Who Was Kobe Bryant? by Ellen Labrecque & Who HQ

Author:Ellen Labrecque & Who HQ [Labrecque, Ellen & Who HQ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2020-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

A New Man

Over the next five seasons, Kobe got everything he wanted as a player. Or, at least everything he thought he wanted. In the 2005–2006 and the 2006–2007 seasons, Kobe led the league in scoring. On January 22, 2006, he scored eighty-one points in a game against the Toronto Raptors. It is the second-highest point total by a player in an NBA game ever. Some critics, though, still thought Kobe was selfish and shot too much.

While Kobe continued to pile up individual accomplishments, his team failed in the playoffs. The Lakers made it to the 2008 NBA championship, but they lost to the Boston Celtics, four games to two. As each season ended without another championship trophy, Kobe became more frustrated. Making matters worse for Kobe, Shaq and the Miami Heat had won the 2006 NBA title, proving that Shaq didn’t need Kobe to be a champion.

Kobe still spent much of his time alone. Rather than talk with teammates when flying home after a game, he studied the game on video to review his performance.

In 2008, the Summer Olympics were held in Beijing, China. Kobe was one of twelve NBA players selected for the US men’s basketball team. The squad included some of the other best players in the world, including LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat. Kobe, who was turning thirty years old that summer, was the most experienced player on the team.

He had never played in the Olympics before, and the pressure on him and the rest of the US team to win the gold medal was huge. At first, critics predicted Kobe would hurt his squad with his “me first” attitude. Kobe proved them wrong. He impressed his teammates by how hard he worked. When the rest of the team was just arriving for their first practice, they found Kobe on the court dripping with sweat. He had already finished two workouts.

“That’s when I knew he was a different beast,” Dwyane Wade said about Kobe. “His example inspired me and other members of the team.”

When the games started, Kobe shared the ball with his teammates and played some of the toughest defense of his career. He wasn’t the team’s leading scorer, but when the team needed him to score—he did. In the championship game against Spain, Kobe scored thirteen points in the fourth quarter. The US team won the gold medal!

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