The Ringer NBA Show - News From Around the League and Reflecting on Kobe Bryant | Heat Check

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

Today on 'Heat Check,' John, Dan, and Haley take a look at the news around the NBA, talk about a few recent games, and examine some impressive 50-point performances (02:42). They also discuss and reflect on the tragic passing of Kobe Bryant (19:33). Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Haley O’Shaughnessy, Dan Devine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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My producer, Steve Allman, is here. It's been a tough week for a lot of people. Normally, we have a lot of fun on the show. We like to joke and laugh and play dumb games. This show is going to be a little bit different for obvious reasons. We're going to talk about basketball off the top because this is an NBA show. And I think some people understandably want an distraction right now. But then later on, we're going to talk about Kobe Bryant because how could we not?

I've sort of been around him in my personal and professional life since we were both teenagers. He grew up not far from where I grew up. Our high schools played against each other. I've got some Kobe stories that I want to share. And I think everybody's sort of processing these things. The Lakers are also holding their first media availability since the accident later today. I'm going to go to that and write about it. By the time you listen to this, they might have already spoken.

But we'll discuss later if you want to stick around with us and get into that conversation. I want to thank all of you for listening. We do that every week, but truly we're appreciative of it, and I want you guys to know that. A reminder to please rate and review us, and don't forget about all the great NBA content on the ringer.com. Specifically with Kobe, Palo has just been all over this, has written a couple of really good stories on Kobe, including what he means to L.A. Kevin Clark's down in the Super Bowl, and all the NFL guys are doing just an excellent job on

the NFL side. Danny Kelly and Danny Heifitz and Mays, and Clark wrote about the reaction to Kobe in Miami at the Super Bowl, so check that out. And Dan Devine, who will be along in just a second, has his full NBA starters and reserves piece up in case you want a little bit of basketball on your life. So check that out. Coming up later in the show, as I mentioned, we'll discuss Kobe. But first, it's time to talk a little bit of basketball, so we're going to do that, and we're going to bring in Dan and Haley. All right, Dan is here, Haley is here, Steve is here. We're going to return to the usual format next week, but we're just going to get right into it.

We're going to talk some basketball, and then we're going to move along to Kobe. All right, the Bucks, they won again. They beat the Wizards, their first game back after Paris, Mark Lazary. And Michael Jordan had a conversation, owner Mark Lazarie, and Mark Lazarie said, hey, do you know, do you think we can do what you guys did, meaning like win 70 games or more? And Michael Jordan told him, don't worry about that, just focus on winning a championship. And I'm paraphrasing here, Lazary was like, no, I think we should do everything to try. So Haley, my question for you is, should they try to do everything they can to win 70 games, despite Michael Jordan saying, don't do that? First of all, do we think that Lazarie is going to be in the Michael Jordan dock?

What did that be? That would be fantastic. Put them in there. This is obviously a callback to the 2015-16 season for the Warriors, because everyone points to, I mean, in addition to Tristan Thompson and a great Kyrie shot and pinned down block. that's always what people point to as the reason that they lost, that they were too worn out from winning 73 games. They should have focused more on the championship, blah, blah, blah. But it's a great accomplishment as long as you're not wearing yourself out too much. The thing about the Bucks this season is that they have been uniquely dominant while not necessarily be exhausting themselves.

I think, Dan, you have some stats on that, don't you? I always have some stats on that, Haley. Also, just real quick, I love that you when you're like, and what happened in 2016, the first first name that you went to was Tristan Thompson. Well, I mean, he deserves credit because he'll never get credit again for anything in his life. That's exactly right. I just love that. Yeah, no, the nobody on the Bucks roster is averaging more than 31 minutes a game right now. The Bucks have the same net rating with Janus off the floor as the Raptors do overall.

They're plus six per 100 possessions. If you're not running anybody into the ground and you're still running everybody off the floor, why not go for everything? It's one thing if you're sacrificing the bigger picture by playing guys big minutes on the second night of a back-to-back or whatever. But if you're not, try to win every game you're in, right? Like, that's the whole – the idea that you can win – you can do everything is a really powerful one at this point where we think about the future and think about only rings

and only everything else. But if you can be a legendary regular season team and a champion, then that puts you in rarefied air that very few teams have ever reached. Yeah, I think that to Haley's point about those. the Warriors and people saying, oh, you know, it took too much out of them. I think that's like sort of convenient revisionist history, considering that it omits that Draymond lost to shit when they were up 3-1, and then all of a sudden that opened the door for LeBron, and then they won their championship.

