As a 17-year-old playing for Lower Merion High School in Philadelphia, Kobe Bryant was a shoo-in to make the NBA as it was clear he was heads and shoulders better than his peers.
Bryant’s mix of athleticism and fundamentals made him a tantalizing prospect heading into the 1996 NBA Draft and went 13th overall to the Charlotte Hornets before being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Despite a lackluster rookie year, Bryant would later go on to achieve superstardom in the NBA and finished his career as a five-time NBA champion. As for Bryant’s humble beginnings in high school, those moments are available for viewing as 22 hours of game and interview footage went up for auction this week.
The footage is part of a media library owned by award-winning high schools sports reporter Stu Ross and covers over 700 athletes. The library contains over 130 hours of content and includes other notable professionals such as LeBron James, Tom Brady, and Michael Phelps.
The majority of the videos of Bryant have not been seen by the public, making this collection a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to obtain access to such premium content. Whoever wins the auction will own the exclusive intellectual property rights, title, and interest to the entirety of the digitized library.
A portion of the winning bid price will go directly to the MambaOnThree Fund which was established to honor and support the families of the other victims in the helicopter crash that killed Bryant and his daughter Gianna.
With the success of recent sports documentaries like the “The Last Dance” there will be plenty of opportunities for someone to use this footage of Bryant. With Bryant’s global impact on the game of basketball, any kind of program would do well with fans and it is something to look forward with so much unused material out there.
Lakers have Kobe in their thoughts
The Lakers have regularly touched on Bryant’s influence and his memory both during the regular season and while preparing for the NBA restart in Orlando.
“A day doesn’t go by where I don’t think about him,” James recently said. “And a day doesn’t go by where our organization does not remember him and think about not only Kobe, but Gigi, Vanessa and the other girls.
“They’re a part of this family, just as big as anybody in this organization’s history. We still wear 24, 8 and 2 with pride and in remembrance of how great they were.”
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