Original subtitles

Kobe convinced himself that he could do whatever it was that he

was trying to do.

I'm so excited I get two rings this year.

Two rings?

Yeah, two rings.

My wedding band and this championship ring.

Five NBA championships, two Olympic gold medals.

A once in a generation talent.

But in the end--

Charges were filed against Kobe Bean Bryant.

Things weren't always smooth.

It wasn't always a straight line.

This alleged crime happened 14 months ago,

but a criminal case will be dropped.

It was a bumpy road.

The night that Kobe ruptured his Achilles tendon,

he said, I felt like somebody kicked me in the back of my leg.

I reached back there, and I tried to pull it back down.

I've had a lot of guys rupture Achilles.

I've never heard anybody say that.

It's [bleep] sad.

And once the locker room door was closed,

he lost his mind, yelling, cursing,

throwing Gatorade bottles all over the place, people ducking.

My mental switch-- don't fucking touch me.

Don't talk to me.

Right away, you're like, now you know you're talking to the

Black Mamba.

You're not talking to Kobe.

And then I said, Kobe, Vanessa and the girls are in my office.

I tell you, it was like a switch.

He went from Black Mamba, OK, that just ruptured his Achilles

to Kobe.

Wasn't sure I could do it.

Your kids walk in, and you're like, I got to set an example.

Daddy's going to be fine.

I'm going to do it.

If you were a fan and you only saw the Black Mamba,

there was more, a lot more.

The other side of him was someone totally different.

So you've got this duality with him.

He had to take a good, hard look at himself

and decide, who do I want to be?

Kobe!

Kobe!

The future was limitless for him.

L.A. County Fire Department.

And then all of a sudden--

A helicopter crashed into a mountain.

Kobe always felt like he wanted to go young and be immortalized.

That's what he used to say.

And we're looking at the flames right now on the hill.

My mind went to the conversations we had.

Like, damn, he spoke this.

That injury was the end.

It wasn't the beginning of the end.

It was the end.

Worked really hard to get to this point.

Players at this stage of their career, they pop up Achilles

and the pundits say they never come back the same.

So I can hear it already, and it's pissing me off right now

just thinking about it.

Kobe showed even more emotion and anger on Facebook.

He wrote--

It scared me.

My career could be over now, man.

After his Achilles tear, he was already feeling pretty low.

It becomes very, very public that his parents were selling

some of his memorabilia without his consent.

For the first time ever, rare Kobe Bryant memorabilia

is up for sale.

900 items appraised at $1.5 million.

Those are real jerseys from Kobe's high school days?

Yeah, that is correct.

It caused a lot of chaos.

NBA superstar Kobe Bryant facing off against his mother.

Were it not for the circumstances surrounding

the auction, items like this would never have come for sale.

Typically, when an athlete sells something, they're older

or they need money.

I'm not clear, and I know that--

I don't know that anyone is on how much financial aid Kobe has

given his parents over the years,

but there's still been a very rocky relationship between them

ever since his marriage to Vanessa.

I think, from his mind, it was sort of always

wanting more and more and more.

He seemed genuinely disillusioned with his parents

that they would do something like that.

Kobe Bryant, he says no.

He's trying to block this auction, says it's his stuff.

I had heard over the years that he and Joe would periodically

get together, but then I heard about this lawsuit.

And I think it hit me at that point

that this is probably not going to be resolved.

Kobe Bryant has reportedly reached a settlement

with his parents.

The auction house will still get to sell a fraction of the items.

Bryant's parents also released a statement apologizing.

"We apologize for any misunderstanding and unintended

pain we have caused our son and appreciate the financial support

he has provided over the years."

End quote.

So when I see that stuff, it angers me

because I know how genuine and loving and caring parents

they are.

They are nothing like what's the narrative that's out there

about them.

Nothing like that.

And that is-- no, it is--

it's pretty sad, man.

I could have never imagined this family that endlessly talked

about being only dependent on one another

because they had been the only Black people in their village

in Italy, and to sort of fast-forward

and realize that they're so at odds with each other

that a lawsuit has to be filed.

That was really painful to see.

They had moved to Italy with his father's career.

My dad was moving out there into a whole other world.

We didn't speak the language.

We didn't know anybody.

We had to bond with one another more so than anything.

Because Kobe would talk about family in Italy so much,

that Italy is about family.

He would tell you all the time that was the happiest moments

of his life.

When the financial landscape changes, everything changes.

