The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Life and Legacy of Kobe Bryant | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: January 27, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on Kobe Bryant’s tragic passing (1:19) and then is joined by NBC Sports’ Mike Tirico (20:16) and ESPN’s Bobby Marks (39:43) to further discuss the Lakers legend’s life and legacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan rossillo show on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent today and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected talk talk to a State Farm agent today. So today is different, and everyone knows why. The tragic death of Kobe Bryant on Sunday. And normally, this is always the Chris Long, Ryan Russillo show. And we put together this idea of doing some kind of just off-topic things. It just didn't feel right today. And we're going to go ahead and just do a straightforward Super Bowl podcast that's

going to come out on Wednesday. I'm headed down to Miami late Tuesday night. I get in really, really late, like Wednesday morning almost. So I'll be there for a few days doing some of the ringer stuff, and that's the plan. Then we'll have one more podcast. We'll have three this week scheduled for the Ryan Rosillo show. Today's game plan, Mike Tirico, who called Kobe's final game, is going to join us, and ESPN's re-airing that final game at 9 Eastern. And then we're going to talk with Bobby Marks, who was in the Nets front office and was sent out on a scouting assignment to watch a high school Kobe Bryant before that draft in 1996.

But I'm going to start with this week's Open. The Kobe story is unbelievably sad. It's tragic. It's all of those things. And I'm sad, probably like a lot of you are sad where it's, oh, that's an awful story. I didn't know him. I interviewed him, I think once, and it was with Van Pelt. And that was really the only reason we got him. It was kind of a fun little back and forth. And, you know, everybody processes stuff differently. And I do think that, you know, being sad on TV or radio, I mean, if that's the way you feel, that's the way you feel. And it's not that I'm sad. I just want to do something a little different and talk about him and his story and kind of the three-part deal where it was him at the beginning, him as the player, and then him at the end of his career.

And, you know, it's one of those deals where every one of us, you listening right now, Kobe fan or not a Kobe fan, you're going to remember where you were when you got that news. Because I got a text from somebody, the screenshot, the TMZ, Kobe Bryant dead, helicopter crash. And I'm like, no way. Like, no way. Not Kobe Bryant. Like, this guy's invincible. Like, that's not going to happen. It's like that line from Donnie Brosco where they're like like how does john wayne die like that doesn't happen and so as the news filtered through the day and you're wherever you are and it probably stalled you a little bit

and you don't have to be a father to feel terrible about all the news that kept coming out and learning more and more about it him him losing his daughter, the other families involved. It's just awful. It goes without saying. I mean, every one of us, you know, we have a really weird thing in this society where we can be really vicious, but we also are incredibly compassionate and we're immediately compassionate and almost overwhelmingly so. And so, you know, most people are sad today. I don't think that that's necessarily breaking news. I remember the first time I heard about Kobe. This is really what I wanted to focus on today. I remember the first time I heard about him because I was a huge draft guy even when I wasn't a draft guy. I was just a kid in college. I was 20 years old in 1996. I loved the NBA draft

from whenever I could first remember. I don't even know why. I would get the newspaper and then I would write it out in my little notebook. I would write down all the picks in order when I already had it right there in the newspaper, but I just liked doing it. So I just always loved the draft. The draft is my favorite day of the year. I love it. And when Kevin Garnett came out of high school the year prior, the Garnett story was, who does this guy think he is? He can't do this. A lot of very outdated things, things that became immediately wrong. Well, I would say at least halfway through Garnett's first season, he'd go, you know what?

It would have been a sin to not let this guy play in the NBA right away. He was the first high school guy to do the jump in a long time. There'd been a handful of others that had done it. If you go back to the pre-NBA, ABA merger, basically the reason the NBA changed their early withdrawal rules or their early entry into the draft rules is because the ABA was just going to go ahead and do it. And in the NBA, before they lightened up the rules, the NBA had a thing where you actually had to apply for a financial hardship waiver to be able to leave college early, even do it. And if you think of it that way, you're like, well, that's ridiculous. Like, hey, we're broke. Well, how broke are you? Prove how broke you are to be able to come to the NBA. And then

it's always a lesson in life. Like in the 70s, you may have been, if you were where you're at now, consciously, you may have just thought, well, okay, that makes sense because that's just the way it was always done. And so when Garnett made this jump, it was, who's this guy? I think he is. And then when Kobe did it, it was entirely different. And information didn't just move slow in 1996. It didn't move. It was incomplete. And all I knew about Kobe was what I'd read the first time I had heard about him. And that was really leading up to the draft. It's like, wait a minute, a perimeter player, a 6'6", 6'5 guy? Yeah, I know his dad played in the pros for eight years, but this guy's going to go into the NBA draft? It's one thing when bigs do it. It's one thing

when it's Moses Malone and Kevin Garnett, but Kobe Bryant? Come on, who's this guy doing his high school gym announcement with the sunglasses on? He's going to the prom with Brandy. Boys, the men show up to the high school announcement. ESPN, Washington Post, New York Times are all there. And because it was new and because it was something we hadn't accepted, even though Garnett had done it the year before, because Kobe was a perimeter player doing it, none of us thought it would work. It just wasn't right. And that's off of none of us being able to watch any of his games, because even though the internet technically existed, it wasn't like you were downloading any second spectrum or synergy videos of Kobe. It was all word of mouth and it was all reading different things.

