While most NBA athletes evolve after they enter the pro league, Kobe Bryant was built differently. In fact, ever since the age of eight, Bryant was obsessed with basketball. And as a 12-year-old, he was already playing with high schoolers bound for D1 schools. Former NBA player Alvin Williams was among the many league-bound talents that Bryant faced off with, in his early adolescence. And William remembers their encounters vividly.
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His competitiveness was even visible at that age as Williams explained how those sessions with a young Bryant,
“He was different. Like he was different. So a young Kobe Bryant was definitely on the radar. He really took off when I was in college and he was in High School…but he used to come to Villanova and play with us, and act like he was the best player on our team. Wouldn’t pass to us.”
But Williams’s relationship with Kobe goes back to when the NBA analyst was in high school and Kobe was just 12 years old. A product of Germantown, Williams would play in the ‘Sunny Hill’ camp, which saw attendance from top prospects around the country, including future NBA stars like Rasheed Wallace and Mark Jackson.
Bryant’s dad, Jelly Bean Bryant happened to coach Williams’s team at the time and that’s where Bryant got to test his talent against older and stronger competition. Even at a 5-year disadvantage, Bryant showed flashes of becoming a legendary hooper.
In fact, Bryant was so good as a 12-year-old that William’s father had doubts if his son would even start over Bryant, not knowing that he was only 12 and not even a high-schooler yet.
But what Williams and the others didn’t know at the time was that Bryant Sr. was making his son play against grown men in Italy, and did so till he was over 12 years old. So when a young Kobe returned, he was already used to playing against faster and stronger competition.
Bryant was way ahead of his peers, but that didn’t mean he went easy on them. He even admitted to dropping 63 points as an 8-year-old.
Kobe Bryant confessed to dropping 63 points as an 8-year-old
Bryant’s approach to basketball has always been cerebral, like that of a stalking predator in the wild. He always took great pride in studying his victims, setting up situations in his favor, and exploiting his opponent’s weaknesses.
A young Kobe realized that basketball was not only a physical but a mental sport as well. And as an 8-year-old, he was already using this wisdom to his advantage. In a 2016 appearance on HBO’s Real Sports Show, Bryant recalled the time he dropped 63 points as an 8-year-old using a simple trick,
“ I figured out at 8 years old is that other 8-year-olds can’t dribble with their left hand….So,I would just let them have a couple of dribbles with their right hand and then jump on their right hand and make them change over to their left. And they would bobble the ball and fumble the ball. I’d pick it up and go lay it up. I just did this all game and so, I wound up with 63.”
Kobe talking about how he dropped 63 points when he was 8 years old;
“It was something very simple that I figured out at 8 years old is that other 8-year-olds can’t dribble with their left hand.”
(🎥 @LakeShowFamily)
— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) July 31, 2023
In the same interview, he confessed that he didn’t see the stat line as an achievement but rather, as a stepping stone on his path to greatness. He knew that even though he was gifted, he wasn’t a freak athlete and if he wanted to compete against the best, he would have to start early.
