Kobe's Enduring Impact on Warriors Clear on 8/24

If these last two days showed anything, it’s that Kobe Bryant meant a lot to the NBA community.

The five-time NBA champion, 18-time All-Star and 2008 NBA MVP would have celebrated his 43rd birthday yesterday, and with today’s date being August 24 (8/24) – representing the two numbers the 15-time All-NBA selection wore during his career, #8 and later #24 – the Black Mamba’s legacy lives on throughout the association.

And Golden State is no exception.

Let’s start from the top. Two-time NBA MVP Stephen Curry’s Twitter cover photo and profile picture are of a younger and older version of himself, respectively, sharing looks with the Laker great, highlighting the enduring significance Bryant has represented to Curry throughout multiple stages of his career.

In a piece done by NBC Sports’ Alex Didion, Curry shared a moment from a younger, scrawnier version of himself that matched up with Bryant in his first preseason game in 2009.

"One of my first preseason games down at the Forum my rookie year, we played against him, and I got switched onto him in an ISO situation, I'm scrawny, 170-pound rookie coming in, and the look he gave me was so damn disrespectful -- it was crazy," Curry said. "That was kind of my welcome to the league moment, and from there, to the shot in preseason probably three or four years later, he gave me a little pat on the a-- after I hit him with a 30-footer. But he's definitely inspiring in terms of his legacy."

It would be hard to doubt Curry carried on some semblance of Bryant’s legacy, taking three NBA titles (so far) to Bryant’s five, and winning two NBA MVP awards while putting himself in the conversation for a third in his age 32-33 season.

Curry also shared in May 2021 his continued disbelief about Bryant and eight others’ – including his 13-year old daughter Gianna and some of her basketball teammates – tragic deaths in January 2020. More current NBA players certainly share the same sentiment as it has opened up more chances to reflect on Bryant’s impact on their careers.

Draymond Green told Didion that Bryant encouraged the former Michigan State forward to continue playing with the edge which certainly sets him apart.

"You're chasing something so much bigger, so much (greater) than the average person can understand," Bryant said to Green. "The reality is 99 percent of the world is OK with mediocrity. How do you even expect them to be able to understand you? Dray, I never gave a f--k if they understood me because I knew I was on to something so much bigger than they could even understand.”

The moments between Kobe and the Warriors are almost too many in number to sufficiently capture, which is a credit to Bryant’s ability to influence so many players while continuing his own personal dominance of the sport.

Of all the Warriors, I personally think Klay Thompson’s game is the most reminiscent of the knockdown shooting, “Mamba mentality” Bryant displayed throughout his career. Of course, both Bryant and Thompson were the players staying on the court after tearing their achilles and ACLs, respectively, to hit their free throws before leaving the game.

And while it is impossible to always tell what is going on in Thompson’s mind, Kobe’s recognition of Klay’s 41-point 2014 opening night flurry, which springboarded the guard in his first All-Star campaign and Golden State’s first of three championships in June 2015, might have been the catalyst to a career of success.

“‘Wow, I had 40 on the Lakers and against my idol?’ It was incredible,” Thompson said to The Los Angeles Times’ Dan Woike in May 2021. “I still watch that highlight all the time for motivation. And then to see postgame, for him to come over and dap me up, I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Out of anybody on the Warriors, Klay might also be the most connected to Bryant. Thompson said in 2015 he grew up as a Lakers fan – this makes a lot of sense because his father Mychal won two titles with Los Angeles in the 1980s and is currently the team’s color commentator on radio – and shared a picture on Instagram in May 2020 of his getting coached-up by Bryant at his academy back in high school. Also on the roster for the 2007 Nike Kobe Skills Academy was an up-and-coming guard named Stephen Curry.

Throughout their careers, Warriors players saw the legendary Bryant morph from their idol to their peer. However, if Thompson is any evidence, that transition from legend to rival was never fully completed.

“I was so star-struck that he was giving me props,” Thompson said after his 41-point opener in 2014. "That was my real moment when I knew I was going to be a player in this league.”

FeatureMichael WaldmanKobe Bryant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond GreenComment