What makes kobe bryant good

That hunger is what makes him great. Ball handling and dribbling are critical skills for any basketball player, and for point guards in particular. Dribbling with two balls is a great way to develop those skills, so here is a series of two-ball drills. Good form is the key to good shooting. Gold-medal winning USA Basketball coach Don Showalter lays out the most important things to remember when speaking to your team before a game. A solid set of footwork techniques helps ensure proper development and, eventually, is a building block for mastering other skills.

Forgot Password? Kevin Durant. PTS REB 5. AST 3. Jayson Tatum. REB 3. Damian Lillard. REB 2. Featured Articles. Retired General Martin E. A'ja Wilson. REB 7. FG PCT. Sue Bird. PTS 5. AST 5. Tina Charles. PTS 4. Jewell Loyd Is Eyeing the Olympics. Allisha Gray. REB 4. There is a reason why when we shoot, we yell, "Kobe! For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. Get the Insider App.

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It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Scott Davis. Kobe Bryant died in a helicopter crash on Sunday, leaving behind a legacy as an all-time great NBA player and sports icon. Bryant immediately won over many fans early in his NBA career by becoming a must-watch player on Los Angeles Lakers teams that dominated the league.

Bryant also gained notoriety for emulating Michael Jordan, often playing so similarly that many of their moves mirrored each other. Beyond his success on the court, Bryant was elevated to new heights with his "Black Mamba" persona and an almost mythological reputation as a hard worker and leader. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Get a daily selection of our top stories based on your reading preferences. Loading Something is loading. Email address.

Sign up for notifications from Insider! Their observations, presented here, reveal much of what made Kobe who he was, as we all grapple with his death, as well as that of his year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others in a helicopter crash near Los Angeles on Sunday.

People of my age, especially fans who grew up in Southern California, are a generation of Kobe believers. Magic Johnson exists, for me, in grainy images, a no-look pass here, a behind-the-back pass there. He was royalty, but I never lived through his prime.

I knew he had never struggled while transforming the Lakers into Showtime. He won a championship his rookie season. I revered Michael Jordan. His dominance coincided with my becoming a lifelong devotee to this game. But he played half a country away, and I had missed his trial-and-error period, the years he spent getting knocked down by Detroit.

We saw it all with Kobe. He arrived in Los Angeles in at the age of I was just entering middle school and was awestruck at how someone just a few years older than me could compete in an often brutal game with players routinely a decade older than him. A dozen teams had to pass on drafting Kobe—and a 13th team, the Charlotte Hornets , had to trade him—in order for him to wind up a Laker.

You can't tell me that the way it happened, with all those twists and turns that allowed for his passage to Los Angeles, was anything but fate, even if Kobe and his agent at the time, Arn Tellem, deftly maneuvered for it to happen. Some of those names are, after the way it panned out, laughable. It was a different NBA. If Magic made the league popular domestically and Jordan expanded it globally, Bryant ushered it into modernity. Scouting wasn't anywhere near what it is today.

Kobe was the son of an NBA player, Joe "Jellybean" Bryant, and as a high schooler, he often got buckets on members of the Philadelphia 76ers during open runs. But back then, guards just didn't make the leap from high school to the NBA. Practically no one did. Only a year earlier, Kevin Garnett had reopened the dormant floodgates. One could make a case for Garnett. His grades had been scrutinized. He was conscious that people would make money off his name had he gone to college, and he already stood damn near 7 feet tall.

He could've gone to the school of his choosing. He didn't make any college visits, even though his father was an assistant coach at La Salle at the time. He just wanted to prove that he could beat everyone's ass on the court, even at a precocious age. I don't think Kobe really listened to the Kevin Garnetts of the world or was necessarily watching stuff like that. He has such an unwavering confidence that I believe he would've done it regardless of what Garnett did.

Teams knew he would be special, even if they couldn't take a chance on waiting for him to be great. Phoenix drafted two slots behind the Hornets that year and landed Steve Nash. You were just going to have to wait for him to grow up. I mean, he just didn't want to stop competing, and in an hour workout, it was something to see. When he was done, he wanted to keep going.

I knew it would take time for Kobe to make a mark. The Lakers already had a capable 2-guard in Eddie Jones. Most of the excitement around the franchise that summer swelled around the Lakers' trade for Shaquille O'Neal from Orlando.

It felt like another era of Lakers dominance was upon us. Kobe didn't want to wait for his time. Still, he worked hard and never doubted. Bryant started earning those minutes as the season progressed. Of course, he was only 18 and On the airplane, he never had any particular fun—no cards, no video games. He was always looking at basketball things on his computer. In those days, we did not have the DVDs of games to take with us right after the game, no iPads, etc.