January 4, 2022 • 46 mins
2001 was the year that Jeremy Treatman’s relationship with Kobe Bryant changed, because Kobe’s relationship with his family changed. 2001 was the year that Kobe married his wife, Vanessa, which led to a falling out between him and his parents, Joe and Pam. There’s been a lot of speculation about why the Bryant family fractured as it did. From what I gathered in talking to people who knew Kobe well back then, the problem came down to this: Kobe felt like he was ready to move fully into adulthood, to get married, and his parents thought he was too young.
Jeremy’s relationship with Kobe evolved in the same way. He hadn’t been close just to Kobe. He had been tight with the entire Bryant clan. If there wasn’t a clean break between him and Kobe as Kobe moved on from Lower Merion and progressed in his pro career, there was certainly more distance between them.
It had been nearly 30 years since Jeremy met Kobe. It had been 25 years since he was there on the Lower Merion Aces’ sideline, celebrating a state championship with Kobe. But that special period of time was fresh in his memory. Kobe had been dead for a year-and-a-half, but he was alive in Jeremy’s mind and heart.
Pre-order Mike Sielski's related book: “The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality" (1/11/22): TheRiseOfKobeBook.com
Join the conversation about “I Am Kobe” on social media: on Twitter and Instagram: @diversionpods
Our theme music is “Create Yourself” by Grover Braam feat. Justin Starling: Listen to Create Yourself on Spotify
Cover photo © Eileen Blass – USA TODAY NETWORK
“I Am Kobe” is a production of Diversion Podcasts in association with iHeartRadio. This season is written and hosted by Mike Sielski. Produced by Jacob Bronstein and directed by Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein with editorial direction from Scott Waxman. Editing, mixing, and sound design by Mark Francis. Production Assistant: Stephen Tompkins. Music Supervisor: Scott Velasquez for Frisson Sync. Executive Producers: Mark Francis and Scott Waxman.
Thanks to Oren Rosenbaum, Susan Canavan, and Jeremy Treatman.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Diversion podcasts. People give you closer for you now. You know,
that's kind of funny too. What people who are rich
don't have to buy things because everybody wants them to
endorse their clothes. They'll give it to one for free.
The people w are poor, they try to raise the price.
(00:30):
You know what I'm saying as that's weird. That kind
of tripped me out because I think, you know, I
have money, I'm going to be buying all these sneakers
and shorts and tank tops and he'll figure and Polo
and guests and now they're like, oh please wait this
where this? What kind of what do you want? Okay,
what kind of sneaking you want? Yeah? No, give them
to you for free? Yah? Then what you do endorse
(00:52):
their products? Like could you wear this? If you want,
we can give you this or just ask for something.
Since the start of the pandemic, I've spent more time
in my home office than I have anywhere else. In
(01:14):
one corner is a big bookcase. In another corner is
my desk. That's where I did much of the research
and reporting and just about all of the writing for
my book about Kobe Bryant. I could make phone calls,
I could search online databases, and as much as I
love my wife and two sons, I could close the
door on them so I could get some work done
(01:36):
in peace and quiet. Early on in my writing process,
I reached out to someone who twenty five years earlier
had also tried to write a book about Kobe. It
was Jeremy Treatment. You've heard a lot about him in
this series. I called Jeremy, knowing his own Kobe book
project had been scuttled at some point, but also knowing
(01:57):
he was still in touch with several of Kobe's coaches
and teammates from Lower Merion High School. Jeremy kept transcripts
from his interviews with Kobe from and he handed over
a cardboard box full of those transcripts and other material. Later,
when he found the tapes of those interviews, he gave
(02:18):
those to me too. I kept the tapes in that box,
and I kept that box right next to my desk.
I had easy access to the tapes there in case
I needed to listen to them or read over the
transcripts as I was writing the book. And I have
to admit that sometimes I just pick up the transcripts
and page through them, reading Kobe's words, trying to put
(02:42):
myself there, listening to him speak, imagining what it must
have been like to know him, that a seventeen or
eighteen year old kid who knew exactly what he wanted,
and what he wanted was immortality. Here's the sample, chapter four.
(03:09):
Here's how the chapter would have started out. The build
up before the draft was a very exciting and scary
time for me because I really didn't know what was
going to happen. All I knew is that my dream
was about to be answered. I just didn't know where
I was going to live my dream. That was from
(03:30):
one of the chapters that Jeremy had written from Kobe's perspective.
There were three or four chapters like that in that
cardboard box, each of them about ten pages long, preserved
for a quarter century. I've listened to the tapes sometimes too,
to get a feel for Kobe, for his voice. It
was like my own little space of living Kobe history,
(03:51):
right there in my office. The thing is, Jeremy didn't
even listen to the tapes before he let me have them.
It wasn't until I met him on Long Child in
August several months later, and I played him a bit
of them that he heard them for the first time
in more than twenty years. When was the last time
you heard any of these? Day Kobe got rid of
(04:14):
his family today assault ended. Two thousand one was the
year that Jeremy's relationship with Kobe changed, because Kobe's relationship
with his family changed. Two thousand one was the year
that Kobe married his wife, Vanessa, which led to a
falling out between him and his parents, Joe and Pam.
(04:35):
There's been a lot of speculation about why the Bryant
family fractured as it did. From what I gathered and
talking to people who knew Kobe well back then, the
problem came down to this. Kobe felt like he was
ready to move fully into adulthood to get married, and
his parents thought he was too young. That separation marked
(04:56):
the moment symbolically and practically that Kobe he left much
of his Lower Marian life behind, not all of it.
He kept in contact with Greg Downer, and he visit
his old high school every year or so, but for
the most part he had become a Laker, fully engaged
in his NBA career, in his life on the West Coast,
(05:17):
and in Los Angeles culture, of beautiful weather and famous people.
He got used to the public adulation, the love from
the fans. The wonder and naive te you heard in
that opening clip I played for you at the beginning
of this episode, slowly disappeared. He got used to getting
clothes for free, more and more lower Marian and the
(05:40):
friends he had made there were receding into Kobe's past.
For example, after he entered the n b A, he
stayed in touch with his former teammate Guys Stewart for
a while, but just a while. I think the first
tour three years, we talked pretty frequent whenever he would
(06:03):
come to play the Sixers or you know, when the
season was over, he would be home and we would
hang out. And then I think, you know, as the
bigger he got, he worked even harder, if even if
that was even possible, because he wasn't the type of
guy that was just going to get to the league
and be like, all right, I'm in the league, that's
that's okay. No. He he wanted to get to the league,
(06:24):
and he wanted to dominate the league, and he wanted
to be the best ever. Um So he worked like
it and with your work ethic your schedule becomes crazier,
and you know, you just naturally drift apart. You know,
I'm in school, I'm studying, and I'm kind of doing
my own thing, and he's doing his own thing. But
(06:44):
it was never any love loss. It was whenever we
got together or talked on the phone, it was great.
It was like we never missed a beat. So for
the first three years we talked pretty pretty frequent, and
then it kind of doing go down a lot more
um the years after that, Jeremy's relationship with Kobe evolved,
(07:17):
if that's the right word for it, in the same way.
And remember he hadn't been close just to Kobe. He
had been tight with the entire Bryant clam If there
wasn't a clean break between him and Kobe. As Kobe
moved on from Lower Marian and progressed in his pro career,
there was certainly more distance between them. But during that
(07:38):
day Jeremy and I spent together on Long Beach Island.
This year, I could tell that listening to the tapes
closed some of that distance. For Jeremy. It had been
nearly thirty years since he met Kobe. It had been
twenty five years since he was there on the aces
sideline celebrating a state championship with Kobe. It had been
twenty years since he heard the tapes, but that special
(08:02):
period of time was fresh in his memory. Kobe had
been dead for a year and a half, but he
was alive in Jeremy's mind and heart. It wasn't about money,
was about fame. I wanted to be a part of
Copy's life. I absolutely I love the kid, I love
the family. I loved him. I'm Mike Sealsky and from
(08:31):
the Version podcasts, this is I am Kobe the West
settle to Create Myself, Create Yourself, Stay nice on Create Yourself.
Got a lot of really great mass, but we gained
(08:53):
last sets Getting Time Episode nine, The Bond that Broke.
Before he joined Greg Downer's coaching staff at Lower Merion
High School in the fall of Jeremy already had gotten
to know Kobe and the rest of the Bryant's pretty well.
(09:14):
He and Joe had met when they were both coaching
at a Keba Hebrew academy, and that connection allowed Jeremy
to enter Kobe's inner circle. But it wasn't until Lower
Marian's Christmas time trip to Myrtle Beach for the Beach
Fall Classic that he and Kobe really bonded. They had
to bond on that trip. They were roommates for it.
