Morning Coffee – Tue, Jan 28

Still mourning Kobe | Some Raptors power rankings and random stuff | Jah bless you all

Still mourning Kobe | Some Raptors power rankings and random stuff | Jah bless you all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBJ7EG3J7Rw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLO14BuUs7g

The subtle, but indelible impact Kobe Bryant had on the Raptors’ evolution to NBA championship contender – The Athletic

You can draw a different line between Bryant and the Raptors if you’d like. We just passed the 14-year anniversary of Bryant dropping 81 points on the Raptors. Five days after that, the Raptors fired Rob Babcock as general manager, eventually replacing him with Bryan Colangelo, the man who drafted DeRozan in 2009 and traded for Lowry in 2012. (Bryant’s performance wasn’t the only reason the Raptors let Babcock go, but it was certainly the last straw.) However, Bryant’s reach was so vast that nearly every organization can trace some meaning back to him, as tenuous as some of those connections may be.

No, it is as if DeRozan, and the Raptors who followed him as leaders of the next iteration of the team, learned the best from Bryant without taking the worst. Those summertime team gatherings which DeRozan used to champion still take place — often in Los Angeles — with Powell and Fred VanVleet emerging as the new pied pipers. Pascal Siakam’s proclivity to come back each season with a new weapon or three in his arsenal is Bryantesque.

Ironically, even Masai Ujiri’s trade that sent DeRozan to San Antonio in exchange for Kawhi Leonard was cold and calculated in a way that Bryant surely would have appreciated. After all, Bryant once demanded a trade from the Lakers, ultimately forcing them to acquire Pau Gasol. Sentimentality is great, but it has little use in the ceaseless pursuit of winning.

“I think a lot of people don’t understand Kobe,” DeRozan said the night that Bryant announced he would be retiring. “They look at Kobe like he’s an asshole. He’s not. He’s just one of them guys who wants every single thing out of the game of basketball. He’s sacrificed so much to do that. I think a lot of the time people don’t appreciate that side of him.”

It’s a lesson that DeRozan, and then the entire Raptors organization, took to heart.

What fueled Kobe Bryant’s obsessions – ESPN

Word of a helicopter ride on a Sunday morning to what sounded like a basketball game with his daughter Gianna. Lakers president and GM Rob Pelinka — Bryant’s former agent and, perhaps, his closest friend — had recently been regaling me with stories about Kobe’s passion for coaching Gigi’s teams. Once I had the information verified and reported, there was still a part of me expecting Kobe to reach out and tell me, “Hey man, you bleeped up! I’m here!”

Now the loss of nine lives in the crash, the impact to families and friends and loved ones, is beyond measure.

One of the best parts of this job had long been that random text or email, wondering: “When are you coming out again?” For the longest time, Kobe Bryant had been the center of so many of our lives. That’s the hard part today, because he had so clearly become the center of his little girls’ world; and all that’s gone now.

I always suspected Gigi and her three sisters had gone a long way to give their father’s life clearer purpose. Did they change him? I don’t know. I do believe they made him a better man, the way most children do for their dads.

The rest of us will survive without hearing from Bryant again, but his wife and those young girls, well, that’s an emptiness and loss that no story and no 81-point night and no championship could ever touch. After 20 seasons with the Lakers and legitimate global domination, these had been Kobe Bryant’s best years, his finest performance.

Father and daughter courtside in Brooklyn, talking ball, smiling, edging close — that’s an image for the ages too now.

In the wake of tragedy, I turned to Jerry West to try to make sense of Kobe Bryant’s life and legacy – The Athletic

Only Bryant himself could speak to the correlation between that situation and the late-in-life efforts he made to support women. But whatever the reason, be it perspective gained through that experience or the separate reality that he became the father of so many daughters, or perhaps both, the value of his impact was indisputable.

He would post training videos on social media of his role as coach of Gianna’s youth team, including his integration of the vaunted triangle offense. True to form, Bryant’s intensity — even at that level — inspired some blowback when some believed that he was too critical of the young girls on his team. But he only knew one way.

He was the most prominent face of the NCAA’s women’s basketball tournament in 2019, and a source close to Bryant even said he recently hosted a camp involving WNBA players at his Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, Calif. This sort of ethos, make no mistake, is the kind of thing that has helped propel the WNBA into new heights during this era in which its players are getting the kind of respect they deserve (Exhibit A: The historic new CBA they agreed to earlier this month).

As a media member, every revelation on this front presented a new challenge when it came to trying to cover Kobe from an honest and objective perspective. These were meaningful, substantive things that he was doing, and it almost reached a point where it didn’t truly matter why. But that backdrop, if I’m being honest, made it incredibly difficult to go down this road without hitting that inevitable rewind button to 2003.

Then again, it wasn’t the only time he would show a willingness to learn from his mistakes.

After Bryant was fined $100,000 in 2011 for calling referee Bennie Adams a “faggot,” he made amends by deciding to educate others who made the same sort of mistake. He worked with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to address the reasons his comment was inappropriate, and — as The Atlantic reported in February 2013 — would even admonish some of his followers who used similar derogatory terms.

