“He was supernatural.”
Those were the words Italian professional basketball coach Ettore Messina used to describe Kobe Bryant after the former Los Angeles Lakers assistant learned the 41-year-old Bryant, Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash Sunday morning in Calabasas, California.
Whether you loved or loathed all those Lakers teams Bryant starred on for every single one of his 20 years in the NBA, Messina’s words seem just about perfect, which is what Bryant so often appeared to be on a basketball court, especially when it mattered most.
No, his five NBA titles didn’t wind up matching Michael Jordan’s six, which so many will always say he needed to be the Chicago Bulls star’s equal.
He also was occasionally criticized for shooting too much, passing too little and sometimes appearing to worry more about himself than the team, especially in former Lakers coach Phil Jackson’s scathing book “The Last Season: A Team in Search of Its Soul,” in which he labeled Bryant “uncoachable.”