Three years since his death: how did Kobe Bryant affect basketball fans in the world?

"Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash ," Posh announced on his cell phone around 9:00 p.m., three years ago today, and the whole world stopped. At first there was still hope that this was another malicious rumor on the net, but after a few minutes it faded away – Kobi is dead , and with him his 14-year-old daughter and seven other people.

The death of Kobe Bryant shocked the whole world, many people around the globe were saddened by the tragedy and searched for any shred of information regarding the event. Many of them did not admire the NBA legend at all, some of them do not even consider themselves "basketball fans". But something in the tragedy, along with Bryant's character, made them feel part of the event, in one way or another.

But for the Lakers fans who adored him and grew up with him as children, it was much more than another shakeup. For them it was a black night, in which their hearts were broken for a hero who had gone. I grew up on Kobe. As a 13 and 14 year old I would get up at 4:00 in the morning to watch him and the Lakers play. Something about the magic of Kobe, along with the magic of watching NBA games at hours when everyone else is asleep, won my heart back almost immediately.

"How can you be so sad and hurt for someone you didn't know, who never even knew who you were?", some of you will surely ask. A logical question, the thing is – emotions have never relied on logic. I don't tend to admire people, not even athletes. Growing up, Kobe was the only one I saw myself as a fan of. "Why him?", was undoubtedly one of the first questions that came up that evening three years ago.

Lakers fans mourn Bryant's death outside the club hall (Photo: APU GOMES / Contributor)

As hard as it may be to understand from the outside, I always felt that Kobe was a part of my life. Many years ago I experienced the most difficult time I have ever had. A period when I did not experience any joy in life, except for a few moments.

Those moments happened when I got up in the middle of the night to watch him play. The man with the number 24 on his back, made me suddenly feel alive in the middle of a gloomy period, and manage to keep my sanity on the way to much better times. If we try to find the explanation for the term "much more than basketball", we will always find Kobe somewhere in there.

The first global star of the new era

Since the beginning of the current millennium, the NBA league has broken the global barrier in a significant way. Many people around the globe were exposed to it as they had never been before, and this was also reflected in the possibility for league fans around the world to watch games more frequently than ever before. Kobe Bryant had a significant part in this, in fact, as Sharon Davidovich says, he was "the first global star of the new era".

I sat down for a conversation with Sharon Davidovich, about Bryant's influence on the globalization of the NBA, the memory after the glorious career and the tragic death and the direct connection between him and the one who many consider to be the greatest player ever – Michael Jordan.

"At the percentage level, today's global consumption of the league is stronger than American consumption. Still, the NBA brand is big and strong, because unlike all other American sports, it was the first to break through the global barrier," says Davidovich.

"And among all the reasons for that, one of them is Kobe Bryant, he broke it. Besides being a black American star, who in the eyes of many continues to represent them even after he was killed, he was also an international star. His years were very critical, because he is the star of the The only NBA that started to be covered in the age of newspapers, continued in the age of the Internet, and in his last years social networks also appeared. He was the first global NBA star of the new era."

Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal (Photo: AFP / Staff)

I remember myself as a 14-year-old boy getting up at night to watch NBA games, and feeling like I was in "another world". There is something different about watching the league from another country, with the significant time differences between us and the United States.
"Yes. The magic secret of the NBA is that it is played at night (local Israeli time), and then there is something magical about it. You feel that you are seeing it alone, the whole street and the world are asleep, and you are alone with it. Everything is terribly magical and much more picturesque and legendary , from the world of legends".

"Today it's a little different, in the sense that in terms of the feeling you see the game with a lot of other people, experience it on social networks and you're in a 'very big family living room'. In the NBA, before everyone else, they knew how to brand their stars in a very bombastic way, And I don't think there was another branding for a player, maybe except for Michael Jordan, like they did for Bryant."

He himself was very aware of the international fans.
"Yes, it's because he came from Europe, he spent his childhood years in Italy with his father. He knew Italian and Spanish well, and was also very interested in football. He was not a separatist like his predecessors, like Jordan, who had only an American face. He is the first who understood that it was also necessary to be global and wink at new markets."