None of this absolves Bryant from everything. But anyone who spent any time around him in recent years, when his level of inspiration was as high in his retirement life as it had been when he first set down that path to becoming an NBA legend, knows the magnitude of this loss.

Kobe, for better or worse, was someone who should have had a whole lot more time to make his mark.

Kobe Bryant never stopped trying to inspire – ESPN

Audacious.

That was Kobe.

He didn’t just have an iron will or unyielding confidence in himself. He believed he could bend the universe to his will.

And damn it, he often did.

That’s what he meant when he would tell people to “live mythically” or write on someone’s sneakers “Be Legendary.”

That’s the core of what he called the Mamba Mentality. And it’s what will survive him in death.

There are images that capture that mentality. The two free throws he took after tearing his left Achilles tendon in 2013. The jaw jutting out defiantly after a big shot. The fist pump. We’ll watch those images again and again now.

But you can’t capture a spirit like Kobe’s. And you sure as hell can’t replace it.

Which is why his loss has been felt so deeply around the world.

What we have now, what we have left, are all the ways he reached back out to us.

There’s a whole generation of athletes, writers, musicians, artists, actors, businesspeople and fans who felt like they were just a text or a tweet away from him. And when he saw something special in someone who reached out to him, he tried to answer.

“People who I know are passionate about what they do,” he explained. “I just like seeing them do great things. That’s what I enjoy.”

Kobe Bryant played basketball like there was no tomorrow – SBNation.com

At times, the meticulous work often felt like a feint, a show for the cameras to build his lore. Only in recent years as Kobe took off what we thought was a veil did we realize what we saw as positioning was really him all along.

The Black Mamba wasn’t an act: Kobe was the black mamba personified, playing “Moonlight Sonata” on his piano to ease his mind after a tough loss and hitting the weights at 5:30 the next morning; triaging his own torn Achilles to take the free throws before being carted off; hollering about beating the s**t out of metaphorical bears.

It was never so much that he was psychotically detailed and focused on the margins of minutia and also obsessed with being brightest star every night. It’s that he was psychotically detailed and focused on the margins of minutia because he was obsessed with being the brightest star every night. And he knew because of his prodigious talents and legendary work ethic that no one was as prepared as him.

He wanted to take every shot and was prepared to treat every game like his last because he didn’t see any other choice in the matter. He knew what he had done to prepare for the moment. He could count on that.

That style of play, backed up by all the work he let us peek at, is why Kobe is your favorite player’s favorite player. And it’s why it’s both true to say there will never be another Kobe Bryant and that there are a thousand little Kobe Bryants out there. He taught a generation how to work like there was no roof on perfection and how to play like there was no tomorrow.

Living his life, acknowledging his mistakes, imposing his will: Kobe Bryant’s NBA was one for the ages – The Athletic

There were fits and starts afterward, as the Lakers flailed and failed at keeping up with the rest of the west, gambling on aging stars like Steve Nash and Dwight Howard, and losing. Mostly, there were injuries, with the 2013 Achilles’ tear the beginning of the end.

It was notable not just for Bryant’s attempts to roll the torn tendon back into place, or to ask head athletic trainer Gary Vitti if there was some way he could tape it up and keep playing. It was notable, of course, because Bryant insisted on shooting the two free throws owed him after he was fouled and crashed to the floor, then insisted on leaving the floor on his own after L.A. took a deliberate foul to get him off the court.

“I told the officials what we were going to do,” Vitti recalled in 2017. “As soon as we fouled, I walked out on the court to get him. And I said, ‘You want a chair?’ And he said, ‘No, I’m walking off.’ And he walked all the way back to the training room on his own power. That was a message to Paul Pierce. ‘Cause you remember in the (2008) Finals, Pierce looked like he got shot by a sniper, rolling around, writhing in pain? They take him off on a chair and he comes back and plays and they beat us? That was Kobe’s fuck you to Paul Pierce.”

He faced the end of his career, on a team full of kids that he no longer had the skill or will to lift up, with aplomb.

“There’s so much beauty in the pain of this thing,” he told me in 2015. “It sounds really weird to say that. But I appreciate the really, really tough times as much as I appreciate the great times. It’s important to go through that progression. Because that’s when you really learn about yourself.”

Was he rationalizing the very mediocrity he would have destroyed in his earlier days? Perhaps. This happens. But the months that followed his retirement were filled with portent and promise.

The Oscar came in 2018, for Best Animated Short Film, an adaptation of his “Dear Basketball” letter he’d written in The Players Tribune. He formed Granity Studios to produce and create original content – books, podcasts, animation – designed around life lessons young adults and kids learn through participation in sports. He stayed connected to actual young athletes with the Mamba Academy, the 100,000-square foot behemoth in Thousand Oaks. He was, it seemed, ready to connect with the next generation of athletes, the sons and daughters of so many that had his posters on their walls, his videos on their phones and iPads, his adult life available to them via social media.

To not know what Kobe Bryant’s next moves would have been, what he envisioned in his mind and set to make real in the world, hurts immensely. All of these last 24 hours have hurt, immensely. And there is no understanding, no solace, and there won’t be for a very long time. There is just numbness and pain, and heartbreak, and tears, so many tears.

