This article comes from WeChat public account: poison eyes (ID: youhaoxifilm), author | Jiang Yuqi, Wu Yinan

In June 2017, the US sports media “Sports Memorandum” listed a list of “25 most hated athletes in history” in history, including 6 NBA players, including various controversial news-ridden Rodman and others. And among all the selected NBA players, the top (14th) is Kobe Bryant, who has just retired for a year-“the hatred of Kobe is mainly due to his arrogance.”

At the same time, Kobe has never been absent in the “NBA Top 100 Players” and “NBA Top 50 Players” selected by ESPN, SLAM, etc. in these years, and is often ranked in the top five. Position-In front of him is Russell, Jordan and other old predecessors. He is the NBA history superstar from our time, from the post-90s and post-00s, or the majority of Chinese fans.

If you have gone through those years, you know that the two lists are not contradictory. Especially when you know how difficult it is to get on the NBA stage, and how many people on this stage are willing to splurge on their talents, it seems that you can understand Kobe’s “love” and “boring people” “Reason. As many fans have said in those years: “How much people hate Kobe, how great he is.”

But now, those controversies about Kobe will end with this accident.

Poisonous eyes always like to speak with data and logic, but today we do not intend to use numbers to tell everyone how amazing Kobe is, nor do we intend to tell what Kobe means to the NBA and the world basketball, just in the editorial department There is a Comit who has lived and studied in the United States, and a Kobe who has “hated” Kobe for more than a decade. We want to use a dialogue to talk about our memories of Kobe-

(Note: This is not a serious industry draft, just some of what we want to say to Kobe)

Komi: I did n’t know why I suddenly woke up at four in the morning. I opened my circle of friends habitually and found that someone was sending a series of question marks and opened a few screenshots. “Helicopter “,” Crash “,” Kobe “… these messages squeezed into my eyes unexpectedly. At that moment, my brain was blank, and the first reaction was that this thing was too unreal.

I hurriedly opened other social media. People who haven’t fallen asleep have already begun to feel emotion and silence. A girl said carefully, “You will wake up tomorrow morning, and see this news, how sad you are.” In the morning with my dad When he talked about this, he didn’t know the news yet, and was shocked. After we had breakfast, he kept muttering, “Why isn’t it? It’s too young.”

Kehei: I woke up late, and when I woke up, I saw the news of the death of “Kobe” from many groups. After a while, I hurriedly opened Tiger, To confirm the authenticity of this news. At that moment, I didn’t think about how much I did not like Kobe in the past ten years, but there was a feeling that a friend I knew very well had left himself. At that time, I wanted to talk to friends who had watched the ball together and scolded Kobe, and I felt that only “Lao Kehei” could understand my feelings.

Komi: As Komi, I can actually understand why some people don’t like Kobe.

Like many Chinese audiences, I started watching the NBA because of Yao Ming. I was just in elementary school when he was the champion. I didn’t know the ball at that time, so I watched it with my family. I do n’t understand the position, I do n’t understand who the number is, I think some goals are really beautiful. It was because of my first boyfriend that I started to focus on Kobe and really understand the NBA.

Kobe’s iconic drop-back jumper

Remember at that time, he told me every day how good Kobe’s technique is and how good his shooting posture is. He usually practiced the ball in Kobe’s posture. Because of him, I pay more and more attention to Kobe, I also like his offensive ability and scoring ability more and more, and eventually become a Komi. Maybe anyone who likes Kobe will be a bit “independent”? This should be an important reason why many people do not like Kobe.

Kehe: I think the so-called “hate independence” is just an appearance.

When they were still in school, the boys in the class were basically divided into two factions: one faction liked Kobe and the Lakers, one faction liked James and the Cavaliers, and everyone supported Yao Ming and the Rockets. In those years, the NBA especially likes to fire “23VS24”, so every time a key game is played, there is always some saliva in the class.

“23VS24”

Maybe because of my temperament, I didn’t like Kobe and James when I first watched the NBA, but had a soft spot for the old-fashioned, low-key Duncan and Spurs. Because of this, I have “suddenly” in the Spurs Post Bar a lot of history of grievances between the Spurs, the Lakers and Kobe, and I have gradually begun to “hostile” against Kobe. From 2008 to 2011, the Lakers were the strongest team in the West, and Kobe was the imaginary enemy in my heart.

The peak of Kobe ’s negative sentiment was due to the 2009 semifinals in the Western Conference Playoffs.

In that year, Yao Ming and the Rockets successfully made the first round of the playoffs for the first time and won the Lakers in the first game. However, Yao Ming fell down due to injury, and the Rockets also lost the game and were helpless. Looking back now, Yao Ming’s injury was caused by many factors, including playing too many national teams before, but his mind was not mature enough at the time, and he blamed Kobe along with online remarks, believing that he “disposed Yao Ming under the black foot” .

I think many sources of Kobe ’s negative emotions for Kobe are similar to mine. Although many people would accuse him of Kobe’s negative news, criticize him for playing too much alone, or always hit the iron, but in essence it was because he was the most powerful “enemy” of that era, and often showed a sense of unrulyness, so We always want to amplify some of his shortcomings to prove that “Kobe is not good enough”-but in fact, many “proofs” are weak, and Kobe is always Kobe.

Komi: In fact, the more people want to prove that Kobe can’t, the more Kobe must “do the opposite.”

In 2013, when competing for the playoffs for the Lakers, Kobe suffered a contusion in the right hand against the Thunder and sprained his ankle against the Hawks in the last goal. In the game against the Warriors, after the break with Jian, it was impossible to continue the next game, but he still refused to leave after two free throws. People talked about Bryant always saying “black mamba spirit”, in my opinion this is his unique “heroic temperament”.