There is a level of, do I now take care of you?

All those NBA stars, all those NFL stars,

they take care of their families.

So I guess my confusion was, why are you

any different from these other guys

that feel the need to have to help their families?

Why are you so frustrated?

Whatever the reason is, I didn't understand the need

to be public about it.

Did you ever have conversations with him about trying

to reconcile with his parents?

Uh-uh.

Uh-uh.

No, uh-uh.

No, I stayed away from that.

I don't... no.

There's been times where it just feels like this is the end.

But what I've come to find out is that no matter what happens,

the storm eventually ends.

And when the storm does end, you want to make sure that

you're ready.

Kobe and I exchanged emails in spurts.

I actually got to know him more after he left high school.

Kobe's holding my young daughter.

Our friendship really deepened and developed over the next

20 years.

Our conversations about writing started to surface when he was

in his last year of basketball.

Kobe started thinking, what's next?

It's hard.

I mean, I don't know what to expect.

What am I going to be after I'm done playing?

Because I'm getting really close to that point.

I've thought about it a little bit

in terms of, what is the deciding factor?

I mean, how do players actually know when it's time to hang

them up?

I'm as excited for this season as I've been in a long time.

I actually ended up meeting Kobe when rumors were flying that he

was going to retire that year.

So what we're your retirement plans?

Kobe, do you ever think about the end?

I mean, you talked when you first got hurt about, hey,

maybe I should just retire.

But he wasn't committing.

He wasn't saying anything.

And I kept tossing and turning with, how do you know?

I mean, I was fortunate but unfortunate

to have these injuries.

I say "fortunate" because it gave me a lot of time to think.

But the reality is this must be a decision that comes

from within.

And so I asked him.

I said, so that rumor was true?

He said, yeah.

I said, well, why don't you say something?

I don't want all the old man stuff.

I said, well, got to give people a chance to say goodbye.

A month later, I remember his secretary at the time sending me

something and saying, Kobe wanted to be sure that you

saw this.

Bryant posted a note online Sunday called Dear Basketball.

Say it ain't so.

Basketball legend Kobe Bryant says he'll be hanging

up his sneakers this season.

He's lived the American dream.

He came into the league at 17.

Bryant posted a 52-line farewell online Sunday.

"My heart can take the pounding."

"My mind can handle the grind."

"But my body knows when it's time to say goodbye."

"This season is all I have left to give."

I just was in awe of what he had achieved with that,

and I then wrote back and said, I wouldn't change a word.

So what's new?

I never actually told the game how I felt,

and once I decided to write it from that perspective,

then the words just came in a matter of minutes.

I wrote to him, "Hello, dear man.

So of course, we read the poem today in class,

and their response was, 'He wrote this?'" And he wrote back,

"Thank you.

Of course, I wrote it.

I had a teacher that was and still is completely awesome."

If I said, man, I wasn't getting a little emotional about it,

I'd be lying.

It's a little different when--

When you are giving up something that's

consumed your entire life, it leaves such a void.

I think he gave himself a day to mourn it.

There's so much beauty and the pain of this thing.

And it sounds really weird to say that, but it's--

I appreciate the really, really tough times as much

as I appreciate the great times.

And it's important to go through that progression

because I think that's where you really learn about the self.

How's it going? What's going on, man?

All right, all right.

All right?

The first half of his career is like people was attacking

his character and this and that.

You know, to hear stories about his teammates hated him.

His teammates were coming out, was talking about him.

It was like, you heard a lot of things,

saying he ran Shaq out of town.

I believe there's nothing in life that fueled Kobe's game

more than hate.

The end of it is like people was loving this guy.

Seriously?

Kobe, can you talk about what your legacy will be?

Come on, man. Come on.

Come on. You know.

You know.

They started to get to know who Kobe is, the real person.

At that point, he could let the hate go.

It was the happiest that I had ever seen him.

He enjoyed his teammates.

He enjoyed playing.

The pressure was off, the job of winning.

Once it was off the table, he became more of a human being.

The hottest ticket tonight in Los Angeles,

it will be to see Kobe Bryant's last NBA game with the Lakers.

Kobe had just enough left in the tank to script his own ending.

Hopefully we can make this night some type of celebration, where

I can give them something where they're not thinking

about the fact that this is my last game.

They're just thinking about, this

is a hell of a game to watch.

He comes to the bench, and he'd just be absolutely exhausted.

