My dad pushed the VHS, scribbled on the label “LARRY BIRD NIGHT” in his signature chicken-scratch writing.
Me, a five-year-old kid, watched in awe as the Boston Celtics, the team I learned to love that day, raised Larry Bird’s number thirty-three jersey to the rafters.
They played the highlights of his career, old footage of the lanky mustachioed man making shots he had no business taking, his all-business stare. Old footage of the man raising shiny trophies as confetti fell from the rafters. Men in purple and gold jerseys walked off the court as Larry celebrated.
As a five-year-old in 1996, having your first impression of the Boston Celtics consist of Larry Bird highlights can definitely bring about some naiveté. Surely if Larry Bird played for the Celtics, then the team must be amazing, right? They must still be hoisting trophies and drilling shots and playing the game with an unparalleled swagger, right?
I flipped through the TV Guide every week that year in anticipation of the Celtics’ games. Celtics vs Nets, Celtics at 76ers, Celtics vs Hornets…I tuned into that game, unaware of the futility I was watching. The Celtics went 15-67 that year. They played a bunch of scrubs and I had no idea that they were even playing poorly. I just wanted to watch because my dad loved them. My dad loved Larry and the Celtics, and that old VHS tape of that fateful ceremony cemented that love forever in my heart. The games passed, I’d flip through those old bulky TV Guides…and I’d see it: Celtics at Lakers. Those guys in the purple and gold jerseys that Larry had beaten. I couldn’t watch those games. They were on too late. Apparently, in Los Angeles, they play basketball after a five-year-old’s bedtime.
That same year, Kobe Bryant was drafted into the NBA by the Charlotte Hornets and immediatelt was traded to the Lakers for a big Serbian named Vlade Divac. I didn’t think much of it, or have any knowledge of who Kobe Bryant or Vlade Divac was. But my dad bought me a copy of NBA Live 97 for our Gateway 2000 computer, and I’d play against those guys in the yellow and gold, the guys I could only see once a year, and face off with a sprite with a #8 jersey who came off the Lakers’ bench sometimes when #6, Eddie Jones, got tired.
My life was basketball. After a while I knew all of the players after playing that game over and over, after watching those terrible Celtics’ teams play. Throwing out guys like Brett Szabo and Travis Knight and getting obliterated night after night.
I’d shoot jump-shots in my driveway from as far out as I could, just like I thought Larry would do. My knowledge of the game grew more and more. I was destined to be in the NBA just like Larry. I played almost every day with my neighbor Kenny. I was convinced we’d get drafted to the NBA. But I knew there was, at the time, only a 1/30 chance of me getting picked by the Celtics. So I compromised. If I wouldn’t get picked by the Celtics, then I would get picked by the Charlotte Hornets. Just like Kobe. And maybe I’d get traded right away too—just like Kobe.
I hoped it would be to the Celtics.
The years passed and my expectations of NBA stardom dwindled. I got to middle school when all the elementary schools were combined, and suddenly I wasn’t one of the best basketball players anymore--maybe one of the better ones, but if I’m coming off of the bench for my sixth grade team as miniscule point guard who couldn’t dribble (because he spent all his time trying to make shots like Larry Bird), then what chances did I really have?
Well, the love for the game didn’t stop. The Celtics were getting better. They had two guys named Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce who were getting really good, and for the first time I got to see a competitive Celtics team. I watched them go to the Eastern Conference Finals and lose to the 76ers. I watched the 76ers get manhandled by those guys in purple and gold. By a guy named Shaq. By a guy named Kobe.
I hated those guys. I knew we didn’t have a chance to beat them and they kept winning and winning. I turned to video games. The NBA Live franchise now had a pretty good “Franchise” mode where you could play multiple seasons and build up your dream team. I played Live 2003 the most. I tried to beat those Lakers—and I couldn’t. In a cruel twist of fate, a glitch in the game allowed the teams who played in the first regular season game to sign free agents before any other team. Those teams? The Warrors…and the Los Angeles Lakers.
By the time you got to the 2006 or 2007 season in the game, the already mighty Lakers now had all the best free agents and were going 82-0, 81-1 or 79-2 almost every year. Couldn’t even beat them in real life.
Flash forward again. 2007. The real 2007 season. The Celtics traded for Ray Allen. They traded for Kevin Garnett. And those two future Hall of Famers joined another, Paul Pierce. And I watched those guys go out there and dismantle Kobe and the Lakers 131-92 in Game Six of the NBA Finals to bring home their 17th NBA championship—the first of my lifetime, and the first since a guy named Larry led them to one back in 1986.
Well, the Kobe and the Lakers got the best of us two years later (I still wonder what would have happened if Kendrick Perkins) hadn’t got hurt. I watched Kobe Bryant lift the trophy. I pictured dads recording it and showing it to their sons.
Let’s flash forward one more time. It’s April 13th, 2016. I wake up in the middle of the night, roll over and pull my phone from its charger. It’s Kobe’s last game. I had watched the first half, and then went to sleep. Apparently, in Los Angeles, they play basketball after a twenty-four-year-old’s bedtime.
I watched the highlights. His weary body elevating over defenders close to half his age to hit shot after shot. I watched him drive the lane, prepared to see an emphatic dunk, only to see him lay it in, painstakingly, over the cylinder and in. He couldn’t make it. The guy who won the dunk contest back when I thought I’d be a Hornets’ draft pick couldn’t even throw it down anymore.
And here I am. Sitting at a desk, thinking about the game I loved so much as a child. About all those nights spent watching, all those hours rattling my fingers against a keyboard (yeah, I used to play NBA Live on the actual keyboard…tell that to your grandkids) playing the NBA video games.
And just like that, the guy I hated, the best player of my generation, the face of the league for so long, was done. And he had done it by grinding his way, and I mean grinding his way, through a season where a horde of trainers and physical therapists had go to the ends of the of the Earth every game to make sure he could even suit up.
And he ended it by scoring sixty points.
Maybe I’ll download the HD highlights of that game. I’ll type the file as “KOBE BRYANT NIGHT”.
Maybe I’ll show it to my kids one day.
I’ll show it to them to show them how the guy I grew to hate played the game I grew to love.
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