey numbers; at the University of Oklahoma, and later with the Hornets and Kings, he’d wear No. 24 exclusively.
“The greatest of all time, in my opinion,” Hield said. “Growing up in the Bahamas, Kobe was that guy who made you believe. … Him just being that role model for me helped me guide myself out. Knowing if I just work hard and I just keep on dedicating myself to my craft until it’s perfected, I have a way to get out and be able to take care of my family.”
Hield would stay up late on many nights to watch Lakers games on TNT, his shirt drenched in sweat during hot summer nights in the western island and his chants of ‘defense!’ echoing through the house.
“He caused me to love basketball so much,” Hield said. “The way he carried himself on the court, I wanted to walk like him, I wanted to wear my sleeve like him. I even run like him with my thumbs up. Everything was Kobe ... He changed a lot of people’s lives; he impacted a lot of people’s lives in a lot of ways you can’t describe.”
One day after the unspeakable tragedy that claimed the life of his childhood hero, Hield scribbled messages of tribute, including “Like I’m Kobe” and “Mamba 4 Life,” in black marker on his purple-and-gold-accented sneakers. Just as Bryant did throughout his career, Sacramento’s leading scorer pulled a shooting sleeve on his right arm and a sweatband above his left elbow.
“I was thinking about Kobe a lot,” said Hield, after scoring a career-high 42 points on a fitting 24 shots to lead an unprecedented Kings comeback in Minnesota. “Even when my brother called me, he was like, ‘Do it for Kobe.’”
In mid-August, Hield and De’Aaron Fox were among a group of players who were handpicked by Bryant to attend his Mamba Pro Invitational, a multi-day minicamp, for strength-training, a battery of drills and video work. The opportunity to ask questions and gather insight from a player they adored from the moment they first dribbled a basketball is an experience the Kings guards always cherish.
“I’m extremely grateful that I was still able to be with him before this season started because you never know when your last chance will be,” Fox said. “Kobe’s legacy is going to be remembered as someone who obviously worked hard, the way he carried himself.”
Fox, 22, wasn’t born yet when Bryant debuted in the NBA, his memories driven by the rarified feats he and his brother saw the departed legend pull off on TV, but still felt his immense influence.
Even more so than on-court tutelage from one of the game’s most impeccable scorers and hardest workers, for the Kings point guard, there was no bigger honor than being able to consider Bryant a mentor.
“I think as a person, what people didn’t know was how down to earth he was, how much he cared about everybody,” Fox said. “Just being around him, not having anything to do with basketball, was spectacular because he’s not the person you thought he was seeing him through the media and the way he played the game.”
Away from the court and TV cameras that only captured Bryant’s all-business disposition, Stojakovic says, a “friendly soft spot” for past teammates and adversaries radiated through playful banter.
After Stojakovic retired from the NBA, he and Bryant would share old stories and remember their once-contentious on-court battles whenever their paths would cross. One time, the lionized Laker, his fabled “Mamba Mentality” obscured behind a charismatic smile, inquired about his former foe’s new hobbies.
"He was asking me, ‘What are you doing these days when you’re not playing basketball?’” Stojakovic recalled. “I was telling him that I was into tennis, and he was saying, ‘I’ll beat you in tennis!’”
There’s no doubt in Stojakovic’s mind that Bryant, arguably the most fearless and ambitious competitor to ever touch a basketball – or any ball – believed he’d dominate on the grass court as easily as he did on the hardwood. And as he’d so often proved, with his viper-like focus and deep-seated drive to be the G.O.A.T., “The Black Mamba” would seize any challenge.
“There’s nothing he couldn’t accomplish,” Hield said. “Whatever he put his mind to, he was going to do it. That was Kobe.”