Kobe has been waiting for his professional debut for quite a long time.
Not only is Kobe eager, but also his family, Portland fans, and sponsors, reporters, and writers surrounding him are too impatient.
By 1996, an NBA rookie was no longer just a newcomer entering the NBA; the aura and commercial value gathered around them sometimes shone brighter and drew more attention than veteran players.
Just like a newly listed stock, they are always full of anticipation, while those old stocks, with their ups and downs, make people lose patience and are mostly on a downhill path.
Kobe attracted a lot of attention due to his high school status and signed with Adidas for shoe branding, being Adidas’s key focus and investment target.
Although Avia and Nike had extended olive branches to Kobe, he believed Avia belonged to Ah Gan, and Nike to Jordan; he wanted to have his own dominant sports brand.
Kobe is very ambitious in basketball, but it doesn’t mean he is a basketball fanatic who only plays basketball; at 18, he is also planning his future as a sports star.
Determined to establish a "Team Kobe" to manage various business affairs for him, the core team consists of his father, sister, and other relatives and friends.
Before the NBA season officially started, after being selected by the Trail Blazers, he personally negotiated a business deal with high school sports writer and basketball promoter Jeremy Trittman to publish an autobiography.
That’s right, Kobe hasn’t played a single game in his professional career yet and is already planning to publish an autobiography.
The autobiography is tentatively titled "My NBA Rookie Season".
Currently, Kobe’s rookie season is filled with trouble and unknowns; he hasn’t played a single preseason or regular season game.
Fortunately, within the Trail Blazers, the evaluations of him are quite positive; Bird and Ah Gan are very optimistic about Kobe.
Kobe himself is also very hardworking, which has given everyone confidence, making this game against the Spurs even more significant.
On the day of the game, Jeremy Trittman, who has been working and living in Philadelphia, specially flew to Portland and bought a ticket for this game, hoping Kobe would perform well.
Trittman served as an assistant coach at Merion High School for a year when Kobe was a senior, and that’s how they met.
Trittman is not the type of person who immerses himself in basketball tactics and training; his mind is drawn to more profitable commercial activities.
He saw enormous commercial value in Kobe and recognized the potential of the high school basketball market.
Although professional basketball, the NBA, and college basketball, the NCAA, dominate the mainstream of the American basketball market, the fragmented high school basketball market still has great potential.
It provides younger, more raw talented players for the NCAA and the NBA and offers fans fresher and more magnificent legendary stories.
Stories of young fame and youthful talent are the most captivating in any place and any era.
Apart from Trittman, Kobe’s high school coach and classmates were all eagerly watching his NBA debut on TV from their home in Philadelphia.
During the day, they all called Kobe, inquiring about his situation, wished him good luck, and said they couldn’t wait to see Kobe’s performance at the Rose Garden.
This undoubtedly put a lot of pressure on Kobe, but instead of making him nervous, it gave him even stronger confidence in his debut.
On the game day, the team arranged an hour of shooting practice, and Kobe left home early, rejecting his mother’s offer to drive him to the training gym and drove himself to Willamette University Gymnasium.
"Mom, I’m an adult, I’m 18. Have you ever seen an adult needing their mom to drive them to work?"
Leaving the townhouses at Lake Mountain Park, Kobe said this to his mother Pamela, resisting her overbearing care.
Since coming to Portland, Kobe’s daily life has been entirely managed by his mother, including his social life, under her strict supervision.
Pamela only allowed Kobe to visit Ah Gan’s home and didn’t want him to have too much contact with other players off the court, fearing her precious son might be led astray.
Kobe’s resistance didn’t have much effect; Pamela allowed him to drive himself to training, but aside from that, he couldn’t live without his mother’s arrangements in every aspect of his life.
His energy could only be focused on basketball-related things, making it hard for him to be distracted elsewhere.
Since it was a game day, the training content arranged by Bird was very simple: just warm up and maintain form.
In the previous game against the Sacramento Kings away, they actually lost.
Despite leading for most of the game, they got overturned by the Kings in the last quarter.
Mistakes on both offense and defense sides were troubling Bird, who finally couldn’t help but yell at the players on the sidelines.
During the shooting practice today, Bird kept warning the players repeatedly not to make mistakes, not to make mistakes.
"Before making any decisions, please use your brains a little bit. I know the game speed is fast and intensity high, and sometimes there’s no time to think. But I hope your brains can be as fast as your feet; otherwise, I really don’t know besides adding a bit to your height, what else is the thing on your shoulders used for?"
People inevitably become what they dislike.
While playing, Bird didn’t like Bill Fitch being too harsh on the players.