(09:35):
The team stayed in Myrtle Beach for five nights, and
the players and coaches had modest accommodations in town at
the Swamp Fox Motel, not far from the city's convention center,
where the tournament was being helped. The original plan was
for Kobe to room with Greg Downer's brother Drew, who
you'll remember from episode four was one of the team's
assistant coaches, but that plan changed. Here's Jeremy. Kobe did
(10:03):
not want to room with True Downer. So I guess
Gregg on tent was, I'm gonna have my biggest enforcement
guy at room with Kobe and make sure he's safe
and make sure nobody messes with him. And I think
Kobe said to me, like, you know, I want to
room with you up there. I'm like, fline with me,
and then Toby go tell Greg and he did. Why
(10:26):
do you think he wanted to room with you? I
think he wanted to room with me because we were close,
and because it's this one adult on the entire trip.
That would keep secrets. It would be me. And so
what if everybody thought he was sleeping but he was
out being a girl, or if he was out playing
or Mr Curfew, I wouldn't tell him. I would have
(10:50):
to say that's true, and I would have to say
I had zero problem with it. I was flattered and honored,
you know, to be rooming with him. At this point,
Jeremy already he had approached Kobe and his parents with
the idea of writing a book about him. They loved
the idea and thought he was the perfect person to
do it. Now he and Kobe would have plenty of
(11:10):
time together to talk. Their sweet had two bedrooms, a
smaller one in the front and a larger one in
the back. Jeremy figured that as the coach and as
the adult, he would take the bigger rooms. Seemed natural,
So I put my stuff in the back bags put
back on the first. Bet He says, why don't you
stay here? And then you know, then you can hang
(11:30):
out with being come out sometimes and hang out with
the bean in the back. He said to Bet. He
never said the bean to me, ever, he was charming me.
He said, why why you let me stay back here?
I'll come over here well, and then you can come back.
Sometimes you can hang out with the bean. We could
talk about stuff, we could work on the book. The
setup seemed ideal for Jeremy to get to know the
(11:52):
best high school player in the country even better than
he already did. There was just one thing that worried.
I was only nervous about getting the bathroom wet and
having him slipped and causing the end of Kobe Bryant's career.
And that's the neurotically Jewish man in me, because I
come from a family where my older brother would splash
(12:12):
the bathup so bad we'd all come in there, go
fly in. And I was I was honestly nervous about that.
I was almost afraid to take a shower because I'm
known to just let the water fly all over the place.
And I'm like, Nope, my roommate's Kobe Briant. I can't
do that. Hey, this is Mike Sealsky, host and writer
(12:41):
of I Am Kobe. This podcast project came out of
my work on a related book called The Rise Kobe
Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality. If you want to
explore other parts of Kobe's story. Check out the Rise.
It's not just a book version of the podcast. I
dive deeper into some of the topics covered in the series,
and even some that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing,
(13:04):
his family, his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates,
his journey into the NBA, and his earliest days with
the Lakers. The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of
Immortality is out now. Just head over to the Rise
of Kobe book dot com and you can buy it
from any of your favorite retailers. That's The Rise of
(13:26):
Kobe Book dot com. Thanks. I've spent a lot of
time in this series diving into the crucial moments in
Kobe's early life. Well, this was a crucial moment for Jeremy.
(13:50):
He was realizing that he didn't really want to write
for a newspaper anymore, that he didn't want to be
on the outside when it came to sports. He didn't
want to write about the games. He wanted to have
a direct hand in the games. He wanted to coach them,
set up and schedule them, promote them. He wanted to
be on the inside. And I can understand why when
(14:12):
he was a kid growing up in Lower Merion Township.
Just like Kobe, Jeremy had always been on the outside
of things. His family was one of the first Jewish
families to move into his neighborhood in the nineteen seventies,
and he had jumped up a grade in school. So
even though he was as smart or smarter than all
the other students in class, he was younger and smaller.
(14:36):
That's a tough spot for a kid. And Jeremy told
me that back then he dealt with a lot of bullying,
a lot of teasing, and a lot of behavior that well,
let's just say, the kids who weren't Jewish weren't getting
treated as harshly as he was. But he had been
accepted by Kobe and the Bryant's. That meant a lot
(14:57):
to him, and now he had a chance to learn
as much as he could about Coupe, to get to
know him on a more personal, intimate level, and to
help tell his story in their book. He didn't get
that chance because he was a reporter for a big newspaper.
He got it because he was part of the Lower
(15:17):
Marian program and part of Kobe's life was it at
that point more important to you to be on the
inside with Kobe than on the outside covering him. Definitely,
I definitely felt like it was a great opportunity be
on the inside. I did know that he was going
to be jumping. I'm I'm almost positive because I do
(15:39):
remember Joe also called me saying, well, I wanted you
to be on the staff. And they had both discussed
with me that it's going to go from high school
the NBA. And I had this idea my freshman year
in the NBA by Kobe Bryant with Jeremy Treatment, and
they both said absolutely, just such a novelty. He was
just such an unbelievable story at the time. There's no arts,
(16:00):
There's no well educated person who didn't need money jumping
in the NBA in the history of the NBA. And
it was a unique story. A kid who didn't grow
up here, who appealed to everybody. I mean, he was
just clean cutter, marking kid that you know, every everybody
was falling in love with. That was one of the
big reasons that Jeremy thought people would go gaga for
(16:22):
a book about Kobe. There was just enough of an
edge to him that he would be intriguing Kobe Bryant
decided to see my talents to uh No, I have
decided to skip Collins and my talents in NBA. Thanks
(16:51):
to the trade that the Lakers made but the Charlotte
Hornets to get him, he'd be playing for one of
the NBA's premier franchises, maybe it's most prestigious franchise as
Magic ever, Consul, do you ever told you anything about
the game? Um? Not really. We really had really had
an opportunity and saw so far this season. But I'm
definitely looking forward to having some conversation with him and
(17:12):
his background. His upbringing in Italy and in Lower Marian
His father's playing and coaching careers set him apart from most,
if not all, of his peers. One time, Jeremy showed
me a list he had made of all the topics
he wanted to cover with Kobe in their book. The
list went on for several pages, because I don't think
(17:34):
it funny something years ago. Yes, smiles on the academic,
but he wasn't allowed to play basketball unless you's done
his homework. Kenney. He had toy stories like that, so
I know I know he got his homework on. I
know he his work seriously, and I think that. I
think the background in Italy, where school was important um
(18:00):
properly really helps in that. Plus, Jeremy had access to
Kobe and had earned his trust at a pivotal time
in Kobe's life. Kobe had been well known in the
Philadelphia area and in basketball circles, but now that he
was a professional athlete, he was starting to experience a
different kind of existence. It was one thing to take
(18:21):
Brandy to the prom a is a pr move, and
have some of his classmates resent him for it. It
was another thing to have strangers know you were a
first round draft pick and a multimillionaire and to have
them think you owed them something. Here's one example Kobe
told Jeremy about after the Lakers had traded for him,
(18:42):
he went to a house party in West Philadelphia. I
don't believe it is We'll tell you that one time.
This flash party. You pay to knowledge to get here
in West Philadelphia. I know, whatever side for a little bit,
come out, We walk around. This girl comes up, a
(19:03):
good looking girl, you know what I'm saying. Comes to
He's like be around, like, yeah, can you near me?
Ten dollars? I was like uh huh. You're like, I
don't have any money. I want to I really want
to get this blast body blocks, but I'm like, you
got all this money he was to dollars. I'm like,
if I know, I'm be like, look, this is my
damn money. And then I'm saying I work for this money.
(19:25):
I just like, um um, She's like, bro, I'll pay
you back. I'm melingant down to the Lakers. I'm saying.
I'm like, can you believe I'm not believe I'm hearing this.
I cannot believe it. I was just like I finally
came up with something. I said, I'm sorry, I only
have plastic. Like all that money, you can't be carrying
around in cash. I only have plastic. They take plastic
(19:47):
and then they take visa mask. I'll hook you up.
They don't. You can't think that for you. It's like,
you know you got money, you got plastic. You want
me to do break the plasket? You know what I'm saying,
So I'll made it's in the Lakers, look right National Bank.
(20:20):
It was those kinds of funny personal anecdotes that Jeremy
thought would make the book appealing first to publishers. And
then to readers, I have to say, my freshman year
in the n b A isn't a bad title, and
the idea of an inside look at Kobe's last year
of high school and first year of pro ball definitely
had some allure. But the book couldn't be something that
(20:42):
Jeremy worked on whenever he felt like it or whenever
he had a free moment. He would have to make
a major commitment of effort and time. So would Kobe,
and Jeremy wondered how the project might change the nature
of their relationship. I certainly was curious about it. I
mean I certainly thought I was, you know, I was
(21:03):
hoping that I was gonna have a role or hoping
to be out in Los Angeles because, uh, the dad
said he wanted me to be around him, you know,
stay around him, whether it was with the buckle or
anything else. So you know, I was. I was invited
there many times. I mean I think I was out
there eight eight times or so the first couple of years,
and he was getting good stuff. It took some prodding
(21:24):
and coaxing, but once Kobe started to live in NBA life,
he gradually got more open with Jeremy more revealing. You
listen to these tapes and you really do get an
inside look at what Kobe was thinking when he was
eighteen nineteen years old. Here he is talking about how
he approached his entrance to the NBA and the expectations
(21:45):
that people would have him. I didn't want to come
in like the shaquillo, like maybe I could press weapon.
