I know one of the things I regret the most is never writing to you while you were on this planet.
You never knew how much of an inspiration you were to me.
I never really had role models.
Even the ones that I did, they always kind of let me down.
For a second I thought maybe you had let me down in 2003.
In reality, you just proved to me that everyone can easily make a mistake that could cost them.
In your case, I think it cost you so much money and all that.
But in reality, you bounced back so much harder.
You seemed like you had some sort of point to prove afterward.
I didn’t care. I knew you were the best.
Even when you were winning your championships with Shaq, I would always be in awe of your play.
Not everyone can be like Shaq.
Not everyone can be seven feet tall and weigh up to 300 pounds and still be athletic.
That wasn’t a choice for the most part.
Yours was a choice.
You didn’t have to be a basketball player.
You just enjoyed it.
Your pops was a basketball player.
I wonder if you wanted to be like your old man too.
I know I’ve always wanted to be like my old man.
I always would tell him that.
He would always coach me and tell, “you have to be better than me one day.”
I swear I took that to heart so much.
I wonder if your dad told you the same thing.
After Shaq left I feel like you were the most underappreciated player of our lifetime. You were still the best player on the court and it never mattered who was there.
You took every game seriously.
I knew and I could feel it because I would watch them all.
Even when we weren’t very good.
Even when I would be made fun of for cheering on a team that lost a 3-1 lead to the stupid Phoenix Suns.
I didn’t care.
You dunked on Steve Nash and everyone would always remember that as the time you proved the MVP voters wrong.
You should’ve won multiple MVPs.
You only pushed harder.
You proved everyone wrong.
They always said you were a ball hog.
I always knew the truth.
You worked on your craft so much that you knew what you were doing.
You were “do or die”.
You always made sure you put your 100% into everything.
While what I do doesn’t get as many fans as you did, I’ve always tried to envision that into everything I do.
Whenever I feel lazy or feel like I’m wasting the day, I just pick it back up and think “mamba mentality”
I still see your highlights every day.
I even started seeing highlights of when you would lose.
Sometimes I think I learn that much more from those games you would lose.
There are clips of your squad losing by 8 or 9 with less than a minute left and you’d still play your heart out.
I’ll never forget crying during that 2008 Finals loss to the Celtics.
I thought you had given up for a second. I didn’t want to watch the rest of it, but I felt like if you were still sitting through the final moments of that, I should support too.
It doesn’t make sense why I hold an athlete to higher standards than anybody else I allow into my circle.
But I do it anyway.
I did it forever.
There are videos that I have saved to my “watch later” list from interviews you had.
I can’t watch them yet.
I feel like I want to be prepared to learn something new on specific days.
You were the man.
To me, you’re still the man.
I grew up with you.
You helped motivate me to get better at basketball and you’re probably the reason I picked up a ball
Now that I’m older, I want to be the same kind of father that it seems like you were before that tragic day.
I was afraid of having kids because I was afraid of only having girls and them not being able to carry the legacy for me.
Now, I think to myself that I would love to have my future daughters (one day) be the ones to carry the torch.
Kobe, I just want to say thank you.
You showed me why it’s always important to put your all into something.
You showed me that everyone’s going to make mistakes, and it’ll cost you but that doesn’t define you.
The bounce back is the most important thing.
Thank you.