At Staples Center, the NHL's Los Angeles Kings let him use their empty training room. You guys can do it too." Kobe on iceĢ010: Bryant, who'd turn 32 later in this season, sat at his Madison Square Garden locker, readying for the second game of a back-to-back - a preparation that he preferred to do in solitude. "Look, these guys get along," he told them. Why? When his preteen kids would bicker, he'd march them in front of this photo. It's the only one of Bernstein's photos that hangs in his home. Bernstein waited until after they released from an embrace to capture Bryant's exhaustion and vindication. "He was more about the cake." Kobe and PhilĢ009: After the Lakers clinched their 2008-09 championship, Bernstein captured a moment between Bryant and coach Phil Jackson, with whom the Lakers star had an up-and-down relationship. "Kobe looked at dunking like frosting on the cake," Bernstein says. (Note his elbow in the shot.) And though the shot catches the 6-foot-6 Bryant climbing the Rockets' Yao Ming, who's a foot taller, Bernstein had to persuade Bryant to include it in a 2018 book the two did together. Kobe over YaoĢ003: Bernstein, sitting along the baseline, snapped this image through a remote camera positioned on a television platform behind him. The duo would share the court just one more time before Jordan retired at the end of the 2002-03 season. Bryant had wanted that so badly, in fact, that he'd used Jordan's final All-Star Game, of all places, to get inside Jordan's basketball mind. Bryant's game, of course, had long been compared to Jordan's - in style and ruthlessness. Kobe and Gigi, remembered by artists around the world Kobe and MJĢ003: "I wasn't going to waste a moment with Michael," Bernstein remembers Bryant saying, unapologetically, when asked about this photo years later. "This is a true teamwork photo," Bernstein says now, wistfully, of the duo that would combine for three titles before their famously volatile dynamic turned unworkable. "This photo sums it up." Kobe and ShaqĢ000: Taken with a camera placed on the floor, before the NBA banned the practice, this photo illustrates how the pairing of Kobe and Shaq worked: one man drawing attention to render his teammate nearly unguardable. "He's literally rising above the rest," Bernstein says. To capture it, Bernstein set off a series of remote cameras, including this one behind the backboard, looking through the glass. Kobe and the greatsġ998: Before he turned 20, Bryant played in his first All-Star Game, which produced this moment, in which five future Hall of Famers - Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Dikembe Mutombo and Shaquille O'Neal - witnessed this Bryant dunk. "Who reads the photo credit on posters?" Bernstein recalls thinking. But Bernstein's NBA posters, Bryant told him, were all over his childhood bedroom. Bernstein was shocked he isn't exactly a household name, and the two had never met. Though he had yet to play a game, Bryant said he knew all about the NBA photographer. Over his four decades shooting the game, he has created and served as the senior director of NBA Photos, captured the past 37 NBA Finals and, in 2018, won the Basketball Hall of Fame's Curt Gowdy Award, given to an exemplary member of the basketball media.īut it was L.A.'s biggest star, Kobe Bryant, whom Bernstein photographed the most - a voluminous collection of iconic images, from which we offer this photo journey of the lifetime Laker's indelible 20-year career.ġ996: As an 18-year-old on Lakers media day, Kobe Bryant came up to shake Bernstein's hand. 6 - there's a good chance it was taken by legendary NBA photographer Andrew Bernstein, now in his 38th season as the Lakers' team photographer. If there's a memorable NBA photo - like LeBron James' floating reverse slam on Feb. Kobe Bryant: 15 iconic images of the Lakers legend from the photographer who saw it all You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser
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