My Kobe Jersey
Purple and gold. Logo stitched. Champion brand. Loose fit. #8 on the chest. On the back too. Bryant is the name. Memory is the game. My Kobe jersey rolled up to the gaff about a week ago. Came in the post, little black bag, from a trusted seller of mine (shirtsvskins on Twitter, Adverts, Ebay I think, one of the boys behind the Back Page retro sales, dead sound man). It’s my fourth proper NBA jersey. Got a KG Timberwolves, white, forest era. Purple Alonzo Mourning Hornets too. And a personalised current era blue T-Wolves. Got it in NY, in the big NBA shop. I picked #16. Up Roy Keane.
I own more merch than that, naturally. White Karl-Anthony Towns T-Wolves tee, another white T-Wolves tee, a retro Mitchell and Ness blue T-Wolves hoodie, a black Knicks hoodie. My mam got me the Knicks one in NY herself. She knew I liked basketball. It was close enough. Appreciate the effort, ma. It’s not just basketball gear, either. I’ve over 80 football jerseys alone. I’ve GAA gear, NFL gear, rugby gear. jerseys, t-shirts, jumpers, winter jackets, tracksuit tops. As recent as this season, as old as 1988. It’s a collection that’s only growing. I’m proud of it, and I’ll be proud to continue expanding it, especially the NBA wing.
This one means a little more though. If you haven’t copped it yet, I am a Timberwolves fan. I started properly watching the NBA in 2011 after catching the basketball bug playing it in school. Kobe was a defending Champion, going after a sixth title, and second threepeat. I don’t need to list his endless accolades here. It’s word count filler, and I don’t have one to meet. Plus you heard them all, repeated over and over in overt, protrusive disbelief and crying, mourning, compelling sadness in the days and weeks since January 26, 2020. Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gigi, and seven other people died that day after their helicopter crashed into the side of a mountain in Calabasas, California — and I have no problem admitting it was the first time a celebrity death made me properly upset in my adult life.
It speaks to the legend of Kobe. His prime was just about finished when I started watching. Within a year and a bit of my fandom, he’d suffered the torn achilles that scuppered his chances of contending in his final years. Within three years, the Lakers were a losing team. Within five, Kobe had retired. I didn’t experience the highs live. The 81 point game. Kobe 63 Dallas 62. Breaking out as a starter, barely in his 20s, on a soon-to-be dynastic Lakers team. The 2000 Finals. The 2010 Finals. The five championships in general. The 40-point and 50-point game streaks. The 2008 Olympics. I got the two free throws on a torn achilles, but that was it.
Mine was a retrospective fandom. I’ve watched the jab steps. The fade aways. The soaring dunks. The clutch steals and scores, and sometimes misses too. Christmas 2004 against the Heat, his first game against Shaq since the split, comes to mind. All the injuries he played through. The shot after shot after shot, hot or cold, confidence never failing. The interviews. The mentality. The heel work that would make Ric Flair blush. I didn’t need the highlights live to feel the influence. The all-encompassing aura. How my own contemporary heroes spoke about him. It builds that connection. That emotional attachment you just cannot shake. Then you read, and you study, and you fall down the YouTube and newspaper interview rabbit hole. And you’re hooked.
I’m not here to preach about him, or defend his legacy, especially what is unsavoury. Kobe was far from perfect, and to many people his reputation is forever tarnished for a multitude of reasons. I respect and understand that. I believe you can’t call yourself a proper fan if you live in ignorance. But I’m also not someone who gets too hooked on celebrity generally. If a celeb died, particularly in tragic circumstances, and a person was upset, I’d brush it off. I can recognise the tragedy but I didn’t feel the need to actively grieve. I guess that was an easy position to hold before it did directly affect me. There’s no holier than thou position worth holding in that debate. We all hold people in our hearts. Sometimes you don’t even realise it. I know I didn’t. But I believed in that legend. The philosophy. The mamba mentality. Being better than you were yesterday. That’s something I’ve always held dear to me. It’s a core belief of mine. I knew where it came from. I assumed that source would be there for a lot longer than it tragically was, even without realising it.
I used to have a rail just for my jersey collection. It broke yesterday at time of writing. Bent out of all recognition by the sheer weight of my collection. My ambition. My escapism. It’s outside my room now. I’m out in the shed, so that puts it in the back garden. I put it back together, but it’s got nothing on it. It would collapse again. Too much weight on it, probably. Bound for the skip soon, no matter how tempted I am to try it out again. Rails can’t improve day-to-day. They can’t adapt to the weight, and get stronger. We can though. We need that hope. We need to keep that mentality going. Especially now. Not just him, but for yourself. Kobe would be the first person, you figure, to cease the mourning. He’d keep going. And he’d tell you to do it too.
It’s a gorgeous piece of work, this jersey. Bright colours. Pristine detail. The real deal. Number 8 glistening white. Never even seen him wear #8 live. Doesn’t really matter though, does it? I’ll keep it in good nick all the same. As I will with all the pieces in my collection, I’ll do my best. For the jersey, and for myself.
