interesting: Kobe, Arianna Huffington interview

[snaquille oatmeal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/fashion/arianna-huffington-kobe-bryant-meditate.html?_r=0


some great insights into the minds of two very successful people. great read.

[Slava]

Exactly. I’ll give you an example. When you watch me shoot my fadeaway jumper, you’ll notice my leg is always extended. I had problems making that shot in the past. It’s tough. So one day I’m watching the Discovery Channel and see a cheetah hunting. When the cheetah runs, its tail always gives it balance, even if it’s cutting a sharp angle. And that’s when I was like: My leg could be the tail, right?

That attention to detail is awesome.

[ChokeFasncists]

Michael Jackson! Wow!

[MadNESS]

Some of those quotes are the reason I love this dude. Gold. Kobe4Life.

[EArl]

The black cheetah.

[Sedale Threatt]

Exactly. I’ll give you an example. When you watch me shoot my fadeaway jumper, you’ll notice my leg is always extended. I had problems making that shot in the past. It’s tough. So one day I’m watching the Discovery Channel and see a cheetah hunting. When the cheetah runs, its tail always gives it balance, even if it’s cutting a sharp angle. And that’s when I was like: My leg could be the tail, right?

That attention to detail is awesome.

You buy this? My first reaction was, LOL, Kobe is so full of isht. I wonder what it would be like to be the center of your own universe for so long, in such undisputed fashion, that you could spew stuff like this with a straight face.

"My quintuple pump-fake, contested 22-footer is inspired by the grace and majesty of the swallows of Capistrano..."

[Slava]

Exactly. I’ll give you an example. When you watch me shoot my fadeaway jumper, you’ll notice my leg is always extended. I had problems making that shot in the past. It’s tough. So one day I’m watching the Discovery Channel and see a cheetah hunting. When the cheetah runs, its tail always gives it balance, even if it’s cutting a sharp angle. And that’s when I was like: My leg could be the tail, right?

That attention to detail is awesome.

You buy this? My first reaction was, LOL, Kobe is so full of isht. I wonder what it would be like to be the center of your own universe for so long, in such undisputed fashion, that you could spew stuff like this with a straight face.

"My quintuple pump-fake, contested 22-footer is inspired by the grace and majesty of the swallows of Capistrano..."

That seems a little too hard to make up. Either he's a pathogenic liar or he's telling a fraction of the truth.

[Kilroy]

Struck me as genuine... Not sure why it would surprise anyone that Kobe would apply just about anything he sees in life to basketball in some way...

It made sense to me when I read it... And I fully believe he seeks out people like Huffington...

It would surprise me if he didn't think this way actually.

[Slava]

Yeah it might not be how it happened but could well be that he got home after a long film session, started watching Discovery and found similarities between the fadeaway and the cheetah and thought it might make a good story. It would require a ton of imagination and planning to come out with that bit during an interview if it was a blatant lie.

[Sedale Threatt]

That seems a little too hard to make up. Either he's a pathogenic liar or he's telling a fraction of the truth.

Struck me as genuine... Not sure why it would surprise anyone that Kobe would apply just about anything he sees in life to basketball in some way...

It made sense to me when I read it... And I fully believe he seeks out people like Huffington...

It would surprise me if he didn't think this way actually.

I TOTALLY believe Kobe was being honest here; I didn't get my original thought correct. The smirk on my face when I read this resulted from the fact that if you had to guess which NBA player would tell the press that he modeled his fadeaway jumper after the biomechanics of a cheetah, your top 20 choices would all be be him. I just found it very, very amusing.

[Kilroy]

Yeah... Kobe or Manute Bol, would have been my choices... When a guy can give himself the nick-name "Black Mamba" and have NOBODY question it... He's a unique individual.

[Sedale Threatt]

Yeah... Kobe or Manute Bol, would have been my choices... When a guy can give himself the nick-name "Black Mamba" and have NOBODY question it... He's a unique individual.

You could probably guess, but I questioned it.

"I was watching Kill Bill, when I realized that Black Mamba is the perfect representation of my playing style: Elegant, precise, deadly. Hence I incorporated it into my identity..."

Between that and Vino, he's given himself some awful nicknames. Great nicknames can only be given. Although I do give him credit for dubbing Bonner the Red Mamba.

[dockingsched]

Exactly. I’ll give you an example. When you watch me shoot my fadeaway jumper, you’ll notice my leg is always extended. I had problems making that shot in the past. It’s tough. So one day I’m watching the Discovery Channel and see a cheetah hunting. When the cheetah runs, its tail always gives it balance, even if it’s cutting a sharp angle. And that’s when I was like: My leg could be the tail, right?