So I was going back last night and then again this morning, going back and reading all of this stuff. And when Kobe first came back to the States, middle of eighth grade for him, and then he enrolls in Lower Marion High School, PA. So he's back. He's the youngest of three. His father, as you know, Jelly Bean Brian, All-American LaSalle, played in the pros, then went to Italy and played for like another eight years. So Kobe comes back, fluent Italian, and then he enrolls in school. And I was going back and reading some of the preview stuff from the Inquirer going all the way back to Kobe's freshman year. And it said in the preview of the Central League, Lower Merion's best player, a guy named Gary Kelly, was offset by the arrival of a talented young prospect. And here's the actual quote. Kelly is playing at a junior

college, again, this is Gary Kelly, in Maryland, but the Aces appear to have come up with another blossoming marquee player in Kobe Bryant, son of Joe Jellybean Bryant, the former LaSalle All-American. It talked about his range and his passion for the game. And then he scored 18 a game as a freshman in the varsity. His sophomore year, he's 22 and 10. His junior season, he led the Aces to its first Central League championship in 20 years. He had 42 points in the game. They lost in the state tournament though. His senior year, he averaged 31 points, 12 boards, seven assists, four blocks, four steals a game, and then won the state class for a title as a senior. But then it was, wait a minute, I might go pro. And there were rumors about where he was going to go. I remember when I lived in Trenton, Princeton, that area, and that's

all Philly. That's not the New York version of Jersey. That's a Philly area of Jersey. And Kobe was a legend six years later. That was 02. And there were guys there like, oh no, he's going to go to LaSalle. I don't think he was going to go to LaSalle, man. And I was going through some of the reaction. A lot of the reaction was much like me as a 20-year-old uninformed guy. I may be uninformed now at 44, but this is what I do for a living. I was just a 20-year-old who'd read a Sports Illustrated article that'd be sitting there with my buddies going,

wow, this Kobe, this isn't going to work. Who's this, the perimeter player? Like, come on. And here was a quote from John Jennings, who was the Celtics' then director of basketball development.

His quote, I think it's a total mistake. Kevin Garnett, who was the best high school player I ever saw, I wouldn't have advised him to jump to the NBA, and Kobe is no Kevin Garnett. That's true. Kobe isn't Kevin Garnett. Kobe's different. He's a different dude, and it was apparent pretty early on, even though not playing major minutes, you just saw something, and I've always talked about

this in evaluating players, right? Like body and movement and just smoothness versus choppy and robotic players uh guys that are just everything's like a thought out you can see like in the player's brain where they're thinking about where they're going to put theirrounded and then real. And when Kobe said, by the way, the quote was taking my talents to the NBA, little shout out or precursor to LeBron's decision in Miami. Um,

Iverson who was in that 96 draft, apparently Kobe would work out. John Lucas would have him work out. Lucas was working for the Sixers at the time. And Lucas, I guess said, and I don't know if this is retroactive or not, he was like, I would have taken Kobe, number one. There's no way any Philly fans at that time would have been happy if they had taken a kid, even their own guy, out of a PA high school, number one instead

of Allen Iverson. But this is also part of it because it got into, well, Kobe doesn't need the money. He likes school. He's a good student. Why wouldn't he go to school for a little bit? And it's like, no, I'm going to go to the NBA. And what we didn't realize at that time with Kobe was like, no, this is the preview to who this guy is going to be for 20 years in the league. He's not going to be somebody that you can tell what to do. And he's probably going to prove you wrong every time you tell him he can't do something. And in 96, when Iverson did a 10-year, $50 million deal with Reebok, which has since changed over a bunch of different times, Kobe did a six-year deal that was worth up to $48 million with Adidas.

And we all remember those early Kobe Adidas. Then, of course, he went over to Nike later on. And I thought, as I was looking up the Kobe-Iverson stuff, I thought there was actually more of a correlation between the two than maybe you would think on the service. And that is, if you think of Iverson, Iverson is revered not because of his game. And I think statistically, Iverson, if you look back and historically, it doesn't hold up as well. And that's not entirely fair either. Iverson was just different. He was tough. He was real. He was from the streets. He wasn't corporate. He wasn't going to conform to the way you needed to conform. His marketability was his anti-marketability, right?

But he was, as the kids say, a real one. He was somebody who was like, no, look, that's exactly who you're getting. And if there's one thing you know about me, one of the things that I'll always get in trouble with is someone will say, well, no, you're just dumping on this guy because of this. You're dumping on this guy for this. And there'll be these different reasons. And honestly, all the accusations are always wrong. The number one thing I'm offended by is somebody who's full of shit. That's the number one thing that bothers me. Maybe it should be something else, right? I mean, we can sit here and rank the offenses that someone could have for you to be offended. But what I'm telling you is that just in all of the interactions of all

the people I've ever met that are far more famous than any of us will ever be, but the guys that I think are just totally full of it, that's like an automatic turnoff. Iverson was not that guy. And Kobe was also as real as it gets, but in an entirely different way. Kobe looked good at the corporate event, but underneath that great tuxedo and great fit, he wanted to crush you. And every single person knew that. And I think that is why the next generation that says, hey, Kobe was our MJ, it makes a lot of sense. I was reading John Hollinger, who worked at ESPN with me for a long time. He's now with The Athletic. He spent a bunch of years with the Memphis Grizzlies. And he was talking about in 2013, the first time they would sit down all of these players and they would do these draft interviews, right? The pre-draft interviews. And they would talk about, hey, who was the guy that you wanted to model your game after? And all the players, he was like foreign, local, guards, forward centers, they'd all say Kobe. So Kobe, and this isn't about a Kobe LeBron debate, but it's just that it's hard to be this famous for this long and to be the focal point, a face of the league, and also kind of keep it real. And that's what I think was always one of the main attractions beyond the points, beyond the All-Star Games, beyond the championships for Kobe, is that he felt more real than the rest of these guys. A lot like Iverson, but in completely different ways. One of the things that I've always loved about Kobe

is that when he said, this is about winning and I want to take you out, I believed it. There are so many players that I think don't really care about that stuff. I think as a young player, and I'm not even saying it's necessarily wrong, but you come in, you want your number so you can get the second contract. And then about year six or seven, when you're a pretty good player, but everybody's telling you you're a loser,

then you maybe start worrying about winning a little bit later. Kobe did almost the opposite. When he said he wanted to win, there was no doubt. There was no doubt. And he was the one, and I went back and read all the Shaq stuff from 2004, 2005. I was reading some of the last season excerpts from Phil Jackson's book. And Kobe was doing, I don't need more guys here. He wanted less guys around him. I mean, he and Shaq hated each other, okay? They did. And it was a constant daily drama.

