You don't become the third leading scorer in the history of the NBA without putting your entire, mind, body, and soul into your craft. The work ethic has to be beyond elite to get there, which is a good way to describe how Kobe Bryant approaches the game of basketball, and his shooting in particular.

Yes, this season Bryant has struggled to perform with his aging, game-worn body starting to bow out, but the process that has made him one of the game's all-time great players and scorers still remains.

In a recent article for ESPN, Baxter Holmes broke down Kobe's famous pregame shooting routine.

Starting four hours before tipoff, when the arena is empty except for team employees and stadium staff, Bryant begins with 15-20 shot makes with each hand from underneath the rim.

“It's the calm before,” Bryant told Holmes. “It's very peaceful. It's very quiet, and you get a chance to be in your space and in your element and hear the ball bounce, hear the sound of the net or the rim.”

He then proceeds to work on his mid-range game, spotting up along each baseline, at each wing, and at the free-throw line, once again making 15-20 shots from each location.

“When players go to shoot and they get there at the normal time, they never see him,” said Earl Watson, current Suns interim head coach. “So when the game starts, [in] some games and in a lot of games, he never misses, so a player is confused like, ‘He just came to the game and he's on fire.'

Kobe Bryant
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Next, Bryant works on his free throws. Apparently, there is no limit to how many he will take/made; it can be endless before some games.

“It's just until he feels good and until he feels like he wants to move,” said J.J. Outlaw, the Lakers‘ video coordinator and player development coach.

After finishing at the charity stripe, Kobe moves outside the arc to work on 3-pointers. Again, Bryant hits 10-20 shots from each corner, each wing, and the top of the arc.

After finishing those, Bryant works his way back towards the rim, working on free throws as well as a wide array of shots from various spots on the floor.

By the time the dust settles 20-30 minutes later, Bryant has made about 250 shots. He finally heads toward the locker room, drenched in sweat.

Every day, Outlaw is impressed with Bryant's precision and consistency.

“The same moves that we see him do within the game, I can't tell you how many times he's practiced that exact same move — pump-fake, jab, pump-fake, jab, cross-over, one-dribble pull-up — in the last five years. It's been thousands of times.”

Outlaw added, “Everything that he does within the course of the game, when he has the ball, it's the same thing you see him do within his workouts. And he's meticulous about it. The shot fake, the jab, bouncing the ball, elongating that foot, putting the ball out in front, bringing the other one with him. He's over-emphasizing everything that he does so that when he gets in the game, it's second nature to him.”

On off days, those numbers go from 15-20 successful shots from each spot to 50. On a typical day in the offseason, Bryant would make between 500 and 1,000 shots before finishing his workouts.

However, there's something different about shooting in a large, empty arena before a game. More from Holmes:

To Bryant, “the peacefulness of an empty arena that size is beautiful.”

“It's a very serene experience when you're in there and there's no crowd and there's only ushers,” Bryant said.

“It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.”