I mean, like, if Draymond just, like, keeps his cool in that situation and doesn't get the T that led to the suspension, then who knows? I mean, maybe they clean it up. But also, like, what does winning 70 games, like, really mean, right? Is winning 70 that much more impressive than winning like 68 or 69, honestly? I mean, look, the thing is that maybe the bucks again won't go as far as they should in the playoffs. And this is their consolation. I don't know.

Maybe he's thinking that. But this is an accomplishment that is definitely within reach. The playoffs are far less certain. Yeah. But like, I think, you know, if you can't pull it off, awesome, good for you. If you can't, you know, I'm with Jordan. Like the big thing is the playoffs. What happens in the playoffs?

I'm with Jordan. I'm always with Jordan. whatever. Jordan, he's a smart basketball man. All right, 50-point performances. We had two this week. Speaking of the Milwaukee Bucks, Chris Middleton, had 51 versus the whiz. It was a career high. They had an easy win without Janus in.

He was sitting out with some right shoulder soreness. And then the night before that, the Houston Rockets, who had been sort of scuffling along a little bit, got 50 points from Eric Gordon in a win over the jazz. That was also a career high. Houston is four and six over their last 10. The Bucks are cruising along. My question for the two of you, Haley, you go first again. Which one was bigger here? I think that we should also mention that in the Wizards Bucks game,

Bradley Biel have 47 too. He was right there. Again, is that much less impressive than the 50 points? I don't know. That would have been the first time that two guys dropped 50 against each other since 2000. I'm going to definitely say Eric Gordon is more important. And his is more important, the 50-point performance. Because what he has to be for the Rockets to realize their potential, he still needs to be a lot more solid.

Whereas with Chris Middleton, like Dan was just saying, when Janis is off the court, the Bucks are able to hold it together. Yeah. Dan, where are you on this one? Like, who's needed more for their team moving forward? Because you do have Janus. But as we saw last year, Janus needed more from his supporting cast than he got, especially in the Eastern Conference final. and then on the flip side, you've got Houston that's been sort of like up and down all season

and Eric Gordon had a rough start to his year and it looks like he's coming on more now, so maybe that gets them going. I'm sort of torn here. You know, I think that in the moment right now, Eric Gordon's performance was more needed for his team. You mentioned that Houston's been scuffling recently and going into that game against Utah,

I think there were only two games clear of OKC for seventh in the West, and Houston going into that game against Utah was missing. James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and Clint Capella. No one would have blinked if Houston got run off the floor in that game. Now that didn't happen. And now Gordon is rediscovering himself at exactly the right time. Over the last month, he's up to 20 points a game on 40% three-point shooting since his knee surgery.

You have to have another creator off the bench, another guy who can stretch the floor and step up and sort of put the cape on on a given night if either one of those guys is not unavailable or struggling as Harden was for a while as Westbrook was earlier in the season. a healthy Gordon who can hit, you know, stretch the defense and create off the dribble, completely changes the dynamic of what Houston can do. So I think getting him right and sort of reminding everyone how good he is is maybe more important for Houston than getting a big Middleton game at this stage of the season. All right.

So we got a big return on Tuesday night as well. Victor Oladipo is back. He makes his season debut against the Bulls. He was out for 12 months. Last year, he suffered a ruptured quad last January against. Toronto. So this is a much anticipated thing. This is something that the Pacers have definitely been looking forward to. Pacer's fans have definitely been looking forward to. Dan, how do we think this is going to change rotations for the Pacers? And what will this team look like now moving

forward? It's a really great question. It's something that our colleague Rob Mahoney sort of touched on. He just, he was in Indiana, did a sort of a big feature on the Pacers that just went up today on the ringer.com. And one of the things that he mentioned was there's been some discussion within the Pacer's, you know, coaching staff in front office about whether Jeremy Lamb or T.J. Warren would go to the bench to make room for Ola Depot. And then what that means for the way the backcourt minutes get juggled. My guess is that Jeremy Lamb goes to the bench because T.J. Warren's been fantastic scoring. And that starting five has really come up as a defender. And Jeremy Lamb has more experience coming off the bench. I think that the balance might fit better there.

And my guess, unfortunately, so I struggle to say this on this podcast, Gons, this might be T. J. McConnell getting kind of aced out of the rotation a little bit. I hate it. And he's been great for them, but Aaron Holiday provides a little more shooting and has been dynamite on that second unit with his brother Justin and the way they defend. So I wonder if TJ kind of gets squeezed here. And what I expect overall is it's going to take time. Like a year off from basketball, Victor Oladipo is not immediately going to be the guy we remember. So it's going to take some time, but they've given themselves enough with their first half performance to that they're still, they're so in the mix in that top of the Western Conference that, you know, they have the runway here to figure it. all that point, Haley.

