In our 1998 feature 'Teenager of the Year,' a 19-year-old Kobe Bryant faced his second NBA season and the hype of being the next Michael Jordan
Across the room, O’Neal smiled. After a few minutes, he addressed the question of whether Bryant’s teammates resented the amount of attention the rookie was receiving. O’Neal glanced at the kid he’d nicknamed Showboat and smiled again. “This is all about business,” he said. “Attention is like money – there’s enough to go around for everybody.”
“In high school we’d just chill, maybe watch a movie, then quit and play one-on-one,” says Matt Matkov, one of Bryant’s best friends. “When I was partying, he was out playing basketball. When I was waking up, Kobe was playing basketball before class.” “I got my friend to ask her, and then she asked her mother,” explains Bryant. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? I just kept thinking, ‘Damn, that’s Brandy.'”
KOBE BRYANT nails a few free throws, then straggles off the Lakers’ practice court in your direction. It’s early afternoon, midway through the 1997-98 season, almost a year since you last caught up with him. Plenty has changed. He smiles as he approaches, gives you a hug, then rubs his head, which, last season, was shaved.That wasn’t the change you were thinking about. Sure, there are a few other differences: He has grown an inch and put on at least ten pounds of muscle, for instance.
“I felt like the NBA and NBC used him to his detriment,” says Lakers coach Del Harris. “He was a willing participant, but when he came back, he was more one-on-one oriented.” “Eighteen,” said Woods as he and Bryant shook hands. “It’s nice to finally meet someone younger than me.” Home is the six-bedroom, six-bathroom house that Bryant rents in Pacific Palisades and where he lives with his parents and his twenty-year-old sister, Shaya, who goes to Santa Monica City College. His other sister, Sharia, 22, graduated this year from Temple University, in Philadelphia, where she played volleyball and majored in international business.
Bryant joined Bannister’s rap group, the Cheizaw, which concentrates on what Bannister calls “mostly spiritual rap, edifying in the rhymes.” Bryant’s hip-hop name is Kobe One Kenobe the Eighth. “It’s a star war,” says Bannister, “and he’s a star.” It’s only a year later, and he is still only nineteen, but Bryant seems much more like his own man than he did at this time last season. It’s clear in the way he carries himself. When Bryant drops the nice-guy routine, he’s actually an extremely nice guy – and he isn’t afraid to seem like a real person.
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