NBA Power Rankings Week 15 – Raptors, Jazz headline a top-10 shake-up

5. Toronto Raptors
Record: 32-14
Week 14 ranking: 7

The Raptors have won seven straight games and have moved back to the No. 2 spot in the Eastern Conference. Led by All-Star starter Pascal Siakam, they are second in the NBA in team defensive rating with only 104.5 points allowed per 100 possessions. The Raptors are 26-9 in games that Siakam has played, a 74% win rate that would trail only the Bucks and Lakers for best in the NBA this season.

NBA Power Rankings: From Bucks down to Cavs, every team’s player most likely to be moved before trade deadline – CBSSports.com

6 Toronto Raptors

Marc Gasol/Serge Ibaka: Take your pick of either veteran big man, both of whom are on expiring deals for around the same salary (roughly $25M). Personally I don’t think the Raptors will part with either of them, but if Masai Ujiri sees a deal he likes, including Ibaka or Gasol makes the most sense given their contract situations.

Power Rankings, Week 15: Thunder, Sixers on the rise as NBA world mourns the loss of Kobe Bryant | NBA.com

8 Toronto Raptors
Last week:9
Record: 32-14
Pace: 100.6 (16) OffRtg: 110.4 (14) DefRtg: 104.5 (2) NetRtg: +6.0 (6)

The Raptors haven’t lost since they got all their guys back. They’ve won seven straight overall to climb into second place in the East. And while Pascal Siakam outscored the Spurs (25-21) by himself in the first quarter on Sunday, the scoring has been remarkably balanced – six guys averaging between 12 and 20.1 points per game – over the winning streak. The Raptors aren’t afraid to rotate defensively, but they punish opposing defenses for doing the same, ranking fourth in 3-point percentage (37.5%) and leading the league with 4.3 secondary assists per game.

Their biggest win of the streak – over the Sixers on Wednesday – came with a comeback from 14 points down. After another comeback from an early deficit in New York on Friday, the Raptors lead the league with 12 wins (and are one of four teams with a winning record) after trailing by double-digits. After their win in San Antonio on Sunday, the champs have also won seven straight on the road, scoring more than 117 points per 100 possessions over those seven games.

How the high-IQ Raptors cracked the code on defence | The Star

When you’ve got high basketball IQ guys such as Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol and Fred VanVleet figuring out what will work offensively each night, having them implement it isn’t the hoops equivalent of rocket science. It’s on defence that the ability to change effectively on the fly and in the flow of the game is most important.

The Raptors can employ different zone defences at different key points in games seamlessly that can change the tempo, their energy level and the style of play.

It sounds simple — get back, get in a zone, get a stop — but it’s far from easy. Transition moves rapidly in the NBA these days. Getting back and getting organized with only a few seconds to set up takes brains and skills. A couple of seconds of indecision, one guy in the wrong place, can result in an easy basket. Repeated mistakes negate all the good that an effective change can bring.

Toronto used six or seven possessions of a couple of different zone defences to alter the flow of a stagnant game against Philadelphia last Tuesday, and they did the same thing Friday in New York. It takes brains and the knowledge of working a game to pull it off.

“Even though it was really only five or seven possessions, it somehow changes the rhythm and mindset of the game,” Nurse said after the Philadelphia game. ”Again, credit our guys for being able to jump in and played two different zones — a 3-2 and a 2-3 — but we’ve got some great IQ guys that can bounce back and forth.”

The IQ, and the patience to figure out games, comes in handy at this point of the season. With the all-star break looming and players anticipating some time off before the final push for playoff seeding, games are hard to get up and stay up for. Knowing that they can figure things out, and that they have the smarts to recover from runs by the opposing team, is the hallmark of a good veteran team.

Toronto Raptors guard Norman Powell on honouring Kobe Bryant: ‘If they want to retire 24, I’ll find a new number’ | NBA.com Canada | The official site of the NBA

After Toronto’s win over San Antonio on Sunday, the 26-year-old spoke with reporters on Bryant’s tragic death, his influence and properly honouring the legend.

“He meant everything. I model the whole mentality of being an ultimate competitor, grinding, working day in and day out, sacrificing a lot of things to get to where you want to be. I try to implement that in my game.”

Powell continued, adding that Bryant’s influence impacts “the way I go about basketball, life, competing, working to be the best. Maximizing the God-given abilities, just like he did.”

This past offseason, Powell was able to forge a deeper relationship with Bryant, as he was one of around 20 players that were invited to a mini-camp hosted at Bryant’s training facility in Thousand Oaks, CA. Powell detailed this experience to TSN’s Josh Lewenberg in October.

Like a number of other players in the NBA, Powell plays in sneakers from Nike’s Kobe signature line and wears the No. 24 because of Bryant.

When asked about the potential of retiring Kobe’s number league-wide, Powell asserted that it would be an appropriate gesture: “Yes, definitely. The reason why I wear 24 is because of Kobe. So, whatever it takes to honour him, (he’s) one of the greatest to ever do it.”

Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images

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