And yet Kobe's like, I don't want to play with him anymore. I don't need more guys here. I don't want to play with him. And he still thought he was going to be able to win without him. And look, once the rosters came around, he ended up winning two more rings. For all the young players that say, oh, I'm about working out. I'm about this. I want to do it the right way. I want to do it all these different ways. I would imagine almost none of them. I shouldn't say none, a majority of them don't even understand what it takes to be the guy that Kobe was. And one of my favorite Kobe stories was from that Phil Jackson book. And this is weird because I was prepping for this and I was sitting outside a restaurant because I was early. I had a dinner

in Venice last night and people were just bummed out, walking around Los Angeles, which makes sense. But I'm sitting there and I'm reading these book excerpts and something that I've always thought about, and I have mentioned this a few times before, is like Phil was so frustrated with Kobe. He was so frustrated with him. And he's like, look, you have to understand that your 10, look, you have to understand that your 10, your physical exertion, your work ethic, your 10 is make-believe to everybody else on this team. They believe they're going at level 10 and you look at them as they're going at level seven. And that's actually what makes you special. So instead of walking around here frustrated every day that nobody else wants this as much as you do, understand that part of your greatness is that you have that 10. Like your 10 is this unobtainable thing to everybody else. So once you accept that your

10 is not theirs, that your 10 doesn't exist in their world, you might be a little easier to deal with. And I thought it was really smart from Phil, but it's also so revealing about Kobe. And it kind of gets back to draft night. The kid gets picked. Hey, I'm about winning championships. I'm going to work hard. I'm going to post stuff on IG. I'm going to get my right fit coming through the tunnel and all this different stuff. And look, it's not like Kobe didn't like being famous. And it's almost impossible to think of him anywhere other than Los Angeles. The same way it seems like it'd be impossible for Magic to not be a Laker, Bird to not be a Celtic, Hell Jeter to not be a Yankee. Kobe had to be a Laker. And when I was watching his last game against Utah, and I was thinking, this guy

goes for 60 on a night. And I'll never forget this too. The next day I was at ESPN, you went 22 of 50, six of 21 from three, 60 points, and then just stupid, stupid TV topics. But was it efficient? And I'm like, look, I'm not even a Laker fan. I've never been accused of being a Kobe fan, but that wasn't for us. That was for everyone that was in the Staples Center. That was for this entire city. That was for all those Kobe fans that go crazy. And trust me, arguably the most hostile fan base, more so than any college football team or any other team associated fan base I can think of, the Kobe fans are at a different level, but that was for all of them. And in a fitting way, I don't want to hear about efficiency

when Kobe, who had barely played over 30 minutes a game in that last month, he had sat out, I think, like five games. And when they were down one to Utah and the shot that made it 97-96, so it's his 57th and 58th point, Kobe gets a high screen, goes off to his right side, and then hits a long two. Like there was a screen to the left. He brought it back to the right, hits a long two to hit the go-ahead bucket. 58 points. Shaq has a look on his face

when you go back and watch that game. And I encourage you to go back and check it out. Tirico and Hubie are on the call. And the whole building is just like this guy. This guy. Like Shaq's got to look on his face with like jealousy, admiration, joy. I mean, hell, Kanye even looked just like a normal guy. He's just in the Pablo sweatshirt, high-fiving people all over the place. Like that's how long

ago it was. Kanye was normal. And then I started thinking a little bit more because I was getting sad again. I was just just like this isn't right. How we all deal with loss is different. I'm never going to sit here, like I said, at the top and pretend like I had some sort of personal connection to him. But I do think for those that are so sad about this and people that don't understand their sadness, it's like, no, you're missing the bigger point. Even though Kobe didn't know you, you would have invested so much time and so much emotion into Kobe that you knew it was a one-way street relationship. Of course it was. It wouldn't be realistic to all these people that loved the guy that he was going to know any of you. But I never quite know what's right or what the rules are supposed to be when you're sharing that sadness with everybody. Because then you go

on social media and you're like, is this all the right way to do it? What's fair? The off the court stuff, is it right to bring it up? And I've just never felt like despite reading everything I could get my hands on back when it all happened, I just never felt comfortable to know the answer one way or the other. So I'll leave that up to other people. But the other part of it turns into, hey, hug your kid and do all these things. And maybe that feels like, well, why did any tragedy remind me to hug a loved one? But I actually do think that that's one of those things where you go, just because something bad happened motivated you to do something good, it doesn't mean that it's wrong to do the good thing. So if your day was a little different because of the Kobe thing, how you handle it is how you handle it. If your day was a little different because of the Kobe thing,

how you handle it is how you handle it. And how I handled it on the podcast today is that I just wanted to talk about him and his story as a basketball player. And it sucks he's gone. Okay, before we get to Mike Tirico, it all comes down to this. Super Bowl 54. Who's going to be hoisting the trophy and spraying champagne when it's all said and done? I will have my Super Bowl pick with Kansas City and San Francisco

and Chris Long as well. Normally that's the Monday pod, as we said, but we're going to make our picks on Wednesday. Their season will end on a winning note. You can too. This is your last chance to play fantasy football until next season with DraftKings, the official daily fantasy partner of the NFL.