And I knew it.

He was looking at me, and I'm looking at him.

And I said, you had enough?

He goes, no.

I'm going to go till I drop.

And he dropped 60.

So yes, I'm walking away from the game,

but don't think I'm old and decrepit.

I'm walking away because I'm ready to do something else.

Kobe.

60 points for the sixth time in his career

and in his final game.

Yeah, it felt good to be able to do that one last time.

Thank you.

I was actually nervous for Kobe in his career

because I thought to myself, what are you

going to do after basketball?

He doesn't have that personality that he's just going to keep

playing and hobbling up and down the court.

He's thinking like, this is the end of this chapter.

Let's focus on the next chapter.

Damn, what am I going to do?

You know what I mean?

So I kept thinking, asking the wrong question, which

is the biggest industry I can get into?

What industry can I get--

I can get into that has the biggest upside?

Wrong question.

The beautiful thing about him is that he was always in search

of something.

And then I started asking, what do you like doing?

What do you love to do the most?

I love storytelling.

I absolutely love it, love it, love it, love it, love it,

love it.

He was just thinking about it as a career.

He sent me some short scene work and started to just get his head

around the idea of, can I do this?

My last year when people asked me what I was going to do

and I'd say I'd go into storytelling,

they were like-- well, I got a lot of these.

What about that?

Oh, a lot of them.

It's hard to really even entertain a serious conversation

about me being able to do something else other than

play basketball.

So I just want to tell those fuckers, see?

You were wrong.

It was like another challenge.

It was like-- so I can get any meeting that's all cool,

and you sit down, and they're trying to pitch you on being

on the show, being in front of the camera.

I'm like, I'm not about that.

I actually just got sick and tired of it.

So what we've had to do is just build it ourselves.

Kobe was famous for cold-calling people of greatness

across the board of society, and one of the people

that Kobe admired, I think, the most was John Williams.

Oh, my God, Why?

Why?

Why me?

I told Kobe I've never been to a basketball game in my life.

You study the people who inspire you.

You learn from the things that they've done.

You try to figure out how they did it,

why they did it that way.

And Kobe wanted to know, how do you write Harry Potter?

And his interest was in how these ideas come about,

the concept of inspiration.

And that's how we started our relationship.

When I had the idea of turning Dear Basketball

into an animated short, I called him, and I said,

John, would you--

Would I be interested in writing music for this?

And he goes, I'm just a little busy.

I was busy.

I was working on one of the Star Wars films.

He said, would you mind if I use the same orchestra as I'm using

for the Star Wars film?

I'm like, yeah, you know, I think we're good with that.

I couldn't resist doing it.

And there was something about this man that said that his life

is not over.

It's just beginning.

We immediately moved into the execution of the short film.

Kobe chose Glen Keane.

He's one of the top guns in that field.

I spent nearly 40 years at Disney animating a mermaid,

the Beast, Aladdin, Tarzan.

I mean, I think of drawing as a seismograph of your soul,

and Kobe connected with that.

To me, being hand-drawn is representative of the

story itself.

So there's a lot of imperfections in there,

but the beauty comes from those imperfections.

Storytelling, for him, was the beginning of a new path.

There was a scared part of Kobe moving into that, which is why I

think that he was so intent, like, no, you need to come along

with me on this journey.

The core of the film itself is starting with a dream,

but then understanding that it takes work to get there.

It was a career that takes time to build.

It's just incredible the way memory plays such

an important part in your life, and this became the theme,

for me, of Dear Basketball.

The artist should be always in touch with his childish self,

the first eight years before you really understood what was up

and down.

The actual work in process was back at Glen's studio

where we had Glen, Kobe, and myself analyzing the film.

A sense of magic and a sense of discovery.

Right, the blank canvas.

That to bring that kind of openness

is the thing that we get older, we forget how to do.

I sat down with him.

I said, so I have to know what you were thinking and feeling

in each one of these plays.

I'll never forget.

There was one particular shot where there was three seconds

left in the game, and as he's moving full speed,

it's down to less than a second left.

But the angle that he was moving was so extreme--

Has to put it up with the buzzer.

Bags it in!

He said, do you want to know how I did that?

It was like, if you ride on a bicycle when you're a kid,

you ever play this game with your friends,

you have to throw a rock and try to hit the telephone pole.

In Italy, my friend and I would ride our bikes,

and we'd throw this rock and try to hit this telephone pole.