The Pacers are fifth and the east, but they're just three games back of second. What's the ceiling for them? Can they make a run in the East? Because as Dan said, I think it will. I suspect that it will. Who knows, but I suspect that it will take some time for him to knock that rust off. But they're there. They're positioned and like, it's hard to get

rid of the Pacers. Yeah, and I think that when we think about Oladipo coming back, that you know, him in the starting lineup is where we think, oh, now they're going to really jump. But it's basically saying the same thing, but their bench becoming that much better. by moving these people who have sustained this level of success to the bench. Now they have that backup.

All of a sudden, they're really deep. They have been deep these last couple of seasons, right? Because you look at the individual players and you think they've got some nice pieces, but a lot of it feels like this collaboration of journeymen, save Oladipo, and maybe you throw Sabonis and Brogden and elevate them up a little bit. But I think Turner hasn't quite been exactly the big force that we thought maybe he could develop into. And yet, they've been greater than the sum of their parts, right, especially in the playoffs, where you think like, or last year even after they lost Ola Depot, I thought, well, that's

going to be it for them. They're going to completely crater. And their record after losing him obviously wasn't nearly as good. I just thought that they did a really good job of staying in the mix in the Eastern Conference and being plucky and being a difficult doubt. So getting him back is going to be a big boon for them. All right, a couple more things that I wanted to talk a basketball with you guys about before we wrap it up and move it on on to Kobe, the rookies.

the two main rookies. Zion, the Pelicans beat the Cavs, Drew Holiday, had a great game, 28 and 8. And then Zion did his Zion thing, 14 points, 9 assists in 30 minutes. So here's what he's averaging so far, 18 points,

little over 8 rebounds, an assist and a half, half a steal, and just like a smidge of a block in 24 minutes per game. He's shooting 63% from the field. He's taking 1.5-3s per game and making one.

Haley, what do we make of Zion so far? I can't get over how strong he is. It's just like he could will his way into anything, which is something we say a lot about centers, but he just does so many non-center things. But it's just like he can get whatever he wants on the floor. You know what I mean? If he's like, oh, actually, I would like the second chance point.

Go ahead. Like he's going to get it. There's really like, no, he can do whatever you want. It's just super strong. It's been very impressive. He's fun to watch. I can't believe that somebody his size can do the things that he can do. do. Our guy, Roger Sherman, mentioned this on Twitter where he said, it doesn't matter how big he is if when he goes to block a shot, his head is at the flag logo on the backboard, I mean, because he can get that high. I would take umbrage with, it doesn't matter how big he is. I think it probably could eventually.

But it's just amazing, Dan, to watch somebody, uh, like of his physical prowess play the way he does. Yeah. And especially coming off of the meniscus injury and the surgery, like, that he's, you could still, I mean, he doesn't, seem like he's necessarily hitting top speed yet or as comfortable with his with the body as he's getting back onto the court. But even with that, to be that productive that quickly is kind of wild. I haven't gotten to watch every second he's played so far in these first four games, but it seems like he's further ahead offensively, as Haley said, it seems like he's already figured out I can get where I want to go and I can do kind of what I want to do with the ball. Then he is on defense, which is to be expected. You know, he's first four games of an NBA career for a guy who's sort

of switching between power forward and center. I think the thing that I was most interested in heading into him coming back was how would the lineups work with him playing either at power forward next to Ingram and favors or at center with nobody? And so far, the early returns are awesome. Their new starting lineup with him next to favors in Ingram with Lanzo and Drew Holiday in the back court, plus 18 and 44 minutes, really strong in the first four games. And lineups where Zion is basically center, no other bigs on the court, no favors, no Jackson Hayes, no Jolie L'OCAFOR, no Nicolomelli. Those are plus 23 and in 26 minutes. Really small samples here. But, the early returns are really encouraging when they play with a traditional lineup or with Zion.

That's the small ball five where they play super fast. They're scoring like gangbusters. They're getting kind of what Alvin Gentry's teams like to look like. I think you have to be really, really encouraged by what you've seen in those minutes. And then the defense is going to come as he gets more acclimated to things. But already very, very exciting to see what he can do. Already very, very exciting to see him and certainly to see his fellow rookie John Morant. Dan, you mentioned this on Twitter. Jai entered Tuesday 4th in the NBA in fourth quarter scoring. He did it again.

