That Time A Teenage Kobe Went To The Neverland Ranch

ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan wrote a piece today on Kobe Bryant’s influences, which is worth your time for the following anecdote alone:

In 1997, a 19-year-old Kobe, fresh off his rookie season with the Los Angeles Lakers, was lifting weights when a call came in on his Nextel.

"“Hi, it’s Michael,” the voice on the line says. “Michael who?” “Michael Jackson.”"

Kobe thought it was a prank at first, but their 15-minute conversation turned into an invitation to visit Jackson’s Neverland Ranch. Turned out they had a lot in common.

"Inside the French Normandy residence, the two men share a meal of marinated chicken and organic vegetables.”He told me, ‘This is what you love. This is your obsession,'” Bryant recalls. “He said, ‘I know what it’s like to be different. Embrace it.'”"

The story contains far too many surreal details to list here, but if you’re not inclined to read MacMullan’s story (which, trust me, you will not regret doing), know that the King of Pop saw in a young Kobe a fellow outsider.

"After dinner, Jackson presents Bryant with a gift, a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a novella about an outcast bird who’s unwilling to conform. Then they drive half a mile to Jackson’s private 5,500-square-foot theater, adorned with billboards for old films, a flowing fountain and a concession stand stocked with boxed treats and cotton candy."

And so it was that a young bird grew up to be The Black Mamba.