Throwback Thursday - Kobe airballs 4 shots vs. the Jazz

[Levity]

anyone who tries to defend jam jam at this point is a fcking retard.

[ImKobe]

This is one of the biggest games of his career. It's what made him Kobe. It's what motivated to be a much better player. It's where he got his work ethic from. He was just a little kid and he wanted to prove he could be as great as anyone but failed, that moment against Utah was a turning point in his life/basketball career.

Thank you for posting one of the most pivotal moments in Kobe's career, OP.

Spring of 1997 and Bryant sits alone in the visitors' locker room at Utah's Delta Center. "Why?" he asks himself. "Why did I miss those shots? Was I nervous? No, I don't get nervous in games. I don't get afraid in games. So what happened? The shots were right on line, right on target. Why did they come up short?" He is a rookie who just unleashed three air balls down the stretch of an overtime playoff loss to the Jazz that ends the Lakers' season. He is packing for his first offseason when the answer dawns on him. "I was going from 30-something games in high school to 100-something in the NBA on an 18-year-old body," Bryant says. "I went right back to L.A. and changed my whole weight training program. I had to start lifting during the season so what happened in Utah would never happen again." That summer Spike Lee begins filming He Got Game, a movie with Denzel Washington about a basketball prodigy named Jesus Shuttlesworth. "I want you to be part of it," Lee tells Bryant. "Thank you but no thank you," Bryant says. "This summer is too big for me." Ray Allen lands the role as Shuttlesworth.