He had 10 of his 14 in the fourth quarter on Monday night, or Tuesday night, rather, excuse me, and the Grizz beat the nuggets. They're holding on to that last playoff spot in the West. Zion's coming on. There was a lot of hype about Zion. I want to throw this up to the both of you. Who do you like more between Zion and Jai? I'm not asking you to like, you don't have to, you know,

disown the other one. But like as, and they have very, I'm not engaging. You're not, you're not doing this. You're going to make me pick between ice cream. Well, eventually. Ice cream and cake. Eventually somebody's going to. Well, I do like.

Gons and Dan. I'm not picking. I like all of those things. You make a, you make a good case for, for, uh, the fence sitting on this one, actually. Normally we don't do that on this show, but I kind of, I kind of agree with you. Hey, it's not for me to say. I don't want to pick between my two favorite kids. Uh, but Dan, you have two kids.

Which one's your favorite? it. Well, right now it's Olivia. Chavons has been giving me a little bit of hard time at home. And they don't know how to listen to this yet, so that's fine. I can say that to you guys. But I will say the fact that Jha, because now it's not the first 10 games and nobody knows what's happening yet.

There's like 50 games at tape and people know that he's going to have the ball in his hands and he's still doing it. And they're still scoring like gangbusters with him at the controls. And it's, last night there were three nuggets converging on him on the baseline and he still slithered his way in for a reverse layout. Like, he's finding ways to beat defenses that now know they have to stop him. And it's really, really exciting. I mean, I'm not saying the Grizzies are going to all of a sudden, you know, make a run to the conference finals or anything like that. But what we're seeing with him is real and that it's continuing is really, really amazing.

Yeah, I mean, like, we say a lot, like so-and-so can get anywhere they want on the floor. He can truly get anywhere he wants on the floor. and when you say that you're excited about, Zion and what that team could do in the early returns, I'm similarly excited about the Grizz. We're a Grizz podcast here. It's a wonderful time for Memphis. We wish Shaw and Zion, nothing but the best.

All right, we're going to take a quick break here. We're going to do a little housekeeping, and then we're going to come back, and we're going to talk about Kobe. Fanduel is the official sports book partner of the Ringer. The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Fandul. You've probably heard me talk for the past few weeks about Fandu's sports book. And if you have, you're probably expecting me to have plenty to say this week about betting big game props on FanDuel's best in class sports betting app.

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Tuesday's game against the Clippers was canceled. They'll play their next home game on Friday. There were reports that they brought in grief counselors for the organization, not just for the players, but for the staffers because Kobe, you know, played 20 years for the same organization. So it's not just the players and the coaches in the front office that he interacted with. I've seen him interact with all sorts of security guards and ball boys and equipment. managers. And Serena Winters, who is now the sideline reporter for the Sixers, got her start here in LA when I first moved out to LA. I had met Serena and she had done a bunch of interviews with Kobe and he helped sort of like elevate her career. And then, you know, we've seen the scene at Staples

center, the practice facility where there were people in mourning and then there were like these makeshift memorials. Palo's done a really good job reporting on that. At LA Live, they had this moment where they had the giant crowd wad up balls of paper and all in unison. They, shot it at a trash can and said Kobe, which I thought was fun and nice and like maybe cathartic. But it was shocking, right? I mean, this was, I think, like one of this seminal, where were you one moments of my lifetime, certainly? So I guess we'll start with that.

I mean, how you guys found out and like how you're doing. Hey, Lee? Where were you when, like, I was sitting at my dining room table and I got a text from my friend. who, I mean, this is like, feels even kind of awful to just say like this, who just texted me and said, wait, Kobe died, like with a question mark. And I, I just like, everything felt like I actually like dropped my bowl on my table. I looked at our slack. I saw it. It was all within like five seconds. But it, I genuinely, people keep saying it doesn't, it didn't feel real. I was convinced that it was not true. I was convinced that this, because I think like, initially,

it was TMZ or it wasn't TMZ. It was TMZ to start. Or there were like a local station. I just remember thinking like, no, it's wrong. And I think that was everyone's sentiment. But I truly, and then for the next couple hours, I had all these errands to do. I had work to do. And I just sat on the same spot in my table.

Yeah, it was flooring. Yeah, I was. So my wife was out at a meeting on Sunday afternoon. So I had the two girls. And Olivia was taking a nap, and I was kind of hanging out with Chavon. And I like checked my phone to see, I don't know, I checked my phone and saw it happening. And she was like, I don't really remember what I did, but she was right away like, Daddy, what's wrong? And I guess I was like standing there with my hand over my.