Why has all these expectations? Ryan noys him? And even
if you're performing great, still not good enough. It's never
gonna be thesplicating people for kind eat and then sneak
(22:07):
up more people. Nexting people are saying, oh great, you
know that. That's how I always want to down people,
more people, kind of like a shark. That's a fascinating
piece of tape. I had never thought of Kobe as
sneaking up on anyone when it came to basketball. He
struck me more as being like Nukeluloche, the hotshot pitching
prospect played by Tim Robbins in Bull Durham. I always
(22:31):
felt like Kobe wanted to announce his presence with authority.
I was a little Mary and I'm a lad No.
I was kind of surprised and shot at first, but
you know now, I was just like, Okay, now I
don't want to win a championship. I'm not stepping in
there saying okay, I just want to have a next
(22:52):
movie season. If you get a championship five, if it
wasn't kinda five, not like that. I want to give
this championship I want to get. And now it's gonna
be like that every every year. I won't tell me
ship next year. Next year, I'm coming back and say, look, man,
I'm wanna get a chimpship. A cam say shot, come on, man,
let's go. Let's get this. Get another one Michael got
(23:13):
for Let's get five. Man, come on, let's go. And
I'm saying, so that's how it's gonna be from this
point where you can hear how much deeper Kobe's voice
is here compared to the earlier tapes. He doesn't sound
like a kid anymore, and no one's treating him like
a kid anymore. Take the first time he met Magic Johnson.
Kobe described the entire encounter to Jeremy. The circumstances were
(23:38):
exactly what you would have expected. They met in a
gym and played pick up at first steps jenneral you
said ratter and he comes and walk through the door.
I looked back on the steps and I still welcome
to the man. He comes up to me, have you
left my mom? I'm doing I'm doing good. So out
(24:00):
of seats on sneakers and temptops. So he's playing. I'm like, alright, cool,
I can go over against Magic. So the first couple
totally leaves game. Just pick up games. I first THI
the games were the same team. Then I have to
we against each other. That were like three games they like.
So he comes back like the Newt's day. And when
it was like three games, you know, he's now whatever.
(24:21):
We're talking trash each other. Um. Sometimes sometimes sometimes you
would come out like I can remember one time we
had to picking a rule and I feel we forced
him to switch out so I had to win. So
we got as isolation somebody related with magic. So I'm
looking right, I'm not really playing that much attention. I'm like, man,
(24:42):
hold up, I got Maggie baby. You take him to
the hut. Do you take him to the rule some
bank or go to the route and I going for
for laver on one side, so you try to found it.
Another guy comes up and steps up from the baseline,
So I hang and I go to the other slide,
scooped it, laid off the glass and I was like
yeah and one oh, okay, okay, okay, that's move. That's
(25:03):
move for me. This was one of the coolest and
most revealing aspects of listening to Jeremy's KVIE tapes. He
had captured a moment in time, a fleeting period before
(25:25):
all the familiar narratives about Kobe had begun to unfurl.
The triumphs, the feuds, the grudges, the mistakes. Take his
biggest nemesis with the Lakers, literally and figuratively, Shaquille O'Neil.
For years, those two superstars battled over who was the
team's real alpha dog. It was the NBA's answer to
(25:46):
General Hospital for All My Children, a soap opera that
went on and on and on. Conversation during the Shack years,
were you guys friends? But listened to Kobe here talking
to Jeremy about his early relationship with the big flat
man that has been my older brother than Big went
(26:08):
since he got called me in the balls by at
my house and we talked a little bit. He's like,
d called me up. I'll adopted and you know it
was rut. But that's got like a older brother. You know,
they went when you just had the jury. You know,
I told him if you need to come to the house,
(26:31):
so he'll get awayful get away from me any day. Uh,
you know all Kavi may or whatever me up. So
who had they went? Kobe did not say the same
thing about his first coach with the Lakers, Del Harris.
Because Kobe spent so many years with Phil Jackson and
won those five championships with him, people sometimes forget that
(26:53):
Harris was Kobe's first pro coach. He was a veteran
of the league, white haired, very personable, and they had
a backstory together. Amazingly, Harris had coached Kobe's dad, Joe,
during Joe's only season with the Houston Rockets back in
eighty three. Then Harrison Kobe met during one of Kobe's
predraft workouts with the Lakers before Jerry West pulled off
(27:17):
the trade to get it Pray Carson and said, you
know we're gonna make some move gets you And he
didn't do that, all right, whatever what I'm saying. And
we had closed my father and that's basically good first
and President of eyes. I just laid back sounds anocuus right,
like hed get along with Harris okay right, Nope. After
(27:39):
his first season with the Lakers was finished in Kobe
sat down with Jeremy for another session with the tape
recorder and he unloaded on his coach, Jenny Keny says
each other. Then I get him there, I'm playing a game.
I'll make a move, I said. I get to the
room and she was a little pulled up the drop shot.
(28:02):
I miss it. So I'm going back to the times
like you can't do these moves in the NBA, he
went the hostel don't work here. I'm like, ship, it's
gonna be a lnge season. That's gonna be a long mass.
I can see you sucking. He's in preseason game, the
first Pieceason guy, one of them, one of the needs
(28:23):
here against against the old thing I'm doing, and comes
to the league in the first place. He's just looking
at every little thing. Shoot me, don know what I'm saying.
The holds the old season helping down. It's kind of
funny because the people, even people don't want to see
what's going on, but they don't know who's going on.
(28:44):
But I think it's impossible not to see who's going
on because it's the same gay as I stopped and
like nothings down. I don't play that or what I'm saying,
So it's it's kind of red. But I've just been like,
you know, overre, I just if you're playing, I gank
you went do the things I've been doing. The idea
(29:05):
that Kobe should haved just his game at all, that
he should I don't know listen to his coach doesn't
even enter his mind. I don't know whether to admire
it or shake my head at it. No, I don't
even care. I don't even think about it. I knew,
I knew where he was at, I knew when he
was doing. I've just been like, all right, suck it.
God didn't play and do my thing. You're gonna pull
(29:27):
me out and pull me out. Sat it on a
couple of times. You know, going there and do your thing,
play your game. If the game come to you, but
God didn't do your thing. If he pulls out, he
pulls you out, it you're gonna pull you out anyway.
I knew it was coming, and I'm saying it's inevitable.
He's always always looking for for the time to sit
me down inside, try to get me frustraed off because
(29:50):
he came out of pro problem. I think it's maybe, man,
I don't even care. Jeremy was feeling pretty good about
how his book project with Kobe was shaping up, and
I don't blame him. I know I would have felt
(30:12):
good if I had heard Kobe rip his coach on
the record like you just heard. That's a natural feeling
for any author. During the research portion of writing a book,
you realize you're getting good stuff, stuff no one has
heard or read before, and all you can see in
your head is people paging through the book saying to
their friends or the people next to them, can you
believe what Kobe says about Del Harris? You see everyone
(30:35):
reacting to the book exactly like you want them to,
and you see yourself selling a million copies. But Jeremy
had a few factors working against him. For instance, we
might forget that although Kobe was well known around the
country at that point, it was only because he was
such a young player and had skipped college and went
(30:56):
straight to the n b A. He wasn't a superstar yet,
he wasn't at the level of Michael Jordan's or Chemola
Juan or Patrick Ewing. So how many people would really
buy the book? Not very many. Apparently Jeremy was working
with rn Telling, Kobe's basketball agent, and Kobe's talent reps
at the William Morris Agency to try to drum up
(31:18):
interest from publishers. Nothing seemed to be happening, and no
one seemed to want to publish it. And all the
while you're trying to find the publisher for the book.
How was that going? Um? Well, I left out in
the hands of arn Tellent and the william Rs agent, say,
and they had a manuscript of mind, and I think
(31:38):
I gave me example chapters or something. Uh. They told
me if I couldn't get an offer or a good
enough offer, I'm not sure which, So it was just
put It was just put on hold so that you know,
and Josa, don't worry, we'll do it. We'll do it
at another time. What were your expectations made? No, I
never did anything like that before. I thought I was
(32:00):
gonna be good. I mean I thought it was. I
certainly was surprised. I thought, well, maybe maybe it was me,
Maybe my writing wasn't good. Or maybe I didn't have
a name, or maybe you know, maybe they wanted, uh
a bigger name. I was just happy that at the
time Kobe said, no, nobody else hasn't in this but you.
So that was nice to hear. I'll never forget, you know,
he said that. He said that more than one occasion.
(32:22):
Jeremy had to love that. It had to fill him
with confidence and optimism that the two of them would
finish the book and it would be great. But Jeremy's
admiration and affection for Kobe were the source of his
other problem. What was the nature of their relationship? Now?
They weren't roommates anymore. They weren't coaching player or pr
reppin player. They were writer and subject with the requisite
(32:45):
distance between those roles. Were were they when Jeremy and
Greg Downer came out to l A and hung out
with Kobe and the Bryant family in Kobe's whirlpool? Were
they writer and subject? Then? Sometimes? I mean, you're right,
it was sub times I was like, Okay, you might
here's his friend and if hears a lower marine guy,
you might where am I here as somebody doing a book.
