18 pages • 36 minutes read
Kobe BryantDear Basketball
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Basketball’s Influence on Kobe Bryant’s Life
Bryant’s biography illuminates the poem, which features multiple images of him as a kid wearing his dad’s socks and pretending he’s playing the NBA and has to make the game-winning shot. Bryant’s dad, Joe Bryant, was a professional basketball player and Bryant grew up around basketball, and it was a constant part of his life. By wearing his “dad’s tube socks” (Line 3), he connects himself to his dad’s profession until his fantasy becomes a reality and his dad’s profession becomes his profession. As young Bryant imagines the game-winners taking place at the Lakers’ previous arena, the Great Western Forum, the poem foreshadows Bryant’s long, glorious (and rocky) career as a Laker.
Bryant tells basketball, “I fell in love with you // A love so deep I gave you my all” (Lines 8-9). Bryant’s intense work ethic backs up these claims. He took basketball practices as seriously as basketball games and watched hours of footage to improve his performance. His demanding approach and conduct off the court alienated teammates, coaches, and fans. Thus, there was “[t]he good and the bad” (Line 41).
Throughout his career, Bryant suffered numerous injuries to his ankles, wrists, shoulders, fingers, and so on. The NBA wore down Bryant’s physical capabilities—a sign that Bryant might have to break up with the sport he loved. As Bryant says, “[M]y body knows it’s time to say goodbye” (Line 36). Though Bryant stopped playing professionally, his love for basketball continued. He started the Mamba Sports Academy (now the Sports Academy), which hosted professional and amateur basketball players. When he, his daughter Gianna, and seven others were in a helicopter to the academy for one of Gianna’s basketball games, the helicopter crashed and everyone on board the aircraft died. Bryant died while pursuing (and helping his daughter to pursue) something he loved: Basketball.
Cultural Context: NBA Players and Self-Expression
Bryant’s poem represents a trend toward self-expression in the NBA. In the past, NBA players might have held a press conference to announce their retirement, as Michael Jordan did when he first retired in 1993. Instead, Bryant wrote a poem. He used art to express his feelings about basketball and to tell basketball and the world why he had to end his career after his 20th season. A year earlier, LeBron James, another NBA superstar who went from high school to the pros, used the essay form to reveal his decision to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers (“LeBron: I’m Coming Back to Cleveland.” Sports Illustrated, 2014). Like Bryant, James adopts a blunt tone to explain his mindset and his relationship with the Cavaliers franchise. James’s teammate, Kevin Love, also used the essay form to talk honestly about mental issues in his essay on The Players’ Tribune website, “Everyone Is Going Through Something” (2018).
Bryant’s poem and the personal essays by Love and James suggest a culture that is interested in what athletes have to say, not just what they do on the court. The existence of The Players’ Tribune, founded by legendary baseball player Derek Jeter, supports the claim that the culture encourages athletes to express themselves, and Bryant contributes to the culture of professional athletes and self-expression by conveying his love for basketball in his retirement poem.