That attention to detail is awesome.

You buy this? My first reaction was, LOL, Kobe is so full of isht. I wonder what it would be like to be the center of your own universe for so long, in such undisputed fashion, that you could spew stuff like this with a straight face.

"My quintuple pump-fake, contested 22-footer is inspired by the grace and majesty of the swallows of Capistrano..."

reading kobe's comments in this article took me straight to the greatest kobe article ever written

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/an-in ... t-friends/

If this is all funny, Kobe’s in on the joke, but he’s not actually laughing.

He consciously cultivates his own ridiculous legend, but he also buys in as much as anyone. He said Thursday his favorite nickname is “Vino,” because he gets better with age. Also, he gave himself that nickname. I can’t tell whether I love Kobe the character or Kobe the person, but it may not even matter. They’ve sorta become the same thing over the years.

At one point Thursday, Kimmel asked him about practicing 12 hours a day. “Do you think that’s because you love basketball, or because you’re crazy?”

“Both,” he answered with a smile.

It really has been both all along. Kobe loves basketball enough to have killed himself outworking and outplaying everyone for almost 20 years, creating this bear-killing mythology, but then he’s also crazy enough to believe the myth. It’s what makes him so much fun. As mortality sets in and the myth cracks, he believes it more than ever. And more than secret PED sessions or science fiction physical therapy or anything else, this is why you always knew Kobe would bounce back from the Achilles injury faster than anyone in history: Because he loves basketball that much, and because he’s **** crazy.

Pray for the bear, you know? Mamba mentality. In Vino we trust.

[EArl]

Kobe should have gone to Napa and craft his own special wine and call it Vino 24 and sell it for 40 bucks a pop.

[snaquille oatmeal]

Yeah it might not be how it happened but could well be that he got home after a long film session, started watching Discovery and found similarities between the fadeaway and the cheetah and thought it might make a good story. It would require a ton of imagination and planning to come out with that bit during an interview if it was a blatant lie.

I have actually have seen on the discovery channel a show about cheetahs where they emphasized how the cheetah uses the tail for balance at high speeds so it didn't surprise me to read that Kobe would at the very least see how a show like that would give him the idea to use his extended leg for better balance.

[Kilroy]

Kobe should have gone to Napa and craft his own special wine and call it Vino 24 and sell it for 40 bucks a pop.

Kobe would have kicked the wine's ass for taking too long to develop...

[Sedale Threatt]

reading kobe's comments in this article took me straight to the greatest kobe article ever written

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/an-in ... t-friends/

If this is all funny, Kobe’s in on the joke, but he’s not actually laughing. He consciously cultivates his own ridiculous legend, but he also buys in as much as anyone. He said Thursday his favorite nickname is “Vino,” because he gets better with age. Also, he gave himself that nickname. I can’t tell whether I love Kobe the character or Kobe the person, but it may not even matter. They’ve sorta become the same thing over the years.

EXACTLY...

[LLcoleJ]

Great nicknames can only be given. Although I do give him credit for dubbing Bonner the Red Mamba.

Great nicknames origins do tend to come from the players themselves... It might not seem that way, but they do.

Shaq was great at giving himself nicknames but also giving nicknames.

I think he game Pierce " the Truth" name.

Obviously the likes Lebron aka The King aka The Chosen One were also self glossing.

A funny compilation of nicknames:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ni ... basketball

As far as Kobe goes. I thought the Black Mamba was corny when it first happened, but it grew on me. I think Vino is a great name and If I remember correctly he was dubbed Vino by some local radio host in his last season he played. Anyway.. I Iike nicknames that fit players either given or self glossed. It makes it fun.

[ennui]

The "cheetah" excerpt also left me a little incredulous; it's commonly known that leg sway attributes to balance when shooting. Kobe, being a devout student of the game, would have noticed that upon reviewing countless game tape as he allegedly claims to do. As a layman who has observed the bio-mechanics of shooters, it seemed apparent to me that sway provides greater balance - all great scorers have their own iteration or interpretation of it. Hell, I incorporated it into my game -- menial as it is -- and saw immediate improvements in accuracy and efficiency when fading away.

So either he needed it to justify the logic behind it to himself or he, in fact, is deluded enough to think it was the cheetah that taught him the merits of the action, which is just (Please Use More Appropriate Word).

[Sedale Threatt]

Also, Jordan did it.