(33:06):
I was sort of all great, and it was definitely, uh,
a gray area. Did you get any sense that he
was pulling away from Laura Marian from you, from that
stage of his life and moving on to whatever Los
Angeles and the NBA who's gonna have in store for him?
Not in an unnatural way. I'm just in a progressive
(33:26):
life way, I think. Yeah, yeah, I think this focus
was on Lakers for sure. I didn't. I didn't feel
he was leaving anything behind though. You know, it was
a living with his parents, living with this one sister.
We had a lot of his friends from Winwood came
out to l A the first couple of years. I
(33:47):
thought he had an agenda, and I thought he was
private about it. I I noticed the privateness about him.
He just there's a workout in Maniac would tell me
the schedule, you know, the words. Kobe was growing up,
he was living in the tunnel that was his pro
basketball career. He had less time to devote to sitting
(34:08):
down with Jeremy for the book, and as his game
improved and his celebrity grew, it was natural for him
to be less inclined to make time. Jeremy had written
those few chapters, but he didn't have enough material from
Kobe for a full manuscript, and in time he realized
he wasn't going to get enough. If a publisher had
(34:29):
given him and Kobe a half million dollar advanced for
the book, it's probably a safe bet Kobe would have
made time for it, but no one did so it
would have been understandable with Kobe drifted away or lost interest.
How big a disappointment was it that the book set
my disappointment? I mean, I was disappointed that it never
(34:49):
never got it to the shelves. But I never felt
any wrongdoing by the Bryant's. They were very good to me.
Um Kobe and Joe sponsored my company the first three
years in the league. They're very gracious hosting me. I
never thought it was that at any there was. I
(35:10):
trusted Arn't Tell and told me it just didn't sell
what and then things changed with the family dynamic and
Arn't Town wasn't staging anymore and just kind of fell apart.
Kobe and Tell them ended their professional relationship during the
two thousand, two thousand one season. Was there ever a
falling out, a distancing between you and Kobe at any point? No, nothing, No,
(36:09):
Jeremy remained loyal to Kobe publicly and privately throughout Kobe's
entire twenty year tenure in the NBA. If they had
a falling out, you never knew it from talking to Jeremy.
Even during the darkest times of Kobe's life, even when
Kobe put his very freedom at risk and in the
eyes of many people, became a villain forever, even when
(36:30):
he was charged with sexual assault in two thousand three
and two thousand four, Jeremy supported him. In fact, Jeremy
went on national television frequently to defend it. Wait a
pushy o our sense of entire ever just never just
the opposite. In fact, you know, the first two or
three years, even when it was in Los Angeles, I
was still remember the press then had press passes, been
(36:51):
in the locker room, and I saw I saw girls
of women try to get to him, and he wouldn't
have anything to do with it. It wouldn't have anything
to do with it. Was always very polite, just kept
walking by, gave a smile. I mean, he didn't fall
for any of that at all. All right, Jeremy, thank
you very much. I was very upset that people who
didn't know Kobe were being interviewed every night, and Kobe
(37:12):
Bryant was this pride that was being talked about every
single night. I have no idea what happened. I never
discussed it with anybody. I don't know, but all I
know is I wanted to get let anybody. I mean,
I got millions of calls to come on, as did Greg,
as did Lakers, as the tons of people and and
(37:33):
and people didn't do those interviews. So who ends up
being on the CNN S and Box and MSNBC s
and CBS is every night professor from so and so, uh,
woman from sexual assault thing over here, and and and
just listen to these talking heads, just talk talk, talk talk,
And do do you know Kobe Bryant? Have you ever
(37:53):
met him? Do you know? I mean that you know?
And I saw him getting dissed every night for hours
and hour was an hour. So whenever a network reached
out to him for an interview, Jeremy had three conditions
before he would agree to appear. One, the host wasn't
allowed to call him coach. Two, the host could not
(38:15):
bring up whatever happened in Colorado. Jeremy didn't know what
happened in Colorado, And he wouldn't comment on it. And three,
the host couldn't ask Jeremy about anything Kobe had done
or said since two thousand one because Jeremy hadn't had
a relationship with him since two thousand one. Kobe never
(38:37):
cut him off formally or officially. There had been no
cold and abrupt halt in their relationship, just a gradual
distancing as Kobe progressed with his life and Jeremy progressed
with his. It was similar to what happened with Jeremy's book.
It just kind of went away. Jeremy missed Kobe, of course,
(38:57):
but he didn't blame him. He just it what he
had always done. He stood by it in public, in private,
and on and TV. One thing I can't do is
I can tell the truth about how great I think
this guy is and how great a person he was
and a student and respectful person he was. And I mean,
I can talk about what I know, and I have
only nice things to say, and I'm tired of singing
(39:19):
people trash him all other place. So that's why I
did it. Look, let's be real here. Superstar athletes have
hangers on. They have people who follow them around ready
to satisfy their every win. Kobe had people like that
around him too, but Jeremy wasn't that. He wasn't one
(39:40):
of those people. This devotion to Kobe wasn't conditional if
teammates or coaches or media members were criticizing Kobe. The
essence of what I said has covered in the book
and was basically that I don't think I can coach
Kobe anymore. I can't reach him. And if you want
me to continue on with this ball club, then the
(40:01):
change has to be made. And if you want Kobe
on this ball club, then I have to go. Even
if Kobe was deserving of that criticism, check it. You
know how I blas me. Kobe couldn't do without me.
You know how lasswe Kobe could do without me. Jeremy
(40:21):
was going to stand up for him no matter what.
And I think it's noteworthy that Jeremy doesn't just defend
Kobe as this superstar player, he defends him as a
great person. Yes, Kobe was a rare and exceptional athlete,
but Jeremy always talked about how polite and smart he was,
what a good teammate he was, how much he enjoyed
(40:43):
the time they spent together. Jeremy really thought highly of
Kobe as a young man. What you do for a friend.
Other people are sick up when people didn't stick up
for him for making his decision to go to the draft.
From people who stick up for him, how good he was.
And I think I told you this before. One of
(41:04):
my friends wanted to go fist to fist when we
got in a fight whether he was better than Curry
Kettles as a high school player, and I said he's
better than Curry girls right now, and they were That
got pretty heated. I'm like, you'll say, you'll see said
because I believe him, Kobe. I believe him as as
a person. He's a good many. But I have to
(41:42):
just stop here and ask an important question, was he
was Kobe Bryant a good man? And what does that
really mean? I've spent more than a year and a
half digging into the first half of Kobe Bryant's life,
reading everything I could about it, listening to people tell
stories about him, pouring over these tapes for hours. There
(42:04):
are a few people I know well enough to say
for certain, yes, he is a good man. When it
comes to Kobe, I know this. I know that he
was a complex man. I know that he was a
driven man with a passion and determination that are extremely rare,
and that he was willing to live with the consequences
(42:24):
and costs of that drive, the consequences of a deep
thirst for excellence. In our next episode of this series,
I'll do my best to take a measure of his legacy,
especially in the wake of his untimely death. He knew
that eventually I would become a great He knows that
(42:47):
I would not have anything. But right now I haven't
grown upon my hand, and you don't produce. Things been happening,
and maybe I'll loose it. I'm really don't care about that.
That's next week on I Am Kobe. I Am Kobe
(43:14):
is a production of the Version podcasts in association with
I Heart Radio. This season is written and hosted by
me Mike Sealsky. It's produced by Jacob Bronstein and directed
by Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial
direction from Scott Waxman, Editing, mixing and sound design by
Mark Francis. Stephen Tompkins is our production assistant. Our theme
(43:38):
music is Create Yourself by Grover Brown. Featuring Justin Starling
find Create Yourself wherever you stream music. Music supervisor is
Scott Velasquez for Fressan Sinc. Executive producers are Mark Francis
and Scott Waxman. Join the conversation about I Am Kobe
on social media on Twitter and the Gram. It's at
(44:01):
the Version pots thanks to Rain Rosenbaum, Susan Canavan and
Jeremy Treatment. I Love I rise before the sun. They
don't understand when I said the grind is fun. Never
clock you out even when my work is done. If
they're trying to block me, I might hurt someone through
the blood sweat and says, we perseverit, stay killing in,
let it, keep the horses. And then if they don't
(44:22):
believe in themselves, gave revert to fit, not the Tampa's head.
So I'm telling them, ask my am, this the reason
why my work so damn different to the negatives. I
can't listen see me at the time. You can't listen
where I'm a vote to play like cash is see
I pay my dudes because taxes gotta work. I thinking
briand ahead of his time. Someone saying that they made you,
(44:44):
don't tell them you create yourself the best Finn watch us,
but that time you gotta stay clock then break clock
break we create ourselves, watch me, question, watch Steve create
my hell exact signs up, create yourself? Say nice, ain't
(45:07):
so hard to create yourself. You gotta learn from the
great minds. No, we ain't lying. To tell them next
any time. This time wasn't giving it was made the future.
Any time I could change better. Tell them that I've
made it back home. As I walked through the hearts
of the fame, I came from the valley of the shadow,
with death waiting for us. Some spoons don't hold your breath,
(45:28):
sat Town, sat Train. But I did it with less.