Draft your single game showdown, line up, and feel the sweat like never before. It's simple. Just draft six players from Super Bowl 54. Stay under the salary cap and see how your team stacks up against the competition. Plus, new users who sign up today on DraftKings use the code RUSSILLO, R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O

will receive a free shot at the $1 million top prize. Nothing adds to the sweat of watching the game quite like having a free shot at a $1 million payday. Get in on Super Bowl 54 action by downloading the DraftKings app now and enter the code RASILLO during sign-up for a limited time. All new

users will get a free shot at $1 million with your first deposit. That's code RASILLO and get a free shot at $1 million with your first deposit only at DraftKUCCILLO and get a free shot at $1 million with your first deposit only at DraftKings. Minimum $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See DraftKings.com for details.

Mike Tirico, NBC Sports. Mike, as I said at the top, I went back and watched that game from April 2016, Kobe's last game, you and Hubie on the call. It was just one of those moments where it was just so perfect and watching it again. And give me your sense that, you know, it's, it's the end here.

He hadn't played as much. And then he goes for 40 minutes, takes all these shots. Like, give me the sense of what you thought was going to happen that night in the building. Cause he got off to a really slow start too. Yeah. And I'm like, it can't go this. It can't go out like this, even though I'd never grew up a Lakers fan. Exactly. So, so let me, let me do a couple of things. I'll go back here for

in a minute, but first just to, uh, just to be honest with folks as, um, it got mentioned a few times that obviously the news hits on Sunday and you're just kind of stunned. And then, um, you know, just given what the job is for me at the moment, I get called by NBC News and I end up contributing to their coverage as the afternoon goes on and then the evening and the next morning. And somewhere in between we discuss, you know, I called Kobe's last game and I remember this, that. Then I said, well, let me go back and watch just a few minutes of it.

It is one of the few things, Ryan, that I've been involved with that if it airs on ESPN Classic or on NBA TV or NFL Network when they rerun old NFL games, it's one of the few games that I actually do stop and stay for a little bit because it was such a unique night. And the cool part of it was for me with everything else, my partner, Hubie Brown, who I worked 10 years with, that was the last season we worked together. And I love that man. I adore him. He's the second phone call I made after I got a chance to call

people about Kobe's passing. Um, Hubie's enthusiasm as the game goes on is so real and it's so natural. And I just like, it is the coolest thing. Here's a guy in his early eighties at that point, it was a hall of famer who's seen everything and he is just into every shot. It's just like, it's just precious. It really, really, really was for me. Let's go back here. This is a really bad team, right? But they won like 16 or 17 games in that season. This is a terrible team.

So the whole victory tour is going on. The farewell tour, not a victory tour. And he plays a couple of nights before in Oklahoma City and plays, I think, something like 19 minutes or 20 minutes, something like that. Yeah, 19 minutes. God, you're good. 18-57.

Okay, okay. And the shooting percentage was not very good but it was 412 okay okay so the three games before that the shooting percentage was really really bad and i don't have them in front of me because i'm i have them all here i mean one for 11 one for 7 11 to 11 to 28, two for 12, six to 19. I mean, just on and on. I looked last night. I keep this stack of plastic boxes with my charts in them from games. And I don't think I go back in there but once a year. And I don't know why I keep stacking them, but I do.

And I've got games that go back to when I was in college that I called it 1987 and 88. It's just ridiculous, right? And, you know, at some point I'll throw them out or my kids are going to be like, my dad was a pack rat. What am I doing? So last night I went digging for the Kobe one and Ryan, it's the only game that I kept the game program. I found this glittery game program

that the Lakers put out that night. That is just awesome. And I have inside of it, I opened it up. It has the final box score unmarked. It has my chart from the game, our notes from the pregame conversation with Kobe, the script for the tease and the retease in the game, which I never keep, never keep those things. And my press credential, all in the middle of this thing, I looked at it last night, Sunday night at like 1 a.m. as I was packing for a road trip, like, are you kidding me? I kept all this stuff, so I just kind of opened it up

and just looked at some of the notes that we took. And I looked at one of the notes, and it had like Kobe shooting the prior three games before that Oklahoma City game. That was like, you know, 12 for 50, somewhere in that neighborhood. So I give you all that context and thank goodness for podcasts. I can just babble here.

I give you all that context to say there is not one fiber of anyone except probably for Kobe that thought that he could go for 40 or 30 points or 40 or 50, let alone go for 60. When we walked in that building, there was no chance that it was going to be that kind of night. Not at all. As it was happening. And I remember, you know, being I'm in West Hartford, I'm in the basement and I was just like, no way. Like he's, he's can't, and he's either had a decent night against Houston two games prior,

but they had played Utah and lost by 48 a couple of weeks prior to that. Um, what was it like in the building? Cause again, you know, the, the, the whole point of that is I remember I look, I went to Yazday and it didn't matter what he did. It just, I got to be in the stands at the end of 1983. What was the building like? Yeah. So you've been to Staples a lot, and you've been to Staples for big moments and big nights. And I was lucky enough to do some finals there as a host of a TV broadcast and the radio stuff. And Staples just has like a different vibe.