I guess I can't do that because I have a microphone in front of me. I had my hand in front of my mouth. And, you know, I asked what happened. And I was trying to sort of figure out how to explain. because she doesn't know who Kobe Bryant is, but I said, like, you know, like a very important man in the thing that I do for my job, it looks like he just died.

And she was kind of like, okay, well, that's very sad. And now can you put your phone down? Yeah. Which was really useful. And the answer was kind of, I'm sorry to say, not really. Like, I did, and we played and we hung out, but you kind of kept trying to check in on it and find out what's going on.

I will say as a sad truth of this doing this as our jobs, my second thought beyond like, holy shit was I can't believe, oh, like, oh, no, I'm going to have to write about this. Yeah. Or I can't write about this because I have the girls this afternoon, so I can't do anything. So the feeling of sort of impotence and not knowing what you would even say, but also knowing that you can't and knowing that it's going to be somebody else's responsibility and feeling so badly about that and trying to figure out even as you're doing it's like you have um like a program running in the back of your head underneath all the regular processes that you're doing and trying to figure out

what you're going to say and how you're going to say it and who's going to be saying it now and all those sorts of things it just felt yeah it felt like your my brain was overloaded and it was less of an emotional reaction than i felt like i just kind of shut down what to say and how to say it i think is like i mean just for what we do for a living that's our job right And I said that to Powell. Like I've, and I'm going to get into this in just a second, but I've been sort of around Kobe for a while now. And I don't know. I've covered him a zillion times and written a zillion things about him.

And I don't know where I would have begun. So I thought Palo did a really good job. I was on a plane. I was in Philadelphia for the Sixers, Lakers game where LeBron passed Kobe to move into third place all time. I was on a plane with Dan Weikey from the L.A. times. And also, coincidentally, Kobe's longtime security guy. And Dan Waikie came up to me in the middle of the flight. I was watching a movie and he goes, have you been on the internet?

And I said, no, I'm just sitting here. And he goes, Kobe died in a helicopter crash. And I said, that can't possibly be true. That can't possibly be right. That has to be wrong. I mean, how could that be? We're the same age. You know, he's Kobe.

You know, we're on a flight right now. It can't be. So I started watching the live feed. And then there were like these initial reports that like a little bit of information was trickling in and out. ABC initially reported that all of his girls were on the flight with him, which was devastating. And then thankfully, they debunked it quickly. But I think, like, this thing really hit a lot of people hard for a lot of reasons. And we've seen all these tributes. Philly just had a game last night with Embed War Number 24, which is Bobby Jones's number. He had to call Bobby Jones and asked for permission. Of course, Bobby said it was okay. They had nine lights on the court for the nine victims. They rang the bell nine times. They played the intro from his last game there. They didn't have any intros at all for the players. And Matt Cord, who's the arena announcer and who's actually a good friend of mine and my neighbor back in Philly, announced just one name.

And he did a six-six guard from Lower Marion. And that one got me. And I wanted to tell you guys why. So Kobe went to Lower Marion High School. I went to a high school called Pencrest that is not far from him. They're in the same league. So our high school played his high school. I'm a year older than him.

So the first time I saw him in person, he was a junior and I was a senior. And there was all this hype around him about him being the best prospect in the country. And man, did he show it that night? Like I remember he dunked on my buddy Wax, which I've never let Wax forget. And he was just like, he was incredible. And then his senior year, the year that he won the state championship, I was a senior at LaSalle or a freshman at LaSalle. and his dad went to LaSalle. And his sister was a freshman at LaSalle at the same year that I was.

She was on the volleyball team. She was incredible. And there were these rumors that like, oh, maybe Kobe will go there. Of course, he was never going to go there. He was never going to go to Duke. He was going to jump right to the NBA. But I got to cover him a little bit for our local paper, the Delco Daily Times. And from like that moment on, like up through this past weekend, like, I've just sort of like jumped in and out with my career and like gotten to see him.

I was at the All-Star game that LeBron was talking about getting his shoes. I was at the game in Philly where he announced his retirement tour. Like this is going to be my last season. He announced that in Philly. It was like a 35-minute press conference where his old high school point guard who was on my TV show then got to hang out with him. And Kobe immediately recognized and picked him out of the crowd, made him feel special. He did this big package on it. Like, it's just hard for me to process because I felt like I've been around him like my whole life.

even though I don't know him, you know, in the same way that like a lot of people intimately know him. And I get why he means so much to so many people who never met him either. My immediate reaction was nothing. Like, I mean, it was sorrow, but it was then I could not process anything. I was just shocked, but in a way where I honestly can never remember being this shocked over a death. I mean, people are comparing it to Princess Diana and that must have been it. because I could not fathom that it happened enough that I could not fathom anything. And I really couldn't think of anything.