I know them that to be so there's nothing to guess. Yeah,
there's nothing to guess. It's our times. Tell them we
up next. We don't got any regrets. I did it
with my soon hands, and we never forgets my a.
This the reason why my im working so damn different
to the negatives. I can't listen see me at the time.
(45:49):
You can't listen for where rebuild, reach shape, give me
your eye. You got to risk take do it now.
When I'm saying why Braves, I was saying that they
mayn't get. Tell them you create yourself around the best
you finnel watch us by. It's by that time. You've
gotta snake clack, then break black break we create yourself,
(46:12):
watch me Qua, watch leave, create myself, exac Clie black Clie,
signs up and create yourself. Tell you say nice, ain't
go on? Create yourself. Gotta line from the great minds,
so we ain't lyne Tell them next anytime. Diversion Podcasts
Diversion podcasts. People give you closer for you now. You know,
that's kind of funny too. What people who are rich
don't have to buy things because everybody wants them to
endorse their clothes. They'll give it to one for free.
The people w are poor, they try to raise the price.
(00:30):
You know what I'm saying as that's weird. That kind
of tripped me out because I think, you know, I
have money, I'm going to be buying all these sneakers
and shorts and tank tops and he'll figure and Polo
and guests and now they're like, oh please wait this
where this? What kind of what do you want? Okay,
what kind of sneaking you want? Yeah? No, give them
to you for free? Yah? Then what you do endorse
(00:52):
their products? Like could you wear this? If you want,
we can give you this or just ask for something.
Since the start of the pandemic, I've spent more time
in my home office than I have anywhere else. In
(01:14):
one corner is a big bookcase. In another corner is
my desk. That's where I did much of the research
and reporting and just about all of the writing for
my book about Kobe Bryant. I could make phone calls,
I could search online databases, and as much as I
love my wife and two sons, I could close the
door on them so I could get some work done
(01:36):
in peace and quiet. Early on in my writing process,
I reached out to someone who twenty five years earlier
had also tried to write a book about Kobe. It
was Jeremy Treatment. You've heard a lot about him in
this series. I called Jeremy, knowing his own Kobe book
project had been scuttled at some point, but also knowing
(01:57):
he was still in touch with several of Kobe's coaches
and teammates from Lower Merion High School. Jeremy kept transcripts
from his interviews with Kobe from and he handed over
a cardboard box full of those transcripts and other material. Later,
when he found the tapes of those interviews, he gave
(02:18):
those to me too. I kept the tapes in that box,
and I kept that box right next to my desk.
I had easy access to the tapes there in case
I needed to listen to them or read over the
transcripts as I was writing the book. And I have
to admit that sometimes I just pick up the transcripts
and page through them, reading Kobe's words, trying to put
(02:42):
myself there, listening to him speak, imagining what it must
have been like to know him, that a seventeen or
eighteen year old kid who knew exactly what he wanted,
and what he wanted was immortality. Here's the sample, chapter four.
(03:09):
Here's how the chapter would have started out. The build
up before the draft was a very exciting and scary
time for me because I really didn't know what was
going to happen. All I knew is that my dream
was about to be answered. I just didn't know where
I was going to live my dream. That was from
(03:30):
one of the chapters that Jeremy had written from Kobe's perspective.
There were three or four chapters like that in that
cardboard box, each of them about ten pages long, preserved
for a quarter century. I've listened to the tapes sometimes too,
to get a feel for Kobe, for his voice. It
was like my own little space of living Kobe history,
(03:51):
right there in my office. The thing is, Jeremy didn't
even listen to the tapes before he let me have them.
It wasn't until I met him on Long Child in
August several months later, and I played him a bit
of them that he heard them for the first time
in more than twenty years. When was the last time
you heard any of these? Day Kobe got rid of
(04:14):
his family today assault ended. Two thousand one was the
year that Jeremy's relationship with Kobe changed, because Kobe's relationship
with his family changed. Two thousand one was the year
that Kobe married his wife, Vanessa, which led to a
falling out between him and his parents, Joe and Pam.
(04:35):
There's been a lot of speculation about why the Bryant
family fractured as it did. From what I gathered and
talking to people who knew Kobe well back then, the
problem came down to this. Kobe felt like he was
ready to move fully into adulthood to get married, and
his parents thought he was too young. That separation marked
(04:56):
the moment symbolically and practically that Kobe he left much
of his Lower Marian life behind, not all of it.
He kept in contact with Greg Downer, and he visit
his old high school every year or so, but for
the most part he had become a Laker, fully engaged
in his NBA career, in his life on the West Coast,
(05:17):
and in Los Angeles culture, of beautiful weather and famous people.
He got used to the public adulation, the love from
the fans. The wonder and naive te you heard in
that opening clip I played for you at the beginning
of this episode, slowly disappeared. He got used to getting
clothes for free, more and more lower Marian and the
(05:40):
friends he had made there were receding into Kobe's past.
For example, after he entered the n b A, he
stayed in touch with his former teammate Guys Stewart for
a while, but just a while. I think the first
tour three years, we talked pretty frequent whenever he would
(06:03):
come to play the Sixers or you know, when the
season was over, he would be home and we would
hang out. And then I think, you know, as the
bigger he got, he worked even harder, if even if
that was even possible, because he wasn't the type of
guy that was just going to get to the league
and be like, all right, I'm in the league, that's
that's okay. No. He he wanted to get to the league,
(06:24):
and he wanted to dominate the league, and he wanted
to be the best ever. Um So he worked like
it and with your work ethic your schedule becomes crazier,
and you know, you just naturally drift apart. You know,
I'm in school, I'm studying, and I'm kind of doing
my own thing, and he's doing his own thing. But
(06:44):
it was never any love loss. It was whenever we
got together or talked on the phone, it was great.
It was like we never missed a beat. So for
the first three years we talked pretty pretty frequent, and
then it kind of doing go down a lot more
um the years after that, Jeremy's relationship with Kobe evolved,
(07:17):
if that's the right word for it, in the same way.
And remember he hadn't been close just to Kobe. He
had been tight with the entire Bryant clam If there
wasn't a clean break between him and Kobe. As Kobe
moved on from Lower Marian and progressed in his pro career,
there was certainly more distance between them. But during that
(07:38):
day Jeremy and I spent together on Long Beach Island.
This year, I could tell that listening to the tapes
closed some of that distance. For Jeremy. It had been
nearly thirty years since he met Kobe. It had been
twenty five years since he was there on the aces
sideline celebrating a state championship with Kobe. It had been
twenty years since he heard the tapes, but that special
(08:02):
period of time was fresh in his memory. Kobe had
been dead for a year and a half, but he
was alive in Jeremy's mind and heart. It wasn't about money,
was about fame. I wanted to be a part of
Copy's life. I absolutely I love the kid, I love
the family. I loved him. I'm Mike Sealsky and from
(08:31):
the Version podcasts, this is I am Kobe the West
settle to Create Myself, Create Yourself, Stay nice on Create Yourself.
Got a lot of really great mass, but we gained
(08:53):
last sets Getting Time Episode nine, The Bond that Broke.
Before he joined Greg Downer's coaching staff at Lower Merion
High School in the fall of Jeremy already had gotten
to know Kobe and the rest of the Bryant's pretty well.
(09:14):
He and Joe had met when they were both coaching
at a Keba Hebrew academy, and that connection allowed Jeremy
to enter Kobe's inner circle. But it wasn't until Lower
Marian's Christmas time trip to Myrtle Beach for the Beach
Fall Classic that he and Kobe really bonded. They had
to bond on that trip. They were roommates for it.
(09:35):
The team stayed in Myrtle Beach for five nights, and
the players and coaches had modest accommodations in town at
the Swamp Fox Motel, not far from the city's convention center,
where the tournament was being helped. The original plan was
for Kobe to room with Greg Downer's brother Drew, who
you'll remember from episode four was one of the team's
assistant coaches, but that plan changed. Here's Jeremy. Kobe did
(10:03):
not want to room with True Downer. So I guess
Gregg on tent was, I'm gonna have my biggest enforcement
guy at room with Kobe and make sure he's safe
and make sure nobody messes with him. And I think
Kobe said to me, like, you know, I want to
room with you up there. I'm like, fline with me,
and then Toby go tell Greg and he did. Why
(10:26):
do you think he wanted to room with you? I
think he wanted to room with me because we were close,
and because it's this one adult on the entire trip.
That would keep secrets. It would be me. And so
what if everybody thought he was sleeping but he was
out being a girl, or if he was out playing
or Mr Curfew, I wouldn't tell him. I would have
(10:50):
to say that's true, and I would have to say
I had zero problem with it. I was flattered and honored,
you know, to be rooming with him. At this point,
Jeremy already he had approached Kobe and his parents with
the idea of writing a book about him. They loved
the idea and thought he was the perfect person to
do it. Now he and Kobe would have plenty of
(11:10):
time together to talk. Their sweet had two bedrooms, a
smaller one in the front and a larger one in
the back. Jeremy figured that as the coach and as
the adult, he would take the bigger rooms. Seemed natural,
So I put my stuff in the back bags put
back on the first. Bet He says, why don't you
stay here? And then you know, then you can hang
(11:30):
out with being come out sometimes and hang out with
the bean in the back. He said to Bet. He
never said the bean to me, ever, he was charming me.
