When it comes to the world of basketball, the American National Basketball Association player, Kobe Bryant, is a superstar; unsurprisingly, he revealed that his stardom was not by luck.
To approach this status, Bryant, 36, has been playing basketball in the NBA for 18 years.
Like every other person who has worked all their life, Bryant will retire someday, and when he does, he will face a new challenge in finding what to do with the rest of his life.
However, he said he was not too worried about it. Speaking to the New York Timesrecently, Bryant said he was inspired by a conversation he had many years ago with fashion legend, Giorgio Armani.
He said, “I’ve been thinking about that [retirement] since I was 21. I had a great conversation with Giorgio Armani back then. He told me he started his company at age 40. It was a real wake-up call for me. ‘What are you going to do?’ Armani asked me.”
Armani once served in the Italian armed forces, worked at a department store and was a freelance designer before founding his fashion company in 1974.
Interestingly, even though Bryant is an American, he speaks Italian and has a close connection to Italy, having lived there for much of his childhood while his father, Joe Bryant, played basketball overseas.
Apparently, Bryant is a fan of Armani’s work as he owns several Armani suits.
Although he has not announced any definite plans for life after the NBA, he has become increasingly curious about learning the secrets of top entrepreneurs and other successful people, his recent Sports Illustrated profile stated.
While recovering from a torn Achilles recently, Bryant read lots of business books and filled his notebooks with ideas. He divulged that he has formed the habit of cold-calling luminaries in different fields and asking for their insights.
He told Bloomberg, “You can start in the Nike Family; I cold-call Mark Parker all the time; also Jony Ive, Dan Wieden, Oprah Winfrey and recently, Arianna Huffington. The list just goes on and on and on and on.”
And most recently, his biggest off-court exploit is a Showtime documentary titled “Muse,” which is expected to air this month.
Bryant’s ‘insane’ work ethics
Bryant could be described as a workaholic in every respect and the following prove just that:
- In preparation for the 2012 Olympics, he decided to lose 16 pounds (7.3kg) and he did.
- While in high school, he used to show up for practice at 5am and would leave at 7pm.
- He used to practise by himself without a ball.
- He counts all of his made shots in practice, and stops when he gets to 400.
- He goes through super intense workouts on game days.
- He had sports kits maker, Nike, shave a few millimetres off the bottom of his shoes in 2008 to get ‘a hundredth of a second better reaction time.’
- He is on strict diet.
- He ices his knees for 20 minutes three times per day and does acupuncture so he doesn’t get hurt.
- He watches film of himself at halftime.
- He trains for four hours a day during the season and more than that in the off-season.
- This is the quote about how he wants to be remembered: “To think of me as a person that’s overachieved, that would mean a lot to me. That means I put a lot of work in and squeezed every ounce of juice out of this orange that I could.”
Kobe Bryant
Bryant was born on August 23, 1978 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States to a former Los Angeles Sparks head coach, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, and Pamela Cox Bryant. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan, which they saw on a restaurant menu. He started playing basketball when he was three years old and his favourite team while growing up was the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA.
More about Bryant
Bryant plays for the Lakers in the US. He entered the NBA directly from high school, and has played for the club his entire career, winning five NBA championships.
He is a 16-time All-Star, 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, and 12-time member of the All-Defensive team. As of March 2013, he ranks third and fourth on the league’s all-time postseason scoring and all-time regular season scoring lists, respectively.
Bryant is lauded for his work ethic, making many players to describe him as difficult to play with because of his high level of commitment and performance.
Endorsements
Before starting the 1996/1997 NBA season, Bryant signed a 6-year contract with sports kit manufacturer, Adidas, worth approximately $48m (N7.92bn).
His other earlier endorsements included deals with soft drinks maker, Coca-Cola; fast food giant, McDonald’s; sportswear maker, Nike; Italian chocolate company, Ferrero SpA; Russell Corporation; and video games developer, Nintendo.
On December 13, 2010, he signed a two-year endorsement deal with Turkey’s national airline, Turkish Airlines. The deal involved him being in a promotional film to be aired in over 80 countries, in addition to his being used in digital, print and billboard advertising.
In 2013, Forbes listed Bryant the fifth highest paid sports star in the world behind Floyd Mayweather, Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James and Lionel Messi.
Net worth and house
With a salary of about $28m (N4.62bn) every year, Bryant is one of the highest-paid players in the NBA.
With other lucrative endorsement deals with major brands like Mercedes-Benz, Lenovo, Panini and Hublot, Bryant is reportedly worth $220m (N36.3bn).
He owns a home in the exclusive Newport Coast neighbourhood in the US which he bought for about $4m (N660m); he bought the Mediterranean-style house in a cul-de-sac from sports agent, Dwight Manley.
From Lamborghini to Ferraris
Bryant is a lover of cars. His garage contains some of the world’s best SUVs and sport cars. Apart from his beasty Cadillac Escalade, he also owns a Range Rover car, a large luxury four-wheel SUV by British carmaker, Land Rover.
His Ferrari 360 speeds from 0-60mph in just 4.5 seconds; he also owns a Lamborghini Murcielago, which is as sporty as the star himself. The car cost him a whopping $400,000 (N66m).
The NBA player also has a Bentley Continental GT, a Chevrolet Impala convertible, and a Ferrari 458 Italia, a fancy supercar, worth $329,000 (N54m).
The basketball star has a thing for cars as he also helped himself to a matt black Lamborghini Aventador in November 2011, which he sometimes drives to the Lakers’ training ground.
The supercar possesses a very sport look due to its aerodynamically shaped body and incorporates some of the most recent high-end innovations in car technology. It’s one of the few cars in the world that can zoom to 100 km/hr after start in 3 seconds and is capable of attaining a mind-boggling maximum speed of 370 km/hr.
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