But our rocks kept missing.

So as you're moving this way, you kind of

have to throw it back.

If you throw it directly this way, you're going to miss it.

And then our momentum would have that rock hit the pole.

He said, that's what I was thinking at that moment.

Dear Basketball was a chance for him to relive his experience

the way his dad brought him into basketball to bring him

into his world.

And I could tell by the way Kobe talked about those days,

those were really, really precious.

He said, when I was a little kid and practicing,

I would set up chairs and pretend they were players.

You asked for my hustle.

I gave you my heart.

This is the original pencil sketch.

You can see here 50 seconds point three--

And so I ran.

I ran up and down every court after every loose ball for you.

And it was in the storyboarding where I got to the end,

and I realized that little six-year-old Kobe and big Kobe

have to be on the court together.

And we both know, no matter what I do next,

I'll always be that kid with the rolled up socks.

At that moment, I just got chills.

This is what this is about.

That little six-year-old Kobe is there and this idea

that it's true for everybody.

We're professionals and everything,

but really, we're just six-year-old kids still living

out a dream.

Former Lakers legend Kobe Bryant--

has a new title.

He's an Oscar nominee.

Kobe got the nod for Dear Basketball.

By the time Kobe was up for an Academy Award nomination,

the world was a little more enlightened, perhaps.

If you've been online this week at all,

♪ you will have seen the hashtag #MeToo.

Men in particular all around the world

are going to have to deal with the consequences

of their actions.

And drawing an almost immediate reaction on social media

♪ from #MeToo supporters, basketball star Kobe Bryant.

You don't get to pack Colorado away, never

to be heard from again.

That's not how life works.

How do you plead?

Not guilty or guilty?

Not guilty.

And that's certainly how those people who petitioned

his nomination felt. But maybe the Academy didn't care.

The nomination was not rescinded.

Kobe!

It was the first time for me ever to be at the

Academy Awards.

Then to hear--

Dear Basketball, Glen Keane--

And I looked over, and I'm used to Kobe like always

on top of it.

I look over and just thinking, why is he-- why is he waiting?

And Kobe was like, I couldn't believe my ears.

He goes into this really fast Italian--

To my wife Vanessa, our daughters, Natalia, Gianna,

and Bianka, [Italian].

You are my inspiration.

My daughter gave me the best piece of advice.

I was a little worried about turning this into a film.

I'd never done something like that before.

And my little 11-year-old Gianna goes, well, Dad, you always tell

us to go after our dreams, so--

Kobe Bryant winning an Oscar stunned a lot of people,

given Kobe Bryant's history with allegations of sexual assault.

I mean, it shows that Hollywood is

willing to forgive and forget.

What happened in Colorado damaged lives,

but I do believe that it played a role in Kobe transforming

into the person that he became.

You can't help but be different-- the challenges, who

you are as a person.

And the only thing that you can do

is just put one foot in front of the other

and just continue to move forward.

He engaged unconditionally with his daughters.

In a way, I may have hurt your mom.

You all are never, ever, ever going to feel that level of pain

coming from me.

I'm going to love them harder than any other father could ever

love any of his children.

I think fatherhood meant everything to Kobe's life.

His first was Natalia, which he called Nani.

His second was Gigi, and then BB.

I can be an absolute teddy bear at home with my family,

with my kids, and enjoying that family time.

And I'm really psychotic about having that family time.

Once Kobe retired, he could immerse himself in his girls.

Gigi said to Kobe, Dad, I want you to teach me.

He said, well, that means you're going to have to get up at 4:00

in the morning, and we're going to have to get on the

court together.

You ready to do that?

Yes.

No hesitation.

What I used to get from him a lot was videos of Gigi playing.

And it would be moves, like step back, fall away moves.

Who does this remind you of?

The first interaction I had with the Gigi

was the 2019 All-Star game in Las Vegas.

He says, Gigi, I want you to meet one of the best that's ever

played the game.

I say, I can't wait to see what you're going to do in the WNBA,

because you're going to tear it up.

He's playing defense on her, and I love how she gives him

a little jab.

Even at a young age, you can see where Kobe was really starting

to teach her the game.

Well, coaching the kids is fun.

My daughter just decided she wanted to play,

and then she made a local all-star team.

And that's where we met the rest of the girls that are now

on the team.

The Mambas was his girls that he was coaching.

I went to a practice to see how structured it was.

I was like, damn, this is like an NBA practice around here.