Do you think his collaboration with Pau Gasol strengthened his consciousness on this issue?
"Yes, that's an interesting point. His former partner, Shaquille O'Neal, did not play with Yao Ming, but his acceptance of Yao into the NBA was very disparaging. He called him names, and in general there was a great disdain at that time for those who came to the league from outside the United States , it's not like today. Kobi didn't look at the passport, took a European lesson, let him be his 'second man', and trusted him. They became the best of friends, and that must have contributed to his global understanding."

"Kobe didn't look at the passport" (Photo: Kevork Djansezian / Staff)

"The generation that grew up on Kobe and the stories about Jordan"

I was born in the mid-90s. I shared my feelings with Davidovich, that the generation of NBA fans born during these years is "the generation that grew up on Kobe and the stories about Jordan". For his part, he provided a slightly different angle to the matter, which sees the NBA league in a "temporary" way, even more than I thought.
"This whole matter of 'did we see it live or not', these days it's unnecessary in my opinion. In the past there was an NBA channel in Israel, I watched it all day, and historical games were broadcast there. On YouTube and on TV you can constantly see games from the past, how many games were broadcast Until the cables came in? I've seen more of Michael's games than people in Israel have seen here in real time."

He referred to the direct relationship that existed throughout the years between Bryant and the legend of the Chicago Bulls: "Kobe's greatest thing was to be a Michael imitator, Kobe is the greatest imitator in history, and I say that as a compliment. He imitated Michael one to one. His game, his attitude , even the way he celebrated victories."

"You can really see that the man absorbed everything from him. So in this sense, when Kobe retired, 32 years of Michael ended. During the years 1984-2016, you had Michael or a match for Michael in the league. That's why the connection between them is so desirable in terms of basketball style."

Kobe Bryant vs. Michael Jordan (Photo: VINCENT LAFORET/AFP via Getty Images)

Somewhere, Jordan passed the baton to Kobe, who passed it on to LeBron. In your opinion, in LeBron's legacy he will be largely credited with the championship he led the Lakers to in the bubble in Orlando, after the difficult year the club experienced with Kobe's death?
"LeBron's legacy is so wide and deep, that this part is a relatively small point in his career. We like to look at the aura, like Maradona helped Argentina take the World Cup, that's how LeBron helped the Lakers win the championship that year."

"LeBron is someone who really knows how to appreciate history, he is also a student of the game. He is a player who took a little from everyone and built himself. In this sense, apart from the friendship and rivalry he had with Kobe, he knows how to appreciate Bryant's place in the history of the NBA, And of course the Lakers. He knows that the Lakers will forever be Kobe's, no matter if he wins more championships with the club."

LeBron James at a memorial service for Bryant, a few days after he was killed (Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

Do you think that Kobe's memory will continue to be felt with such intensity even in 20-30 years?
"Without a doubt, there is something in death that unfortunately glorifies the memory of the human being. Everything becomes much more mystical and great. I think he will continue to be great and remembered even in 50 and 100 years."

We remember his retirement announcement in 2016, made through a letter he wrote to the basketball game. When I read it, there were many points where I felt that the appeal was actually to the fans.
"This letter was connected to basketball, and basketball is the ball itself, the players, the field and the fans."

"You see basketball with your heart and not with your eyes"

Davidovich also referred to the great complexity of Bryant's character: "Kobe Bryant is a very unique character. He is a character who, despite his bad sides, won an extraordinary amount of love, and continues to win it to this day. With Kobe, there is almost no middle ground, you either love him or you hate him. What I take from Kobe, despite the bad relationship with Shaquille, the story of the rape that happened or didn't happen and that he wasn't always the most pleasant member of the team, is the last years when he became a mentor to the players and especially his attitude to women's basketball."

"As well as the place where he became a kind of father and ambassador of the game. His attempt to promote basketball, including women's sports. The fact that he was one of the first to show interest in this industry, while others did not take it seriously at all."

Kobe and Gigi Bryant (Photo: Ethan Miller / Staff)

"He is a very complex character, one of the greatest storytellers in the history of sports. I don't have to like him to know how to appreciate him. In my opinion, sometimes he is overestimated at the net basketball level. But it doesn't matter, everyone has the right to love him. In the end we see the sport and basketball with the heart and not with the eyes."