And when I finally could start to think about this being real, maybe like an hour and a half later, I just considered that the reason I could not fathom it is because, A, Kobe is extremely young. He looks the exact same now as he did when he retired, as he did for many years of his career. Those two things don't add up But also because of who Kobe was as a player The you know The Mamba mentality But just the fact that he would never

Fucking let anyone do anything to him You know he was going to be on the court longer than you He was going to get that You know he was going to get that foul He was going to back you down That jumper was going to go in He was going to get that loose ball The way that he played

The way that he was even like you know He wouldn't flinch If you pump the ball of him out of bounds He's not going to flinch. The way that he was made him seem, and his legend was that he was immortal. Like, nothing could ever get to him. Yeah, it's just super strange to him because, like, I don't know, again, I just like, he's been a presence in my professional life. And even really, like, my personal life just as, before he was like the Lakers Kobe Bryant or an international sensation or even like, you know, a state champion at Lower Mary.

He was that kid from my neighborhood who was just really fucking good at basketball. I mean, I remember his senior year when the hype was really growing before he took Brandy the prom and all that stuff. He would practice every now and again

with the Sixers. Like, he'd go to a practice as a high school kid. And we would talk about this because we all loved basketball, we all loved sports. And we'd be like, how is that possible?

And you'd hear these stuff from the reporters who were there and they'd be like, yeah, man, he was like, you know, maybe he's not quite right. but you could see that he could play with them. Yeah, the reality of the larger than life or the audaciousness of his story at every step of the way,

I think the first time I remember hearing about him was that he was taking Brandy to prom. And I was like, well, that is impressive. Like, that is for a 17, 18 year old guy to be like, so this is what I'm going to do. And this is how I'm introducing myself to the world. How are you? To believe that you could be a guard to go from high school to the pro. But we've seen players make the prep to pros jump. We'd never seen somebody do that at a backcourt position to believe that you deserve to be taken those shots in that playoff game against Utah in your rookie year.

Airball three. So take a fourth. The belief and the sort of like brazenness with which he approached everything, to Haley's point, kind of makes it hard to imagine him not exerting control over a situation or being in a position where he could not exert control over a situation. And that, not to as the father of daughters this, because that is not a, no, this is the appropriate time for it. This is that, I don't know how useful a framework that is for all of it. But like the idea of being in that situation and not being able to control where you were going and knowing that you were there with your daughter and trying to, a lot of people who have kids have written and spoken about trying to figure out what you would do in that situation. I will be perfectly honest with you, my brain shut down before I got there. I don't think I could have gotten to the point where I was like, what would I be doing in that moment?

Especially because what, Chavon was right in front of me. I had to do something else with her. And there's the part of you that's just like, I have to sort of express my gratitude that I get to continue doing this by actually doing it and being present for them now. And then there's part of you that's just like, I don't know, I can't, I don't know what better way to participate in this insanity than to do, I guess, what seems like he was doing, which is being there for your kid. And the other part of this, and I want to say, like, I get a little shaky about public performing of great parenting and of, like, making you.

you're the degree to which you're a real, I don't know, like engaged in heroic and active parent public stuff. I feel a little bit weird about that. But that, that the result, or one of the results of this has been a lot of people talking about the value of being an engaged parent to your daughters is a really, in a very gray cloud, a bit of a silver lining. Yeah. And that's been, I don't know that I'm, I don't think I'm, I have something that's good enough for the gram for that. But, The idea that that is a legacy point for him was something that I would never have seen 10 years ago. And that it's something that we're all sort of wrapping our arms around a little tighter now is something to take away from this, I suppose. No, I look, part of what I just made me cry.

I'm really sorry, Haley. I didn't. But it's true, right? I mean, like this thing, I think the reason why it has impacted so many people, it's not just, Kobe had it just been Kobe, it would have been something that really hit people. But the fact that Gigi and children were on that flight and that families were ripped apart and that, you know, the widower of one of the women that died is now left with their children and to raise them without his wife. Like, that is devastating to me. Like when I was saying, when ABC initially reported

that all of his girls were on the flight, I went over to Dan Waikie. And I said that there was this report and like the two of us were crying. Like how do you process something like that? It makes all of us take stock of our lives. And it's like it has been extremely difficult to come to terms with Kobe's death. And I still don't quite think I can. And something that we've been saying a lot is that the only goodbye we've ever planned for him was his retirement. And even that was really tough.