You know, the lights are going back and forth out front. There's a big banner. And, um, yeah, as I thumb back through my phone, looking for the picture that I knew was there of me, Hubie Brown,

Lisa Salters, who was our reporter that night, you know, awesome reporter and Kobe. Uh, cause we did a pregame meeting with him as opposed to like that normal head coach meeting. We got the Kobe for like 15 minutes, which was so cool. Um, there was, uh, there were some other pictures I found and one of them was this huge banner. And when you,

when we were doing Laker games, we were staying right down there at LA live. So you walk to the building, it's a block walk. And on the walk to the building, I stopped and took a picture of the outside. And it just this big wrap around the side of staples that just said, thank you, Kobe. And it was that kind of night. Everybody was coming to see it for the final time. And, you know, maybe it was good that they were bad because like you knew it was the end. It wasn't going to be this is going to end at the end of a playoff series where you've got to take care of the other team for moving on in the series and it'll you know be yeah they're trying hard can they get kobe and it was just you knew you were there for one thing and one thing only uh byron scott was the coach so you knew he

would orchestrate it properly because he had a player's and an L.A. sense of the moment, how to let it play out. Also that night, Ryan, which people forget, might forget, you know, that was Golden State going for 73-2. You know, so one of those games is on ESPN, and

we're on ESPN2 or vice versa, or something like that. I don't know what the deal was, but it was such a big NBA night, and we didn't even know that we were going to do the game until a week before. There was still a question if we were going to do that game. So we do, and you're in the building,

and then you see, oh, who's going to be there? Well, Shaq's going to be there. And Magic is going to talk to the crowd before the game. Then Kobe's going to be introduced last by Lawrence Tantor. And Lawrence is going to play up for the final five-time NBA champion, the whole great Lawrence Tantor. His voice alone just gives you a chill.

Just thinking about it, listening to him say the Lakers, Laker girls. You've got all this going on. Obviously, Nicholson's there. Denzel is there. And Snoop is there. And it's just, there are people everywhere you look. It was like big names were B-level folks. And it felt like a finals game,

except there was like a 17-18 win team coming out in the Laker uniform. 17, 18 win team coming out in the, in the Laker uniform. So it had all the feel of a special LA sporting event. And the way the Lakers do special and the way Kobe did special, it had that energy to it. And you hit it right on the head from the basement of West Hartford to sitting in the best seat in the building and mid court and staples like

Kobe opens, you know, all for four, one for5, whatever it was. It was like, oh man, this is going to be a clunker. We'll just reminisce and celebrate the great moments. It'll be a good time. And then he hits one, and then he hits another. There's a high volume of shots going up.

I don't know at what point, but there's a point towards the second quarter where you're like, oh, okay, this could be a fun night if he's got enough gas in the tank. Never did he even start thinking at that point it was going to be insane. Of all the guys, and you've gotten to talk to basically all of them at this point, what stood out the most about sit-downs with a guy like Kobe? You know, I'm going to start with something that's a little out of the pattern of the

answers that have been given in the last day or so. And I'm going to start with his intelligence. Whenever I get asked by people, okay, who are the guys you like to interview the most? And I say, this is really going to be a boring answer to you, but it was Kobe and Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in the sports I was covering. And they're like, why? Because they're really freaking smart. They're really football brilliant and understand. I've sat in meetings.

I've sat in Monday night football meetings with Peyton Manning, and he'd be making a point to Gruden about XO. He'd be making a point to me, like, Mike, you should prepare for this guy because we haven't seen him much. He's going to play a bunch. I think he could really be something, but you haven't seen him, so you're going to see him in the game. And then look at the sideline reporter.

There's a really good story on so-and-so, Lisa or Susie, whoever was the reporter that night. You should kind of look into that. He just like commanded the room with his brilliance. You should kind of look into that. He just commanded the room with his brilliance. And Kobe did, too, with this intensity and this edge and this just smarts that I may not be able to do everything, but I know everything that's going on. it when being asked yesterday. Ryan, it just never dawned on me to think how brilliant he has

been and is for a guy who never spent one day on a college campus. I know he was overseas with his dad. I know he's learned how to speak Italian. I know he was kind of raised to be prepared for it all. But man, Kobe had a smarts about him

and a wisdom about him. And it manifests itself on the basketball floor, not just in business and acumen and becoming a celebrity and a star and managing all the ups and downs of a career, but it also would manifest itself in the basketball genius that, you know, when you see the picture of he and, um, and his daughter Gianna in Brooklyn, uh, a few weeks back watching a basketball game in the front row, you see Kobe kind of with his hand and kind of talking about, you think it's basketball? You, in your mind, want to think it's basketball?

And it's just how to see the game. And, man, he brought that to every conversation that you would have with him. Global understanding of the game, of the celebrity part, of the athlete part. He got it all. And to your point on that last game, that night when we did that meeting, he had a great soft spot as every star that I've been around has for Hubie and would tell Hubie anything. When we were talking to him, he didn't think he was going to play a heck of a lot. star that I've been around has for Hubie and would tell Hubie anything, you know, um,

when we were talking to him, he didn't think he was going to play a heck of a lot. No, I hope, I hope we got eight, 10 minutes, whatever it's going to be in, you know,

per half. And, uh, you know, he kind of go out the right way in no way, in no way. Did we walk out of that Lakers side room next to the dressing room after beating Toby and for the life of me think he was going to take 30 shots,

let alone take 50 shots in the game. Not for one second. Did we ever think that? And you know, I made a point at the top cause I remember going into work the next day and it was people are programming their shows and you go, okay, you know, 60 points, but should he have taken 50 shots? I go, you know, for all the stuff we do and you go, okay, you know, 60 points, but should he have taken 50 shots? I go, you know, for all the stuff we do in this business, okay. For all of the stuff that we do. And I get it. Okay. I get what we're all trying to do here, but if there's ever a day

to just pass on that being a segment, like today's the day. Okay. And that wasn't like to be on a debate desk, to be on a debate desk, to be a guy who has a microphone in front of his face the morning after he goes for 60 in that setup and to say, like, well, yeah, but, you know, it's classic Kobe, you know, couldn't pass and all this stuff, and you just go, that wasn't for us.

That was for everyone in that building. It was for all of these fans. It's for the Kobe fans that are different than even Lakers fans at times. Like, that was for them. That was for Kobe. That was a celebration of him. Who cares? Like you said, they won 17 games that year. 17, you're right.