He said, why why you let me stay back here?
I'll come over here well, and then you can come back.
Sometimes you can hang out with the bean. We could
talk about stuff, we could work on the book. The
setup seemed ideal for Jeremy to get to know the
(11:52):
best high school player in the country even better than
he already did. There was just one thing that worried.
I was only nervous about getting the bathroom wet and
having him slipped and causing the end of Kobe Bryant's career.
And that's the neurotically Jewish man in me, because I
come from a family where my older brother would splash
(12:12):
the bathup so bad we'd all come in there, go
fly in. And I was I was honestly nervous about that.
I was almost afraid to take a shower because I'm
known to just let the water fly all over the place.
And I'm like, Nope, my roommate's Kobe Briant. I can't
do that. Hey, this is Mike Sealsky, host and writer
(12:41):
of I Am Kobe. This podcast project came out of
my work on a related book called The Rise Kobe
Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality. If you want to
explore other parts of Kobe's story. Check out the Rise.
It's not just a book version of the podcast. I
dive deeper into some of the topics covered in the series,
and even some that we don't cover at all. Kobe's upbringing,
(13:04):
his family, his identity, his effect on his friends and teammates,
his journey into the NBA, and his earliest days with
the Lakers. The Rise Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of
Immortality is out now. Just head over to the Rise
of Kobe book dot com and you can buy it
from any of your favorite retailers. That's The Rise of
(13:26):
Kobe Book dot com. Thanks. I've spent a lot of
time in this series diving into the crucial moments in
Kobe's early life. Well, this was a crucial moment for Jeremy.
(13:50):
He was realizing that he didn't really want to write
for a newspaper anymore, that he didn't want to be
on the outside when it came to sports. He didn't
want to write about the games. He wanted to have
a direct hand in the games. He wanted to coach them,
set up and schedule them, promote them. He wanted to
be on the inside. And I can understand why when
(14:12):
he was a kid growing up in Lower Merion Township.
Just like Kobe, Jeremy had always been on the outside
of things. His family was one of the first Jewish
families to move into his neighborhood in the nineteen seventies,
and he had jumped up a grade in school. So
even though he was as smart or smarter than all
the other students in class, he was younger and smaller.
(14:36):
That's a tough spot for a kid. And Jeremy told
me that back then he dealt with a lot of bullying,
a lot of teasing, and a lot of behavior that well,
let's just say, the kids who weren't Jewish weren't getting
treated as harshly as he was. But he had been
accepted by Kobe and the Bryant's. That meant a lot
(14:57):
to him, and now he had a chance to learn
as much as he could about Coupe, to get to
know him on a more personal, intimate level, and to
help tell his story in their book. He didn't get
that chance because he was a reporter for a big newspaper.
He got it because he was part of the Lower
(15:17):
Marian program and part of Kobe's life was it at
that point more important to you to be on the
inside with Kobe than on the outside covering him. Definitely,
I definitely felt like it was a great opportunity be
on the inside. I did know that he was going
to be jumping. I'm I'm almost positive because I do
(15:39):
remember Joe also called me saying, well, I wanted you
to be on the staff. And they had both discussed
with me that it's going to go from high school
the NBA. And I had this idea my freshman year
in the NBA by Kobe Bryant with Jeremy Treatment, and
they both said absolutely, just such a novelty. He was
just such an unbelievable story at the time. There's no arts,
(16:00):
There's no well educated person who didn't need money jumping
in the NBA in the history of the NBA. And
it was a unique story. A kid who didn't grow
up here, who appealed to everybody. I mean, he was
just clean cutter, marking kid that you know, every everybody
was falling in love with. That was one of the
big reasons that Jeremy thought people would go gaga for
(16:22):
a book about Kobe. There was just enough of an
edge to him that he would be intriguing Kobe Bryant
decided to see my talents to uh No, I have
decided to skip Collins and my talents in NBA. Thanks
(16:51):
to the trade that the Lakers made but the Charlotte
Hornets to get him, he'd be playing for one of
the NBA's premier franchises, maybe it's most prestigious franchise as
Magic ever, Consul, do you ever told you anything about
the game? Um? Not really. We really had really had
an opportunity and saw so far this season. But I'm
definitely looking forward to having some conversation with him and
(17:12):
his background. His upbringing in Italy and in Lower Marian
His father's playing and coaching careers set him apart from most,
if not all, of his peers. One time, Jeremy showed
me a list he had made of all the topics
he wanted to cover with Kobe in their book. The
list went on for several pages, because I don't think
(17:34):
it funny something years ago. Yes, smiles on the academic,
but he wasn't allowed to play basketball unless you's done
his homework. Kenney. He had toy stories like that, so
I know I know he got his homework on. I
know he his work seriously, and I think that. I
think the background in Italy, where school was important um
(18:00):
properly really helps in that. Plus, Jeremy had access to
Kobe and had earned his trust at a pivotal time
in Kobe's life. Kobe had been well known in the
Philadelphia area and in basketball circles, but now that he
was a professional athlete, he was starting to experience a
different kind of existence. It was one thing to take
(18:21):
Brandy to the prom a is a pr move, and
have some of his classmates resent him for it. It
was another thing to have strangers know you were a
first round draft pick and a multimillionaire and to have
them think you owed them something. Here's one example Kobe
told Jeremy about after the Lakers had traded for him,
(18:42):
he went to a house party in West Philadelphia. I
don't believe it is We'll tell you that one time.
This flash party. You pay to knowledge to get here
in West Philadelphia. I know, whatever side for a little bit,
come out, We walk around. This girl comes up, a
(19:03):
good looking girl, you know what I'm saying. Comes to
He's like be around, like, yeah, can you near me?
Ten dollars? I was like uh huh. You're like, I
don't have any money. I want to I really want
to get this blast body blocks, but I'm like, you
got all this money he was to dollars. I'm like,
if I know, I'm be like, look, this is my
damn money. And then I'm saying I work for this money.
(19:25):
I just like, um um, She's like, bro, I'll pay
you back. I'm melingant down to the Lakers. I'm saying.
I'm like, can you believe I'm not believe I'm hearing this.
I cannot believe it. I was just like I finally
came up with something. I said, I'm sorry, I only
have plastic. Like all that money, you can't be carrying
around in cash. I only have plastic. They take plastic
(19:47):
and then they take visa mask. I'll hook you up.
They don't. You can't think that for you. It's like,
you know you got money, you got plastic. You want
me to do break the plasket? You know what I'm saying,
So I'll made it's in the Lakers, look right National Bank.
(20:20):
It was those kinds of funny personal anecdotes that Jeremy
thought would make the book appealing first to publishers. And
then to readers, I have to say, my freshman year
in the n b A isn't a bad title, and
the idea of an inside look at Kobe's last year
of high school and first year of pro ball definitely
had some allure. But the book couldn't be something that
(20:42):
Jeremy worked on whenever he felt like it or whenever
he had a free moment. He would have to make
a major commitment of effort and time. So would Kobe,
and Jeremy wondered how the project might change the nature
of their relationship. I certainly was curious about it. I
mean I certainly thought I was, you know, I was
(21:03):
hoping that I was gonna have a role or hoping
to be out in Los Angeles because, uh, the dad
said he wanted me to be around him, you know,
stay around him, whether it was with the buckle or
anything else. So you know, I was. I was invited
there many times. I mean I think I was out
there eight eight times or so the first couple of years,
and he was getting good stuff. It took some prodding
(21:24):
and coaxing, but once Kobe started to live in NBA life,
he gradually got more open with Jeremy more revealing. You
listen to these tapes and you really do get an
inside look at what Kobe was thinking when he was
eighteen nineteen years old. Here he is talking about how
he approached his entrance to the NBA and the expectations
(21:45):
that people would have him. I didn't want to come
in like the shaquillo, like maybe I could press weapon.
Why has all these expectations? Ryan noys him? And even
if you're performing great, still not good enough. It's never
gonna be thesplicating people for kind eat and then sneak
(22:07):
up more people. Nexting people are saying, oh great, you
know that. That's how I always want to down people,
more people, kind of like a shark. That's a fascinating
piece of tape. I had never thought of Kobe as
sneaking up on anyone when it came to basketball. He
struck me more as being like Nukeluloche, the hotshot pitching
prospect played by Tim Robbins in Bull Durham. I always
(22:31):
felt like Kobe wanted to announce his presence with authority.
I was a little Mary and I'm a lad No.