He was telling me a year or so prior

that they was losing every game, and they got back

to kicking people's ass.

And it was because of him and what he was instilling

in those girls, the confidence.

More important than the game itself is how you understand

that their confidence as young women

grows tremendously through playing the sport.

Coaching youth sports is so important because you're helping

the emotional development of young kids.

It's been beautiful watching them grow.

He was really wrapped up with his girls, and you can feel it.

You can see it there.

The best thing that happens is when we go out

and fans will come up to me, and she'll be standing next to me.

And they'll be like, hey, you got to have a boy.

You and V got to have a boy, man.

You got to have somebody carry on the tradition, the legacy.

She's like, oi, I got this.

It's funny he talks about, everybody

says you should have a boy.

Why?

He was all in on his girls.

All in.

Yes, you do.

You got this.

He believed in his daughter, so he was just-- he was just

dreaming. That's what Kobe did.

He was a dreamer.

Do you think your daughter might want to play in the WNBA?

She does, for sure. She does?

Yeah, I know what it means.

This kid, man.

The year the WNBA orange hoodies first came out,

Kobe is the first that I can remember wearing the hoodie,

sitting courtside.

Once I saw his focus on wanting women's basketball to grow,

they wanted his mentorship, and he was more than willing--

I think there are a couple players that could play

in the NBA right now, honestly.

I mean, there's a lot of players that have a lot of skill that

can do it.

Training with players like Sabrina, Napheesa Collier--

Jewell Loyd, Kobe Bryant said, you're the Gold Mamba;

Diana Taurasi, oh, you're the White Mamba.

I think the word Mamba sort of, the genesis of it

was obviously the Black Mamba.

And then it became sort of, I don't know,

it was a compliment to be called a Mamba of some kind.

Yeah, if they put that villain label on you, don't run from it.

Embrace it and turn it into being a hero.

I can still dunk.

Yeah.

We watched how he had transformed once he stopped

playing basketball.

Kobe, to your left!

He's about to really be a whole another person.

A congrats in order for Kobe Bryant.

Kobe's wife, Vanessa, gave birth to a girl this week,

and she shares a name with her Dad, Capri Kobe Bryant.

When I saw him in 2019, I'm like,

you look so happy, like really happy.

He's like, I am so happy.

The last week of January.

Sunday morning we're going to see more clouds and cooler air

moving in.

Dense fog advisories now issued through tomorrow morning.

And then the last thing you think is someone's going to

pass away.

L.A. County Fire department.

I just heard a helicopter go over me.

It went over my head.

It's thick in clouds.

And then I just--

I heard a pop, and it immediately stopped.

I'm getting text messages, phone is ringing,

and I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

There are some people that you feel are invincible.

And I felt like Kobe Bryant was invincible.

Breaking news to bring you out of California.

Los Angeles County Fire Department

just briefed reporters.

We received a call of an aircraft down.

This was a helicopter.

We just know that it's multiple fatalities,

and there were no survivors.

Tell me this isn't true.

No, I'm not going to believe that.

I'm not going to believe that.

I can remember I'm shaking.

I'm looking through my phone.

Nobody knows.

Nobody confirmed anything, right?

So I call his sister.

No answer.

Call his cousin.

No answer.

And I'm like--

My phone rings, and it's my boss from the NBA.

The first thing he says to me, you have a TV there?

And I said, yeah.

He says, turn it on.

We begin with this tragic breaking news.

One of the greatest basketball players of all time--

NBA star Kobe Bryant was on board that helicopter.

Absolute shock and speechlessness in Los Angeles.

I looked on my phone, and alert came that said Kobe Bryant dies

in a plane crash.

I went numb.

I called Tracy.

I pick it up.

She's like, are you OK?

What are you talking about, am I OK?

She said, oh, my God, oh, my God, Kobe just died.

And he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's louder and louder.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no.

He hung up on me.

And I called him back, and he was crying.

And he said, I can't talk. I can't talk.

I can't talk.

I could not believe.

Not Kobe.

Not Kobe.

No, not Kobe.

I cried all day, all night.

Kobe had a very, very, very special relationship

with my kids from damn near from the time they were born.

We have pictures all over our house of Kobe

with our kids in different stages of their lives.

And the thing that got me that was hardest for me

was telling them.

Yeah, I've done some hard shit in my life,

but that was one of the most difficult ones I had, really.

It's 11:30.

I got to go pick up my daughter.