It was just a classic example of the business of people can't help themselves in that you'd go, hey, well, I can go the other way on that. I'll say he was a little ISO heavy in that game, and you'd go, who cares? You and I have talked about this

when I was doing the radio show with a group of people and then with SVP and then you slid in there and were just crushing it with Scott. One of the reasons I got out of talk radio and I like the medium a lot. I love sports conversation.

I could not fire up a hot take on something. I didn't have a hot take about, I, I, I, I could not come at you with big guns blazing in July about the Yankee bullpen. I just couldn't, you know, cause, cause you just seen the arc of so many sports that went for me when I've covered individual games, play by play. And you have two, three days to immerse yourself, you step back in the studio and you're like,

my gosh, I don't know anything. You know, sometimes those observations are good because you've got that buffer in between. This is one of those that like, okay, you can look at the shot number. That has been a historic place to lean with Kobe. But when I was looking back at my, uh, my chart from the night, I laughed at some of the other guys who were on that team. D'Angelo Russell and Jordan Clarkson were starting Hibbert started. The bench was priceless. You could have held me at penalty

of freedom and asked me to say, Ryan Kelly, did Ryan Kelly play in Kobe's last game or did someone named Ryan Kelly deliver me room service that morning? And I could not have answered the question. I couldn't, no chance, no chance. Not, not that Ryan Kelly,

like another guy named Ryan Kelly who may have been serving room service somewhere, you know, I would not have remembered that. So, and this was part of Kobe's thinking over his career. Is it better that I take a shot, a contested shot, or that I pass it to that guy and he takes the shot?

Sometimes that was his flaw. Sometimes that was his blessing. That night, it was a blessing for all of us. Like he said one year, he goes, I almost won the damn MVP with Sm with smoosh parker and kwame brown what was i supposed to do passes to kwame brown so um hey i i really appreciate this and i would urge anybody go back to youtube watch this broadcast there's a long version there's a short version and uh if you're missing kobe today which i'm sure a lot of you are and maybe i'm not

going to say put a smile on your face, but maybe help you process it all a little bit more. Can I add one thing about the game, Ryan? Absolutely. Absolutely, please. That is my favorite part of the game. So Kobe hits a jumper from the right elbow off a screen to put the Lakers up. Ken Dennis was our director that night. He and Ed Feibeshoff were a producer and director that Hubie and I worked

with. They were awesome. Awesome. That night. Great. Like the camera cuts are just next level. Great. Okay.

So then Kobe gets fouled. He comes to the line. He's eventually going to go out a couple of possessions later. He hits the first one for 59. He's at the line the second time. And you've got to watch on the free throw line closest to Kobe back to the camera is Gordon Hayward. Gordon Hayward steps into the lane as Kobe's about to shoot that last free throw for 60 in case he missed it to give him another shot for 60. like the most unique example I could give to people of the fraternity of the NBA and the reverence for greatness in the NBA is at a different level than

any of the other sports that we watch or cover. It was like Gordon Hayward, his team losing in this game, they blew a lead, blah, blah, blah, blah.

He had the complete wherewithal at 59 to just put a foot in the lane and look over at the ref just in case Kobe missed it to make sure he got another shot at 60. That is just one of those things that nobody ever remembers that very few people see. But every time I see Gordon Hayward, I think of that. I'm like, you know what, dude? You get it. You get it. You get it at a level that other people don't.

And I'm a fan of yours for life for that. That's why you're unbelievable, because you needed to add that. I knew as soon as you said, hey, can I add one more thing? I'd never heard that story, and that's going to make the rounds now. That'll make the rounds because of this podcast, and you tell it, and I'm sure somebody's going to ask Hayward about it. I hope so. I've never talked to Gordon about it. I've never been around him to ask that, but you watch.

You go, I've seen it. My eyes are drawn to that every single time. That's Mike Tirico, and I just got word here that ESPN is going to be airing your broadcast of Kobe's last game with Hubie. That's going to be 6 Pacific, 9 Eastern for those that get this podcast. So Kobe's last game, and Mike was on the call. Mike, you're a friend. I always appreciate your time, and I can't wait to catch up with you soon.

All right? Thank you. Same here. Can't wait to share a meal. Nobody happier that you're a friend. I always appreciate your time, and I can't wait to catch up with you soon. All right? Thank you. Same here. Can't wait to share a meal. Nobody happier that you're crushing it than me. You're one of the best. Talk to you soon, buddy. Okay, we're going to check in with Bobby Marks here in a second. Bank United, though, wants to go for more.

They want you to go for more by entering for a chance to win $54,000 if a team goes for and completes a two-point conversion during the big game on February 2nd. All you have to do is follow at Bank United on Twitter and tweet at Bank United your answer to what you would do with $54,000 using the hashtag GoForMore54. Everyone has a chance to win. The more tweets you send, the more chances you have of winning. And if a team completes a two-point conversion, you could win. Again, follow Bank United on Twitter and tweet at Bank United your answer to what you would do with $54,000 using the code hashtag GoForMore54. There is only one prize, so many may enter, but only one will win. Must be at least 18 years of age to enter. For official rules, visit www.goformore.com.

That's goformore and the number 54.com. Bank United, NA member, FDIC, neither Twitter nor the NFL entities have offered, administered, endorsed, or sponsored this sweepstakes in any way. Bobby Marks, long time in the front office now with ESPN who is a guy that you go to like what does this trade mean what does the cap mean and he knows this stuff really well and uh he joins us now so Bobby let's start with because you had a thread this morning on Twitter talking about going to scout Kobe for the first time and the uniqueness of it which is kind of where I started the whole story like this is a perimeter guy but quick, how did you get this start?

