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Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant had to go through great lengths to earn the respect of his idol, Michael Jordan. Yet not many knew the extent of his sacrifice to learn the secrets of the game from the GOAT himself.
Episode 5 of the “The Last Dance” was dedicated to Kobe, and it also highlighted the special relationship between the late Lakers star and Jordan. That was just a taste of it, though, and there are other stories out there to illustrate the bond between the two legends.
Tim Grover, who was Jordan's personal trainer, recalls just how Bryant relentlessly chased Jordan and earned the right to some of his knowledge of the game:
“As early as I can remember, whenever the Lakers played the Bulls, Kobe would wait outside the tunnel for Michael to leave,” said Grover, according to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne. “And Michael was always the last person to leave the locker room. He took forever. But Kobe would wait and wait for him.”
“But Kobe was like, ‘The bus is going to have to wait. Because I don't know when I'm going to get this opportunity.'”
Lakers trainer Gary Vitti still recalls how infuriating it was to have to wait for Bryant to take off:
Article Continues Below“I'm the guy that counted the heads on the bus and told the bus driver, ‘OK. Now we can move. We got everybody,'” said Vitti. “And we were always one head short with Kobe.”
Grover recognized that there was something different about Bryant, and he picked up on that in conversations with Jordan:
“I mean there was literally nobody else in the building,” said Grover. “Lakers security would be like, ‘Come on, come on, Kobe, the bus is leaving,' and you would hear different things, you know, ‘This effing kid da, da, da.'”
“There's a bunch of other athletes that came up to Michael, that wanted him to ‘mentor them. But when they found out how difficult it was to maintain that intensity and to be that relentless, most of them faded out.
“But Kobe kept it up. The more information that Michael gave him, Kobe got even more thirst.”
Jordan ultimately went from considering Bryant another annoying wannabe to gaining some level of respect for his relentless pursuit of information:
“Michael thought everybody was annoying,” Grover said with a laugh. “But here's the thing, it's how he said [Kobe] was annoying. When he talked about Kobe as annoying, it was like your little brother that's always like, ‘Come on, come on, let's go, let's go do this, let's go.'”
“You had to earn the right to have that conversation. So with Kobe, Michael would have not taken the next call if he didn't see something in him.”
The two later became good friends, though away from the public eye. That relationship wouldn't see light until Bryant's public memorial service on Feb. 24 after he died on Jan. 26 along with his daughter Gianna and seven other passengers during a helicopter accident.
Bryant was hell-bent on getting better and learning from the best, and he chased Jordan throughout his career in every sense of the word. If you go back and watch Kobe, you can clearly see the Jordan influence on not only his game but his movements and mannerisms.
The tireless pursuit of greatness was something Jordan greatly respected and what ultimately earned Bryant the right to learn from the best.