It may be a cliché. When everyone mentions him and remembers him, he will repeatedly mention “four o’clock in the morning in Los Angeles.” His desire for victory, his dedication to every point on the court, and his seriousness for every game are all manifestations of the “Black Mamba spirit.” After he loses away, he will practice shooting and close the stadium. Some people come out of the NBA to rely on talent, some people rely on the body, and I think Kobe is the most serious and hard-working person in the entire league, from rookie to superstar, has always been.

A fractured metacarpal, a torn finger, an injured knee, an ankle sprain … he has been injured countless times, but he never bows his head. When countless people said he was “hitting the iron”, when he was retiring and the state of the entire Lakers was very weak, he still spoke silently with action. Whether you like Kobe or not, I always feel that if you understand him carefully, you can gain energy from his super confidence and super mobility.

Injury on Kobe

Kohei: Kobe’s confidence and dissatisfaction are indeed his most impressive things.

The injury in 2013 actually had a very important background: The Lakers introduced Nash and Howard to form a new F4 that season. As a result, the team didn’t run well, and Bryant and Howard were very unhappy. In the end, the Lakers kept the hope of the playoffs by Bryant to fight the Achilles tendon rupture, but the Lakers were also eliminated by the Spurs 0-4 because of his absence.

I was just happy because the Lakers were eliminated, but I never thought that this was the last time Kobe led the team to the playoffs, nor did I realize that this injury would be a foreshadowing for Bryant’s retirement. As for the contradiction between Kobe and Howard at that time, many Kobe thought that Kobe didn’t know how to be a leader and was a “tumour” of the team.

But times have changed, and now I remember not only boasting about Kobe ’s exit method, but also better understand why Kobe is angry with Howard. A player with such talent does not cherish it. This is naturally intolerable in the minds of Kobe Bryant who practiced in the early morning. I once read an article which revealed that on the plane where Kobe came to China to participate in the event, he was also training in the aisle of the special plane. I like a word that Kobe said: “When I retired, I hope to look back at the road I have traveled. Every day I paid for everything.”

Unfortunately, in the years when Kobe was the best, I always watched the game with emotion, always picking and looking forward to the Lakers losing, so I missed a lot of Kobe ’s highlight moments–or rather Many of Kobe’s moments of highlights are, in my opinion, the “darkest moments” of the Kobes, and they have not been able to reap the joy of watching him play.

Komi: Kobe’s style of play that seems to have insufficient trust in his teammates is almost complementary to his super confidence.

I have seen reports that when the game is about to end and there is a chance of a lore, Kobe will become extraordinarily strong: “Give me a pick and roll, I will take you to win!” Even before that game, , He did not perform well enough, and his hit rate was not consideredGao, but the moment he shouldered the mission to end the game, he still showed great confidence and firmness, which was one of the most moving moments when watching him.

Kobe grew up in Italy. He once said, “I have been a wanderer all my life. From a very young age, I was the only black child in that Italian town. Until the age of 17, Fight in the NBA. What really sets me apart from others is not my skin color or age, but my desire. I am so eager to win, so eager for perfection.

Many people criticized him as “the first person to hit iron in history”, but I always believe that people who really understand the ball or like basketball, even if they don’t like Kobe, don’t think it is a “black spot”. This means that he has played long enough in the NBA and has always been a super scorer, just like when someone asked him how to think about “iron strike” in 2014, Bryant said confidently: “(because) I am a striker 19-year shooting guard. “

“Love me or hate me is your choice, this is life. Some people hate my game, hate my arrogance, hate my back-up jumper, hate my obsession with the game, hate me for the championship ring … But there are many people who support me in loving me for the same reasons as those who hate me. “Kobe’s statement is probably the best response to those who hate him. Because of this, I rarely argue against him, just hoping that everyone can look at Kobe more peacefully.

Kohei: In fact, when Kobe retired, I was able to look at Kobe more peacefully, especially when he announced that he was going to retire, I would even feel reluctant. Maybe because at that moment, Kobe is old, and the GDP I like is old. Winning or losing is not the most important thing. It is the most important thing to watch them play, to enjoy the last day and watch them play together.

The game that impressed me the most was the last time he visited San Antonio, the entrance to the Spurs locker room that day was marked “Thank you, Kobe.” At the final scoring moment of that game, Tony Parker put in a difficult mid-range shot and bit the score tightly. At that moment, my heart was particularly uncomfortable and my emotions were very complicated. I do n’t know if it was because I was reluctant to bear Kobe or because Those days when the Lakers and Spurs struggled, or those days when they watched the ball with their classmates during the class.

After that game, a circle of friends in Kehei

Komi: When Kobe retired in the first half of 2016, I was studying in Indiana, where the Pacers were, so I bought the Pacers’ home court tickets against the Lakers early and was ready to go His curtain call. That ticket cost more than $ 200, and the ticket price for each stop on Kobe’s retirement trip was rising. However, it is particularly regrettable that there was an examination that night that had to cancel the plan to go to the competition.

On April 14, Kobe officially retired. I watched this last game silently on my computer, and the last 2 minutes really cried. That night I wrote a paragraph on the social platform: “I like you when I was a girl, and I watched you silently in the low tide. Basketball is your belief and your spirit has always inspired me. You may not be the perfect The star is the one who has spent the most basketball time with me. Good luck. “

On April 14, Kobe officially retired

Indeed, Kobe is not the most pleasing athlete in the NBA. But as long as he has watched his game, or someone who has played against him, I believe that it is difficult for anyone to disapprove him. He is such a person with great personal charm. You can learn a lot from him. Many fans, like me, have always thought of Kobe when they were just entering college and faced with various life choices when they first entered the society.

It is he who tells us that there are no shortcuts to success. Even if you have enough love, you still need to be diligent. It is he who tells us not to lose, to act, to speak with strength.