How are you a year out of college? And now all of a sudden they're, they're sending you down to scout Kobe Bryant for the nets. Yeah. I think, I think what people forget, Ryan, is that in the nineties, the staffs of basketball operations are not, you know, 50, 50 deep right now. Right. I mean, we had a, we had a secretary, we had a head coach, we had two assistant coaches and we had three scouts. That's it. And for me, I was, you know, 22 a year out,

just had done my internship and I'm working for the legend, Willis Reed, who's the GM at the time. And we, you know, we, we didn't really even know much about Kobe. We, we, we, we, we paid a subscription to a scouting service and we kept on seeing this name pop up as high school kids. And I remember it was like March and I said, the will says, Hey, there's this kid in Pennsylvania. We should go look at it because we were having a terrible year. You know, we were, I think we had a seventh or eighth, you know, picking the draft and he said, all right, fine. You know, it cost you a hundred bucks.

I jumped on Amtrak and took the train down 30th Street and jumped in a taxi. And I think they were at Drexel or LaSalle. I'm not sure what college or, but you walked in there and it was like 8,000 people in this gym, you know, high school tournament. And you just saw this kid there. He wasn't even a kid. I mean, he was 17, but I mean, he was a man amongst boys, you know, a lot of these 19 year olds that are coming in, you know, the Terrence Ferguson's of the world who are high school,

but maybe played a year overseas, you know, they're these skinny kids. He was not a, he was not a, a, the typical high school skinny kid and you could just tell right there. I mean, you could tell right there that, that he was going to be special. And, um, you know, he, he certainly, mean, you could tell right there that he was going to be special. And, you know, he certainly, you know, he certainly lived up to that expectation. So that year, you're watching him. And I just, again, this is, as I talked at the top, you know, I'm just a college kid who's obsessed with the NBA. And my first instinct was even, okay, well well Kevin Garnett did it but who's Kobe like who's this guy's guard like give me a break um was Willis Reed perhaps like okay you can go

check him out and then you want to come back and talk about how special this guy is and I still kind of wonder like your scouting eye isn't fully developed Was it kind of the same thing in NBA front offices where even though it was so in front of you, there's still just hesitation because it hadn't been done? Oh, yeah. I mean, and you also have to remember, like, you know, I played college football, right? I didn't have a basketball degree like all these other guys. And for me to go into Willis's office, and we didn't even have a scouting database, right? Everything we did was on, like, a cardboard piece of paper with, like, lines, and we kept it in a file based on alphabetical order. And, you know, like, who am I to say, like, who this Kobe Bryant guy to a Hall of Fame guy like Willis Reed?

But I remember, and it wasn't like we had, you know, like, this ain't it. We had cell phones and social media. It's like you took your notes, and you went into his office the next morning and you basically just had a conversation with him about Kobe. And the unfortunate part was that Willis wasn't there. Well, he was still part of the organization, but you have to remember that John Calipari came on a board in May of 96. And that was Cal's draft.

And you're right. I mean, you had Garnett before, but this was kind of the first time that you actually had a wing coming out of high school that how do you kind of trust your eyes on that? And that's probably why we got in a little bit of trouble when, you know, we picked Kerry Kittles, who was certainly a good player, but he was certainly not Kobe. But Ryan, I've said all along the draft workouts that Kobe came in and did. And at the time, practice facilities really didn't exist.

We were sharing a gym at Fairleigh Dickinson TNEC with the volleyball team. So you were basically carving out gym time and we brought Kobe in three times. And I said in my tweet, like, I think it was illegal. I don't think, I don't think you were allowed to do that, but we just had a fascination with him, especially Cal, you know, this is a guy coming out of UMass. It's just gone to a final four. He could relate to him because he's, this was the type of kid he recruited. And we brought him in and he, it was just like, wow. Right. The wow. What was it? Just let me get more on that. Like, what was it that you saw him like just beating up on people bigger than him

or like, what was it? What I saw was, and you can, you can, you can do this now is that I saw him pick apart guys who were in the NBA. Like it was like, you know, like another day at the office. And back then you were allowed to have your own players on your roster worked out against draft prospects. As long as they were in the league, I think three years or less of service. We had Ed O'Bannon, right? Remember Ed O'Bannon, you know, college player of the year at UCLA, um, and Khalid Reeves who, you know, played at Arizona, good, good, young shooting guard. They were the workout. Yeah. We had another draft prospect in there. I'm not sure who was, but it was basically a two on two workout and Kobe took them, took them apart. I mean, literally took them apart, a shot making the ability to get to the rim

defense, you know, to be able to kind of lock it up. Um, and we did that two out of three times, I think the third time by then, you know, aren't telling him who his agent was like, Whoa, wait a minute. If you're bringing him a third time, he's just going to go against air. And we were fine with that, but just the ability to kind of put them in a gym with these grown men, you know, these 21, 22 year old.olds. And Ed, I think, was in college for four years. He'd come off a national championship. But he was so effortless as far as how he kind of conducted himself. And you don't see that with many.

He was still 17 at the time when he got drafted. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, I think I looked it up as I was going through all this stuff. Second youngest player to ever enter the NBA by the time he did it. That draft, Iverson goes one, Camby goes two. I was reading John Lucas quotes who had worked out Kobe because he was with Philly at the time, but then I think ended up not being with Philly by the time they drafted. So I hope I'm not getting that wrong because I was sifting through all these archives. And Lucas was saying, well, I would have taken him number one.