And this is when they reported that--

Kobe's daughter, Gianna, known as Gigi, she's 13 years old,

was also on board the helicopter.

Yeah.

And my daughter was crying, and I was crying.

And I just had to pull over and collect myself.

And I immediately thought of Vanessa.

Because as a parent, and as a wife, but as a parent,

you never think that you're going to lose your child.

There were so many people that lost their lives that day.

On board were Kobe Bryant, his daughter, Gianna, members

of the Altobelli family, John, his wife, Keri,

and their daughter, Alyssa.

Sarah Chester and her daughter, Payton, were on board--

the pilot, Ara Zobian, and Christina Mauser.

So sad indeed.

They were simply going to a girls' basketball game.

I think the world actually stood still for a moment.

Players taking 24-second pauses to start the games to honor

the man who, of course, wore 24 for much of his career.

We all have had our ups and downs and our trials

and tribulations.

He's gotten through all of those and has come out

on the other end a better man for that.

Kobe!

Hundreds of people have gathered here at the Staples center.

It's like a family member.

I haven't felt this way since my father died.

One of the reasons I picked up basketball, one of the reasons

why I continue this day.

Does not-- it just doesn't seem real.

I miss Kobe.

Yeah, sorry, sorry.

I just need a minute.

Seeing all the artwork on every wall, paintings of Kobe

everywhere, I just thought immediately of him talking to me

about how--

how your life counts.

What makes your life count?

It's touching as many people as you can.

Well, even on people that he's never met beyond just being

an amazing basketball player but how he was evolving

and the steps that he was taking on his next chapter in life.

I was never supposed to outlive Kobe Bryant.

That wasn't the plan.

I watched him grow up.

He watched me grow old, and then he was going to watch me as I

went to the next life.

I wasn't going to see him do that and his daughter.

That thing about "time heals all wounds," that's not true.

They don't heal.

Kobe was the MVP of girl dads, or MVD.

What I felt in that room was Mrs. Bryant's love for him.

I was amazed that she was able to do that.

I admired her greatly.

She's very fiercely protective of his legacy, of their family.

He always told the girls how beautiful and smart they are.

He taught them how to be brave and how to keep pushing forward

when things get tough.

As they kept doing the camera around the whole arena,

I saw Joe and I saw Pam.

That was hard to watch, but I think what was even harder

to watch was to watch them not get acknowledged.

I mean, he's gone, and they never made up.

Had he been able to grow older, I would have hoped that he would

have been able to say, look, I've been given all of this.

Let me find a way back to the foundation of my life.

When did you know that you would like to be a basketball player?

Since I was really, really young.

Something that my parents instilled in us early,

you make sure you give maximum effort all the time

and make sure it's done the right way.

Walking on the hardwood, lacing up your sneakers,

I just love it.

I love jumping.

I love dunking.

My father always challenged me to become a better basketball

player than him.

I have decided to skip college and take my talents to the NBA.

Everybody watched him grow up, watched him to become this sort

of force.

Kobe Bryant, how do you want to be remembered?

I just want to be remembered as a down-to-Earth person, a guy

who enjoyed his teammates, enjoyed his classmates,

and was able to excel in basketball.

But overall, I don't want to be remembered as just a

basketball player.

He was still on a journey, a path of understanding

how he was going to impact this world.

In his afterlife, he has become something that very rarely has

ever been seen by anybody, anybody.

I believe the outer grief, the collective grief that came out

of Kobe's death, is rooted in redemption.

Certainly, I was open for Kobe Bryant redeeming himself.

Do I think he got there?

I don't know.

From people I've talked with who know him,

it seemed like he got there.

It seemed like he certainly changed.

People are complex.

We want everyone to be good.

We want everybody to be bad.

And that's just not it.

We're all human, and we all make mistakes.

I think that's what makes us us.

It's a fact that we can be both, and we just hope that the hero

side of us manifests itself more frequently than the villain

nature does.

All of us have got that dark and that light side.

None of us is perfect.

Kobe lived it in a way that the world watched.

Struggle, victory, redemption, these

are the elements that Kobe embraced.

How do you channel the villain to unleash the hero?

How do you use darkness to create greatness?

How do each of us navigate through our own insecurities,

own moments of doubt?

Imagination is key because you have to be able to envision it

and dream it first.

Put one foot in front of the other,

you control what you can control,

and then you see what the outcome is.

Chase that dream.