24:8

“So let the light guide your way, yeah
Hold every memory as you go
And every road you take, will always lead you home, home“
Wiz Khalifa Ft. Charlie Puth – See You Again

This post took a hell of a lot longer to surface than I had ever intended. I almost don’t even want to write it, but it’s time. It started as a small idea for my own thoughts. What was one turned into two, two into four, and then on and on. At the end of it, I had something much bigger in front of me than I could have guessed. In total, I think it ended up being upwards of 48 jerseys, along with other things put into it. I don’t regret a single second of time spent on it in the slightest. The photos are good, sure, but this looks much better in person. I might end up doing a video to try and show it off fully. Maybe I’ll even make it public for a while. We’ll see. I hope you enjoy it, Kobe fan or not. 24ever.

This is the kind of post I could have never anticipated sitting down to write. Even now, after some time has passed, I still can’t believe I am. I’m going to apologize now because once I really get rolling on this one, it’s going to be tough to stop. I guess it’s just a sign of how much this matters to me. If you know me at all, you know I am a huge Los Angeles Lakers fan, and more specifically a fan of Kobe Bryant. You also probably know that he, along with 8 others, including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, tragically died in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020. I didn’t want to believe it then, and I certainly don’t want to now, but it’s the truth. It’s just not the kind of thing you expect to happen, and while I didn’t know Kobe personally, I can’t help but feel like I did.

I think anytime that you root for a team or a player, you form a sort of bond with them. You may never meet them, never speak a word to them, but you feel like a part of what they or their team accomplish. You rise with them, you fall with them, you take the wins along with the losses. If you’re really a fan, you’re there in the good times and bad. Now, I’m not going to pretend the Lakers haven’t had a ton of bad times. Sure, they’ve had periods of less success, but at the same time, they have the second-most NBA championships in league history. It’s reasonably easy to be a fan of them. I found myself rooting for them as the Chicago Bulls were starting off their second Three-peat of the 1990s. In 1996, the Charlotte Hornets drafted Kobe Bean Bryant and then traded him to the Lakers for Vlade Divac. It would be the beginning of my twenty-plus years rooting for them.

I remember a lot of things even though I was only eleven years old at that time. I remember the airballs in Utah. I remember a kid in a league of grown men not caring that he missed, on to the next, fire away. Eventually, your shot falls. I remember the growing pains leading to their first championship in X years. It would be the start of their very own Three-peat from 2000-2002. Watching Kobe and Shaq was incredibly fun. The power of Shaq (which anyone who knows basketball knows was damn near unmatched) meshed with Kobe’s killer instinct to make for some amazing games.

I remember the team blowing through the entire Western Conference playoffs, literally never losing a game, 11-0. I remember the Finals as well. My brother was a big Philadelphia 76ers fan, and Allen Iverson was at his peak then. Everyone, myself included, thought that LA would come in and continue doing what they had done to the West. Win. They came close but ultimately fell short, losing 107-101 in overtime. It would be their lone defeat of the postseason, with 15-1 being the best postseason record in league history until the Warriors went 16-1 after the changes to the first round of the playoffs.

I remember Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals. It was Lakers-Kings, and at the time that was a vicious rivalry. Sacramento was a very talented team, but like the Jazz or Sonics at Michael Jordan’s peak, they found it hard to get past the Lakers. It was even more insane because they were the top seed that year, which meant Game 7 was in Sacramento’s building. I remember thinking the game was over as the Lakers trailed, but I still sat and watched. They would prevail in the end and go on to win their third championship in a row.

I remember the bad times too. I’m fair, and the accusations and things that were said to have happened in Colorado in 2003 most definitely hung over both Kobe’s career at the time and the Lakers as a whole. The 2004 team was built to win -now-. Not only did they have Shaq and Kobe, but they added two greats near the end of their careers. Karl Malone and Gary Payton. Both had accomplished amazing things throughout their careers, but one thing had eluded them: an NBA championship. Both had opportunities in the 90s, falling short each time to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Let’s be fair, too; a lot of great players did, so I would never judge many of the great players who happened to be in the way of the 90s Bulls.

I remember after falling short in 2004, the team had a choice to make. Keep Shaq and risk losing Kobe or move Shaq and keep Kobe. At the time, Shaq was still a dominant player, but he was older than Kobe. They chose to trade Shaq and build around their young gun. The team assembled around him from the 2004/05-2006/07 seasons was not particularly good. As the superstar of the team that fell at Kobe’s feet, and as far as I remember, he never shied away from it. In February of 2007, the team would trade for Pau Gasol, which would start a run of three straight NBA Finals appearances. They would go on to lose to the Boston Celtics in the 2008 Finals before winning back-to-back against the Orlando Magic in 2009 and the Boston Celtics in 2010.

I vividly remember watching Kobe drop 81 points against the Toronto Raptors in 2006. I actually have the game burned onto a DVD because it was the kind of thing you don’t see every day. Mostly because teams can normally lock down 1 player, and you usually don’t win games that way. It’s also the second-most points scored in an NBA game in league history, behind only Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points scored in 1962. It was and always will remain a sight to see, and I’m not sure it will ever happen again. You would think I’d have to look that up to know it, but I didn’t. I remember the game; I’ll never forget it. What’s even crazier is that on December 20, 2005, Kobe scored 62 points through three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks. He sat out the entire fourth quarter; I can only imagine he would have passed 81 in that game if he had played it. Through those three quarters, Dallas had scored 61 total points, and Kobe himself had 62. Think about that. It’s insane.

It’s a huge loss of life in general. It’s even sadder to think that it happened in the middle of what’s been a great season for the Lakers, with Kobe’s almost-assured first-ballot Hall of Fame induction in a matter of months. To think he won’t be able to see that or give that speech, to see the looks on his daughters’ and fans’ faces as that last great basketball honor is given to him, it just sucks. I know that, in the big scheme of things, this happens, and it’s never great. I just never thought I’d be writing about that. Not here, not now, maybe not ever. But life is cruel sometimes, and this is one of those.

It’s been a long day without you, my friend
And I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
We’ve come a long way from where we began
Oh, I’ll tell you all about it when I see you again
When I see you again
Wiz Khalifa Ft. Charlie Puth – See You Again