I was kind of surprised and shot at first, but
you know now, I was just like, Okay, now I
don't want to win a championship. I'm not stepping in
there saying okay, I just want to have a next
(22:52):
movie season. If you get a championship five, if it
wasn't kinda five, not like that. I want to give
this championship I want to get. And now it's gonna
be like that every every year. I won't tell me
ship next year. Next year, I'm coming back and say, look, man,
I'm wanna get a chimpship. A cam say shot, come on, man,
let's go. Let's get this. Get another one Michael got
(23:13):
for Let's get five. Man, come on, let's go. And
I'm saying, so that's how it's gonna be from this
point where you can hear how much deeper Kobe's voice
is here compared to the earlier tapes. He doesn't sound
like a kid anymore, and no one's treating him like
a kid anymore. Take the first time he met Magic Johnson.
Kobe described the entire encounter to Jeremy. The circumstances were
(23:38):
exactly what you would have expected. They met in a
gym and played pick up at first steps jenneral you
said ratter and he comes and walk through the door.
I looked back on the steps and I still welcome
to the man. He comes up to me, have you
left my mom? I'm doing I'm doing good. So out
(24:00):
of seats on sneakers and temptops. So he's playing. I'm like, alright, cool,
I can go over against Magic. So the first couple
totally leaves game. Just pick up games. I first THI
the games were the same team. Then I have to
we against each other. That were like three games they like.
So he comes back like the Newt's day. And when
it was like three games, you know, he's now whatever.
(24:21):
We're talking trash each other. Um. Sometimes sometimes sometimes you
would come out like I can remember one time we
had to picking a rule and I feel we forced
him to switch out so I had to win. So
we got as isolation somebody related with magic. So I'm
looking right, I'm not really playing that much attention. I'm like, man,
(24:42):
hold up, I got Maggie baby. You take him to
the hut. Do you take him to the rule some
bank or go to the route and I going for
for laver on one side, so you try to found it.
Another guy comes up and steps up from the baseline,
So I hang and I go to the other slide,
scooped it, laid off the glass and I was like
yeah and one oh, okay, okay, okay, that's move. That's
(25:03):
move for me. This was one of the coolest and
most revealing aspects of listening to Jeremy's KVIE tapes. He
had captured a moment in time, a fleeting period before
(25:25):
all the familiar narratives about Kobe had begun to unfurl.
The triumphs, the feuds, the grudges, the mistakes. Take his
biggest nemesis with the Lakers, literally and figuratively, Shaquille O'Neil.
For years, those two superstars battled over who was the
team's real alpha dog. It was the NBA's answer to
(25:46):
General Hospital for All My Children, a soap opera that
went on and on and on. Conversation during the Shack years,
were you guys friends? But listened to Kobe here talking
to Jeremy about his early relationship with the big flat
man that has been my older brother than Big went
(26:08):
since he got called me in the balls by at
my house and we talked a little bit. He's like,
d called me up. I'll adopted and you know it
was rut. But that's got like a older brother. You know,
they went when you just had the jury. You know,
I told him if you need to come to the house,
(26:31):
so he'll get awayful get away from me any day. Uh,
you know all Kavi may or whatever me up. So
who had they went? Kobe did not say the same
thing about his first coach with the Lakers, Del Harris.
Because Kobe spent so many years with Phil Jackson and
won those five championships with him, people sometimes forget that
(26:53):
Harris was Kobe's first pro coach. He was a veteran
of the league, white haired, very personable, and they had
a backstory together. Amazingly, Harris had coached Kobe's dad, Joe,
during Joe's only season with the Houston Rockets back in
eighty three. Then Harrison Kobe met during one of Kobe's
predraft workouts with the Lakers before Jerry West pulled off
(27:17):
the trade to get it Pray Carson and said, you
know we're gonna make some move gets you And he
didn't do that, all right, whatever what I'm saying. And
we had closed my father and that's basically good first
and President of eyes. I just laid back sounds anocuus right,
like hed get along with Harris okay right, Nope. After
(27:39):
his first season with the Lakers was finished in Kobe
sat down with Jeremy for another session with the tape
recorder and he unloaded on his coach, Jenny Keny says
each other. Then I get him there, I'm playing a game.
I'll make a move, I said. I get to the
room and she was a little pulled up the drop shot.
(28:02):
I miss it. So I'm going back to the times
like you can't do these moves in the NBA, he
went the hostel don't work here. I'm like, ship, it's
gonna be a lnge season. That's gonna be a long mass.
I can see you sucking. He's in preseason game, the
first Pieceason guy, one of them, one of the needs
(28:23):
here against against the old thing I'm doing, and comes
to the league in the first place. He's just looking
at every little thing. Shoot me, don know what I'm saying.
The holds the old season helping down. It's kind of
funny because the people, even people don't want to see
what's going on, but they don't know who's going on.
(28:44):
But I think it's impossible not to see who's going
on because it's the same gay as I stopped and
like nothings down. I don't play that or what I'm saying,
So it's it's kind of red. But I've just been like,
you know, overre, I just if you're playing, I gank
you went do the things I've been doing. The idea
(29:05):
that Kobe should haved just his game at all, that
he should I don't know listen to his coach doesn't
even enter his mind. I don't know whether to admire
it or shake my head at it. No, I don't
even care. I don't even think about it. I knew,
I knew where he was at, I knew when he
was doing. I've just been like, all right, suck it.
God didn't play and do my thing. You're gonna pull
(29:27):
me out and pull me out. Sat it on a
couple of times. You know, going there and do your thing,
play your game. If the game come to you, but
God didn't do your thing. If he pulls out, he
pulls you out, it you're gonna pull you out anyway.
I knew it was coming, and I'm saying it's inevitable.
He's always always looking for for the time to sit
me down inside, try to get me frustraed off because
(29:50):
he came out of pro problem. I think it's maybe, man,
I don't even care. Jeremy was feeling pretty good about
how his book project with Kobe was shaping up, and
I don't blame him. I know I would have felt
(30:12):
good if I had heard Kobe rip his coach on
the record like you just heard. That's a natural feeling
for any author. During the research portion of writing a book,
you realize you're getting good stuff, stuff no one has
heard or read before, and all you can see in
your head is people paging through the book saying to
their friends or the people next to them, can you
believe what Kobe says about Del Harris? You see everyone
(30:35):
reacting to the book exactly like you want them to,
and you see yourself selling a million copies. But Jeremy
had a few factors working against him. For instance, we
might forget that although Kobe was well known around the
country at that point, it was only because he was
such a young player and had skipped college and went
(30:56):
straight to the n b A. He wasn't a superstar yet,
he wasn't at the level of Michael Jordan's or Chemola
Juan or Patrick Ewing. So how many people would really
buy the book? Not very many. Apparently Jeremy was working
with rn Telling, Kobe's basketball agent, and Kobe's talent reps
at the William Morris Agency to try to drum up
(31:18):
interest from publishers. Nothing seemed to be happening, and no
one seemed to want to publish it. And all the
while you're trying to find the publisher for the book.
How was that going? Um? Well, I left out in
the hands of arn Tellent and the william Rs agent, say,
and they had a manuscript of mind, and I think
(31:38):
I gave me example chapters or something. Uh. They told
me if I couldn't get an offer or a good
enough offer, I'm not sure which, So it was just
put It was just put on hold so that you know,
and Josa, don't worry, we'll do it. We'll do it
at another time. What were your expectations made? No, I
never did anything like that before. I thought I was
(32:00):
gonna be good. I mean I thought it was. I
certainly was surprised. I thought, well, maybe maybe it was me,
Maybe my writing wasn't good. Or maybe I didn't have
a name, or maybe you know, maybe they wanted, uh
a bigger name. I was just happy that at the
time Kobe said, no, nobody else hasn't in this but you.
So that was nice to hear. I'll never forget, you know,
he said that. He said that more than one occasion.
(32:22):
Jeremy had to love that. It had to fill him
with confidence and optimism that the two of them would
finish the book and it would be great. But Jeremy's
admiration and affection for Kobe were the source of his
other problem. What was the nature of their relationship? Now?
They weren't roommates anymore. They weren't coaching player or pr
reppin player. They were writer and subject with the requisite
(32:45):
distance between those roles. Were were they when Jeremy and
Greg Downer came out to l A and hung out
with Kobe and the Bryant family in Kobe's whirlpool? Were
they writer and subject? Then? Sometimes? I mean, you're right,
it was sub times I was like, Okay, you might
here's his friend and if hears a lower marine guy,
you might where am I here as somebody doing a book.
(33:06):
I was sort of all great, and it was definitely, uh,
a gray area. Did you get any sense that he
was pulling away from Laura Marian from you, from that
stage of his life and moving on to whatever Los
Angeles and the NBA who's gonna have in store for him?
Not in an unnatural way. I'm just in a progressive
(33:26):
life way, I think. Yeah, yeah, I think this focus
was on Lakers for sure. I didn't. I didn't feel
he was leaving anything behind though. You know, it was
a living with his parents, living with this one sister.
We had a lot of his friends from Winwood came
out to l A the first couple of years. I
(33:47):
thought he had an agenda, and I thought he was
private about it. I I noticed the privateness about him.
