The fire that burns inside Bryant is something that many people do not, and cannot understand. The unflinching desire for victory is something that motivates and pushes Bryant to run two miles when the coaches ask him for one, to wake up at 6 in the morning when he doesn’t need to be up until 7. Bryant has spent his entire adult life in the middle of the fishbowl that is the Los Angeles Lakers and the NBA, and he has thrived.
Coming into the league at the age of seventeen Bryant had much to learn, even more than he was probably willing to admit at the time, but he has learned all he needed and more. He has become a player that men and women will tell their children about, as they try to explain to the next generation just how great Bryant was, but to no avail.
This is because ultimately there is not a good way to describe Bryant, to explain him in a way to make somebody understand who hasn’t witnessed his outstanding career just how fascinating and spectacular Bryant is. People have searched for years for the next Michael Jordan, for the heir to Jordan’s throne and have cast Bryant into that spot.
However, we have all learned that he is most certainly not the next Michael Jordan, he is something the basketball world needed more than that, he is the first, and only, Kobe Bryant.