And that's wild because he hung on too long to play. or at least we thought he did. Now I'm just like, I wish he would have kept playing. But something that is actually inconceivable for me was the loss of Gigi and the other two girls on that flight, Peyton and Alyssa. And I don't want to be as like a, you know, the sister of sisters, like, you know, but I just think about all the things that they are missing out on the first kisses,

the sleepovers, the tiny teenage rebellions, that you're going to have to deal with in high school dances being embarrassed by your parents. But I did want to say that Gigi wanted to go to Yukon and play basketball for them. And Alyssa dreamed of attending the University of Oregon. And that Peyton's uncle talked to New York Times and said that she was the sweetest soul, the kindest, most gentlest person you'd ever meet. So for me, the things that they were robbed of was especially, inconceivable. Yeah, and we saw these videos, I mean, the videos of, you know, Kobe sitting with

Gigi and, like, talking the game with her and, you know, at their house and he's showing her moves and all this stuff. And, like, you know, obviously the Jimmy Kimmel clip where he told the great story about how she's got this, that he doesn't need a boy that he's got her is so fantastic and also, like, so tragic because, like, Vanessa and the girls are robbed of seeing Jimenez. And, you know, G go from a teenager into a woman and like living her life and everybody on that flight, everything that was changed. It's it's very difficult to process. And I think that it's something that we're all going to be wrestling with and trying to

wrap our heads around because it is, this is, it's a messy situation with Kobe. And I almost used the word complicated and I didn't want to do that because I've seen that you, that word thrown around a lot with Kobe because, and we have to talk about this, right? Because like there's this, there's this impulse when something unexpected and tragic happens when a celebrity of Kobe stature has taken away to canonize that person, that there's a halo effect, that everything they've done in their life is fantastic. And I've seen, you know, with a Washington Post reporter who had tweeted about a story about what happened in Colorado with Kobe, that Lakers fans or fans, some people, I don't want to characterize them as Lakers fans, Kobe fans, went after her and said

it wasn't the right time. You shouldn't be talking about this. And I think, like, a more honest accounting of his life is to say all of the things that were true about him and all of the things that we just said about him were true that he was an unbelievable basketball player. This is hard for me, too, to reconcile, hard for me to square because I've been, again, I've been rooting for him since we were both kids. I watched him go from the kid who plays at the local high school to this international sensation and surefire Hall of Famer who had become by all accounts what looks like a very engaged father, right? And then there is this Colorado thing that like people have sort of hidden behind the word complicated to yada yada what happened and just move along. And I think a more

honest accounting is to say all of the things that were true that yes, he was an amazing basketball player and a Hall of Famer. Yes, he transcended the game. Yes, he was an engaged father and loved his family. And yes, this thing in Colorado happened and he was credibly accused of sexual assault and no there were no formal charges, but there was a civil suit where he, part of that component was to issue an apology that he said he didn't see it this way, but he had realized afterwards that his accuser did not think that interaction was consensual. And these, it's very difficult for us to not just go to in sports. Like the idea of a nuanced conversation is, hard a lot of the times. Like we don't do it. We don't really do nuanced and difficult. We do

polls. Well, and sports manufacturers, heroes. We do heroes and villains. I think Rob Mahoney did a really good job. He wrote a really good Kobe piece that everyone should read. But in it, he said, Brian is everything that he has ever done with all of the painful complexity that entails. What was admirable about him can still be admirable about him. What was troubling can still be troubling. And for me, I agree. Complicated feels so veiled. It's almost like one of those headline things that we default to when we can't really say what needs to be said. The thing about talking about this is that we can't just do it like you said because it feels like we have to. Like it feels like this is something we need to mention because, you know, we feel like people are

going to be mad at us if we don't or, you know, honestly, we're not doing right by people if we don't, but we're also not doing right by remembering him and his life. And the thing that we need to say about, we need to give the entire story of Kobe. And I've heard a lot of people say, now's not the time. There's never going to be a right time to talk about or to reckon with your hero doing something awful. What happened that was that, you know, what always happens, the NBA moved on, fans moved on. The narrative moved on. It's still what he was accused of, he was still accused of. And it's clear that people are still resentful that his image was ever smeared. But you can't dismiss that part of the history when we're remembering his life. However, this does not take away. When I say all this, this does not take away the grief. This does not take away the right to grieve. This is not take away the sorrow, the legitimate pain that you feel that he's gone.

I say all this and I still feel such grief. I'm still so upset. I'm still so shaken. And I hope that people who are upset that this is being mentioned so closely after his death. Again, those are the people who I don't think would ever have a right time, find a right time to mention it, can accept that both for me are true. Both for many people are true, especially women.