I don't know if he said that after the fact. I don't know if he was saying it during the fact. Sharif Abdul-Rahim goes three, Stefan Marbury goes four. And remember Marbury going after just a one year at Georgia Tech, like that was kind of like, who's this? Like, what is he doing? Like just one year later, uh, Ray Allen goes fifth, Twan goes six, Lorenzen Wright goes seven, Kerry Kittles to you guys at eight. fifth twan goes six lorenzen right goes seven carrie kittles to you guys at eight so you sound like you were sold i imagine it was hard for you to convince anybody with your background being so new being a year out of college how cool you went to that high school showcase and he was awesome it sounds like you were sold as you've told the story you've told the same so i don't think this is any revisionist history for everybody that's so cynical including me at times so what was the

problem had you heard there was any chance he was going to go in front of you? Was this all rigged ahead of time that if he was going to go, it was only going to happen in LA? Because I know agents played, especially back then, a massive role influencing teams to basically do stuff they didn't even want to do because they were just afraid to cross these guys. Well, I mean, before I get to that, a real quick funny story is be back then I was doing so many other things besides picking up guys. I mean, I think I was doing about 20 different things and I was also doing the travel. And I remember booking Kobe's travel to go back to LA and putting them in a middle seat and coach. And I got my introduction to agent 101 by Arntel. Basically this, this is their prodigy, their gold child. This is not how you

handle guys when you travel. So from then I learned, hey, never put a draft prospect in middle of the door and coach. It is always first class from there. But the process, Ryan, was that Cal was staying at the Radisson Inn off of Route 3 in Seacock when he got hired. He was there for about a month. He was bunkered up. There was a suite on the top level, and that's basically where he conducted business. And if you remember the draft that year, it was at the Meadowlands. So everything was in our backyard.

And the night before the draft, and you're right, I saw him. I had my own opinion. But who am I? I'm a 22-year-old kid, one year out of college. We've got Cal Perry. We've got John Nash. He's been around the league forever down in Washington. We had a lot of veterans on our group.

Dave Babcock, who's been around the league, was there. And Cal and John Nash. And they'll probably disagree with each other on what happened, but they met with Kobe's parents in Arntellum, and it was mandated that we are not to draft Kobe. Basically, let's see if New Jersey will call their bluff as far as he will not report there. He will go to Italy.

He will play overseas. And for a guy who is 34 years old and John Calipari, an NBA job, this is not the pick you were going to whiff on. And we wound up going the safe bet, which was Kerry Kittles, as I said, had a nice career. But the funny thing was that it wasn't like the team after us picked him. I mean, he still had to get to, I think, where did he go? 13 to Charlotte.

Yeah, it was Samaki Walker. Yeah, Dampier, Todd Fuller, I mean, Vitale. Yeah, we got scared by, and Arntel, you know, was down in Detroit. And, you know, eventually Rob Plinkett wound up having him, having Kobe, you know, full-time. But, you know, we got basically scared by Arnt as far as the demands there that, hey, this could be a big, you know, screw-up if we draft him. And then we never see Kobe Bryant where maybe we could have had the safe pick and carry Kittles, and that was the decision that we made. And anybody that's going, you guys are ridiculous.

You have to remember what it was like to think in 1996. I mean, Kobe, out of high school in the 2000s, goes higher because people were more conditioned to it. This was not normal. And him going 13, it was like, oh, okay. And yet, you know, the Lakers still gave up a nice asset at the time to go ahead and grab this pick. And if you want to go back and read any of this stuff, like there's plenty of people

because it was new that had a hard time with it. Did you hear that other teams are being told the same thing? Or did you think that was a very specific anti-New Jersey thing? No, I think it was more anti-New Jersey. I think if he was picked by Philly at one, I don't think it would have been an issue there, but it was really targeted at us. And the funny thing, too, Ryan, is that you're talking about how

this is such a unique situation. The following year, we brought in Tracy McGrady for his workout. It was the year with Keith Van Horn, Tim Duncan, that draft class there. McGrady was good, but he wasn't Kobe good. Tracy's in the Hall of Fame.

Tracy had a hell of a career. He wasn't Kobe Bryant. The workouts are one thing thing I heard Tracy's interviews back then were some of the least impressive of any NBA draft prospect ever and not because of well he also played with I think he had a bad hamstring too I don't know if that was legit I don't think he wanted a piece of New Jersey uh New Jersey either so um but yeah you could just tell the difference between those two players because I would would hear Patino stories about TMAC after the fact,

where after Tracy was really clear he was going to be special, he was like, whatever. He was losing his mind all the time because he just wouldn't talk. He wouldn't talk. And it wasn't because it was only Shinus. It was only Shinus. It wasn't any other personality trait. Before we let you go here,

I know Hollinger had written about it a little bit, personality trait. Before we let you go here, I know Hollinger had written about it a little bit, and it's just worth repeating about what Kobe meant to a generation that's younger than us. We're close in age, and we think of the 80s, but then we think of MJ being not just the basketball player, but the cultural impact. I don't know that anybody's ever going to surpass what MJ did but Kobe is probably that next guy Iverson in a different way but how many times were you reminded or any stories that you have about like what other players thought of Kobe considering his standing in the game and just how special he was well I mean I think just I go back to the 0-1-0-2 year when we played them in the finals um and you know we had we had a nice team but I you know you could just tell um that he brought the fear in this group before we even got to game one that a team that was led by you know Jason Kidd

and Kenny Martin and Richard Jefferson that we had no chance and i think you know they'll i don't know if they'll ever admit it but i think they may maybe now based on the um you know on the legacy of uh of kobe bryan and um you know it's it's a shame because the young this young generation out there now that you know my son is 13 and 10 you know it's basically it's going back and watching old film on him and learning from him, from me and, um, and just how great he was, you know, you know, you remember watching Jordan back in the nineties and every time he, he shot the ball, you thought it was going in or at the end of the game. And I think you could say the same about Kobe.

Thanks for sharing those stories today, Bobby. I really appreciate it. I know, um, today was, was busy, but you have some of these great stories and you were there at the very beginning. So thanks as always. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. Last night, I'll tell you, I'm like, well, how do I want to do this? How are we going to put this together? I'm really sorry for those of you that are out there hurting today. And I hope this podcast helped in any way. I don't know if it did. I just wanted to try to do a good show today. Thanks a lot show today. Thanks a lot for listening.

Talk to you on Wednesday. Thank you.