He just there's a workout in Maniac would tell me
the schedule, you know, the words. Kobe was growing up,
he was living in the tunnel that was his pro
basketball career. He had less time to devote to sitting
(34:08):
down with Jeremy for the book, and as his game
improved and his celebrity grew, it was natural for him
to be less inclined to make time. Jeremy had written
those few chapters, but he didn't have enough material from
Kobe for a full manuscript, and in time he realized
he wasn't going to get enough. If a publisher had
(34:29):
given him and Kobe a half million dollar advanced for
the book, it's probably a safe bet Kobe would have
made time for it, but no one did so it
would have been understandable with Kobe drifted away or lost interest.
How big a disappointment was it that the book set
my disappointment? I mean, I was disappointed that it never
(34:49):
never got it to the shelves. But I never felt
any wrongdoing by the Bryant's. They were very good to me.
Um Kobe and Joe sponsored my company the first three
years in the league. They're very gracious hosting me. I
never thought it was that at any there was. I
(35:10):
trusted Arn't Tell and told me it just didn't sell
what and then things changed with the family dynamic and
Arn't Town wasn't staging anymore and just kind of fell apart.
Kobe and Tell them ended their professional relationship during the
two thousand, two thousand one season. Was there ever a
falling out, a distancing between you and Kobe at any point? No, nothing, No,
(36:09):
Jeremy remained loyal to Kobe publicly and privately throughout Kobe's
entire twenty year tenure in the NBA. If they had
a falling out, you never knew it from talking to Jeremy.
Even during the darkest times of Kobe's life, even when
Kobe put his very freedom at risk and in the
eyes of many people, became a villain forever, even when
(36:30):
he was charged with sexual assault in two thousand three
and two thousand four, Jeremy supported him. In fact, Jeremy
went on national television frequently to defend it. Wait a
pushy o our sense of entire ever just never just
the opposite. In fact, you know, the first two or
three years, even when it was in Los Angeles, I
was still remember the press then had press passes, been
(36:51):
in the locker room, and I saw I saw girls
of women try to get to him, and he wouldn't
have anything to do with it. It wouldn't have anything
to do with it. Was always very polite, just kept
walking by, gave a smile. I mean, he didn't fall
for any of that at all. All right, Jeremy, thank
you very much. I was very upset that people who
didn't know Kobe were being interviewed every night, and Kobe
(37:12):
Bryant was this pride that was being talked about every
single night. I have no idea what happened. I never
discussed it with anybody. I don't know, but all I
know is I wanted to get let anybody. I mean,
I got millions of calls to come on, as did Greg,
as did Lakers, as the tons of people and and
(37:33):
and people didn't do those interviews. So who ends up
being on the CNN S and Box and MSNBC s
and CBS is every night professor from so and so, uh,
woman from sexual assault thing over here, and and and
just listen to these talking heads, just talk talk, talk talk,
And do do you know Kobe Bryant? Have you ever
(37:53):
met him? Do you know? I mean that you know?
And I saw him getting dissed every night for hours
and hour was an hour. So whenever a network reached
out to him for an interview, Jeremy had three conditions
before he would agree to appear. One, the host wasn't
allowed to call him coach. Two, the host could not
(38:15):
bring up whatever happened in Colorado. Jeremy didn't know what
happened in Colorado, And he wouldn't comment on it. And three,
the host couldn't ask Jeremy about anything Kobe had done
or said since two thousand one because Jeremy hadn't had
a relationship with him since two thousand one. Kobe never
(38:37):
cut him off formally or officially. There had been no
cold and abrupt halt in their relationship, just a gradual
distancing as Kobe progressed with his life and Jeremy progressed
with his. It was similar to what happened with Jeremy's book.
It just kind of went away. Jeremy missed Kobe, of course,
(38:57):
but he didn't blame him. He just it what he
had always done. He stood by it in public, in private,
and on and TV. One thing I can't do is
I can tell the truth about how great I think
this guy is and how great a person he was
and a student and respectful person he was. And I mean,
I can talk about what I know, and I have
only nice things to say, and I'm tired of singing
(39:19):
people trash him all other place. So that's why I
did it. Look, let's be real here. Superstar athletes have
hangers on. They have people who follow them around ready
to satisfy their every win. Kobe had people like that
around him too, but Jeremy wasn't that. He wasn't one
(39:40):
of those people. This devotion to Kobe wasn't conditional if
teammates or coaches or media members were criticizing Kobe. The
essence of what I said has covered in the book
and was basically that I don't think I can coach
Kobe anymore. I can't reach him. And if you want
me to continue on with this ball club, then the
(40:01):
change has to be made. And if you want Kobe
on this ball club, then I have to go. Even
if Kobe was deserving of that criticism, check it. You
know how I blas me. Kobe couldn't do without me.
You know how lasswe Kobe could do without me. Jeremy
(40:21):
was going to stand up for him no matter what.
And I think it's noteworthy that Jeremy doesn't just defend
Kobe as this superstar player, he defends him as a
great person. Yes, Kobe was a rare and exceptional athlete,
but Jeremy always talked about how polite and smart he was,
what a good teammate he was, how much he enjoyed
(40:43):
the time they spent together. Jeremy really thought highly of
Kobe as a young man. What you do for a friend.
Other people are sick up when people didn't stick up
for him for making his decision to go to the draft.
From people who stick up for him, how good he was.
And I think I told you this before. One of
(41:04):
my friends wanted to go fist to fist when we
got in a fight whether he was better than Curry
Kettles as a high school player, and I said he's
better than Curry girls right now, and they were That
got pretty heated. I'm like, you'll say, you'll see said
because I believe him, Kobe. I believe him as as
a person. He's a good many. But I have to
(41:42):
just stop here and ask an important question, was he
was Kobe Bryant a good man? And what does that
really mean? I've spent more than a year and a
half digging into the first half of Kobe Bryant's life,
reading everything I could about it, listening to people tell
stories about him, pouring over these tapes for hours. There
(42:04):
are a few people I know well enough to say
for certain, yes, he is a good man. When it
comes to Kobe, I know this. I know that he
was a complex man. I know that he was a
driven man with a passion and determination that are extremely rare,
and that he was willing to live with the consequences
(42:24):
and costs of that drive, the consequences of a deep
thirst for excellence. In our next episode of this series,
I'll do my best to take a measure of his legacy,
especially in the wake of his untimely death. He knew
that eventually I would become a great He knows that
(42:47):
I would not have anything. But right now I haven't
grown upon my hand, and you don't produce. Things been happening,
and maybe I'll loose it. I'm really don't care about that.
That's next week on I Am Kobe. I Am Kobe
(43:14):
is a production of the Version podcasts in association with
I Heart Radio. This season is written and hosted by
me Mike Sealsky. It's produced by Jacob Bronstein and directed
by Mark Francis. Story editing by Jacob Bronstein, with editorial
direction from Scott Waxman, Editing, mixing and sound design by
Mark Francis. Stephen Tompkins is our production assistant. Our theme
(43:38):
music is Create Yourself by Grover Brown. Featuring Justin Starling
find Create Yourself wherever you stream music. Music supervisor is
Scott Velasquez for Fressan Sinc. Executive producers are Mark Francis
and Scott Waxman. Join the conversation about I Am Kobe
on social media on Twitter and the Gram. It's at
(44:01):
the Version pots thanks to Rain Rosenbaum, Susan Canavan and
Jeremy Treatment. I Love I rise before the sun. They
don't understand when I said the grind is fun. Never
clock you out even when my work is done. If
they're trying to block me, I might hurt someone through
the blood sweat and says, we perseverit, stay killing in,
let it, keep the horses. And then if they don't
(44:22):
believe in themselves, gave revert to fit, not the Tampa's head.
So I'm telling them, ask my am, this the reason
why my work so damn different to the negatives. I
can't listen see me at the time. You can't listen
where I'm a vote to play like cash is see
I pay my dudes because taxes gotta work. I thinking
briand ahead of his time. Someone saying that they made you,
(44:44):
don't tell them you create yourself the best Finn watch us,
but that time you gotta stay clock then break clock
break we create ourselves, watch me, question, watch Steve create
my hell exact signs up, create yourself? Say nice, ain't
(45:07):
so hard to create yourself. You gotta learn from the
great minds. No, we ain't lying. To tell them next
any time. This time wasn't giving it was made the future.
Any time I could change better. Tell them that I've
made it back home. As I walked through the hearts
of the fame, I came from the valley of the shadow,
with death waiting for us. Some spoons don't hold your breath,
(45:28):
sat Town, sat Train. But I did it with less.
I know them that to be so there's nothing to guess. Yeah,
there's nothing to guess. It's our times. Tell them we
up next. We don't got any regrets. I did it
with my soon hands, and we never forgets my a.
This the reason why my im working so damn different
to the negatives. I can't listen see me at the time.
(45:49):
You can't listen for where rebuild, reach shape, give me
your eye. You got to risk take do it now.
When I'm saying why Braves, I was saying that they
mayn't get. Tell them you create yourself around the best
you finnel watch us by. It's by that time. You've
gotta snake clack, then break black break we create yourself,
(46:12):
watch me Qua, watch leave, create myself, exac Clie black Clie,
signs up and create yourself. Tell you say nice, ain't
go on? Create yourself. Gotta line from the great minds,
so we ain't lyne Tell them next anytime. Diversion Podcasts
Host
Mike Sielski
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