I love the game of basketball, like seriously LOVE IT! To call it my favorite sport would be a disrespect to the word favorite. I am obsessed with the game of roundball. Great players throughout the history of the game have helped me build this (what I would like to call) healthy obsession, but none more than Kobe Bryant. Though the years, he showed me how to not only love the game but appreciate what it can do for me in my life.

As a young man, I watched my dad play ball with his friends at Shields Park in Seymour, Indiana, thinking to myself, “I cannot wait to get on the court,” knowing there was no chance I was getting any run that day, the next or anytime within the next few years. But I was there at every given chance, just standing, dribbling a basketball and shooting on the opposite rim of where the game was being played, hoping I would not hear my dad or any of his buddies yelling at me to “GET OFF THE COURT!”

I couldn’t get enough. I still can’t get enough. I am rec league basketball guy. Playing in leagues at every given opportunity, playing pick up games every weekend; yes, I am that guy.

I used to play to show everyone that I could play. I used to play to beat or even embarrass my opponent. I used to play to fuel my competitive fire — that fire is still there in case any of my fellow weekend warriors are reading and thinking I might be getting soft!

But now, more often than not, I play to escape everything else. Playing the game of basketball because it sets you free from what is going on in your real life never even crossed my mind until Kobe Bryant showed me that the hardwood was his therapy couch when he was facing legal trouble in Eagle, Colorado (If you’re close to my age, you have a Dave Chappelle joke running through your head right now).

We all have our own issues and hopefully none that were as serious as what Kobe was facing; however, a 20-year old me at the time found basketball once again but on an entirely different level. After not even playing my final year in high school (shoutout Norsemen), I just wanted to be in the gym. It didn’t even matter if I was the only one there. I just wanted to put up jumpers and think about putting up jumpers.

Here I am, now almost 12 years later, again dealing with life. But you know where none of it matters? On the court, where the only thing that can be judged is my crossover or jump shot. What I deal with after the gym is irrelevant to everyone at the gym, myself included.

Is it crazy that a basketball player named Kobe Bryant showed me a gym could be a sanctuary? To be honest, I’d settle with just a ball, my crossover would be so nice! It’s called a game, but it is so much more to some of us.

Say what you want about the incident, and if you hate Kobe because of it, then so be it; that’s your right. In fact, I wouldn’t even argue that you are wrong, because even if it was just adultery, it’s still a big deal in my book. Do me a favor: Forget about the charge that he was not found guilty of; let’s now just look at his performance throughout the trials.

As far as his numbers, they were not anything to make you raise your eyebrows, averaging 24 points per game, shooting 44 percent from the field and 33 percent from beyond the arc. In fact, Kobe had not even peaked as a player yet. A couple of years later he averaged 35 PPG in 2005/2006 and then 31 per game the following season.

But the way he turned the world off, turned the crowds off. He was unbreakable out there. There was not a man on planet Earth that could have got in his way when the only rules he had to play by were those in the NBA rule book. I am forever grateful to Kobe for the way he played, because it showed me that even people you’ve found yourself in awe of can come on hard times. It’s how you handle those times and bounce back from them that determines the legacy you leave.

Thank you, Kobe.

Sincerely,

Just one big fan of the game of basketball