It's a messy and complicated. complicated the conversation, not the human thing to go through, right? I mean, like, we're all processing so many emotions. Some of them are in conflict with each other. And I don't know that there's any one right way to discuss what happened with Kobe, than just to discuss it all. Especially considering a big part of the on-court story or the iconic aspect of it is the shift from, like, number eight to number two.

24 and the adoption of the black mamba moniker and the mamba mentality and now I'm going to be the jaw jutting sneering villain and I'm going to do the elevation of that idea like I'm going to outwork and out whatever so much of that was like a construction that came about after the fact of like I need to change the story after I have been credibly accused of sexual assault and I understand that this person did not consent to this encounter you don't get the second half of what happened there without the pivot point of this all going on. And like, if you're,

if part of it, his legendary mental toughness and the way he was able to compartmentalize and perform, like that comes about because he's flying back and forth from, from the trial in Colorado to games and playing and scoring a lot of points. Like a lot of this stuff is, you can't just say I'm taking part of it and not all of it because it's, it's ensnared. It's all entangled.

It's like, you know, a cord wrapped around itself and, uh, or a snake eating. own tale, if you want to use the metaphor that Kobe preferred, like, you can't just take part of it without all of it. And it's painful and it's, it sucks that those things are true. But it's, but it sucks that those things happen. And or that those events were part of the, of the story.

But alighting them does nobody any favors that doesn't do justice to the, you know, the legend and the fact and printing all of it together. You can't, you can't pretend. And so I part, and honestly, it's part of why I, my, my, oh shit, I'm going to have to write about this. Part of it was a lot. If I write about this, I have to write about that because it's real. It was part of his story and part of his life. And that's going to engender a lot of like fury and blowback. And there's, or people will say you're burying it if you don't do it enough.

And it's a really, it's a difficult thing to present, but not presenting it is not a choice. And I don't know that I think that a lot of people have taken a lot of care. to be very responsible in the way they've done that, which is heartening, especially because the other option to just not present it is on the table and maybe too often for people. Yeah, it's a weird and tough thing to process. And I think that, you know, I don't know what it says about, I won't say us, I'll say me. I don't know what it says about me that I have these conflicting emotions because, again, I have watched and rooted for him through all of it. And then also he did this thing that I have a hard time reconciling my otherwise positive feelings,

right? And I don't know what that says about me. I do know that what Dan said earlier, if there's a silver lining in all of this, I think that it's good that Dan, I saw you say, you know, we should put down our phones today and spend time with our family and like, like, like really take stock of all this. Which I was not able to do, by the way. But it was, I think the point, the point, the underlying point there, if there's a silver lining in all of this, you know, Kobe had talked a lot about and, you know, we, we know, we, We've all seen the video surfaces about tomorrow's not promised for any of any of us. And taking stock of our mortality and our relationships that sometimes we take for granted in our lives, the ones that are important to us, how we lead our lives.

You know, what are you doing with your life today? Like if there's any silver lining and it's, it's slim, it's that, right? Like, the TNT had a pregame show that I couldn't watch because I knew how I'd react to it, but I read about it this morning. a pregame show that was exactly about this, about like what all of this means and how we've all sort of re we're forced in these moments to take stock of our lives. So normally we end with a good call, bad call game. We're not going to do that today. I'm just going to say for you guys, being in your company is very much a good call for me. Steve, you came in and you, you joined the show. It filled huge shoes with Isaac and hit the ground running and it's been a delight to have you. Haley,

I have watched you go from an editorial assistant to a basketball writing superstar who is just so far ahead of the curve for your age. You're so incredibly talented and I'm so excited to watch what your career is going to be. And Dan, like we spent all last year on the road together and you became an actual real life true friend to me. And I like you're, talk about family man. Like you've got three wonderful girls, one of whom is your beautiful wife and the two little ones who are going to grow and you've got Lugar, the wonderful pup. And honestly, I'm like, I really love having you guys in my life. And to the listeners, we say this all the time. Thank you for listening. And I kind of like gloss over it. But if you've come this far

and you're still listening to He Check right now, you're a real, like you're a real listener for this show and we cannot thank you enough. I've been doing this long enough to know how, how lucky I am. Like, this is the only thing I've ever wanted to do in my life. And then, that anybody would take time to read something that I wrote or listening to something I say, I cannot thank you guys enough. So none of that is lost on us. That's it. Thank you for listening.

Key Check will be back next week with its normal, usual nonsense. See you guys.