As a Celtics fan, it was only natural that I grew up hating on Kobe. But it wasn’t that simple. Watching him play was like falling for one of his signature pump fakes. On one hand, I knew it was coming. And I knew what was on the other side of that fake, I knew what followed a vintage Kobe performance. It’s the devastation of my team losing Game 7 of the 2010 finals.
On the other hand, I couldn’t help but jump for the block. I couldn’t help but watch every fadeaway, every spin move, every defensive stop, and be floored by it all. The footwork, the explosiveness, the follow-through, the flow on the court. Even his jersey danced as if it were underwater. When Kobe plays, you can’t not watch.
And then there’s the ruthlessness, the stare-downs, the trash-talks, the doing whatever it takes to get the win. This is the mamba mentality that we’re all so familiar with, and it’s one that, I think, we easily misunderstand or at least fail to see completely.
Towards the end of last year, I read Kobe’s book The Mamba Mentality along with my two friends, Miles and JJ, both Laker fans. It was a fascinating look into Kobe’s mindset, process, and thoughts on the game he loved so dearly. If you’re familiar with the Boston-LA rivalry, then you would probably know that Kobe was at the center of reigniting it about 10 years ago. Needless to say, we enjoyed reliving it through this book.
If there’s one thing two Laker fans and a Celtics fan can agree on, it’s that Kobe was a game-changer. His presence on the court, no matter how battered or injured he was, directed the flow of the game one way or another.
After reading the book, though, there’s one other thing we all agreed on: Kobe knew how to listen, and listen well. This is the side (I would go so far as to say that it’s the most fundamental side) of his mindset that we too often overlook, much to our own disadvantage.
When we see Kobe on the court and equate that ferocity with the mamba mentality, we can’t help but perceive it as one that constantly says, “Just keep pushing until you can’t push anymore. Keep running until your legs give out. Wake up earlier. Do more. Go faster. Be better. Push!”
Sounds tiring, but it also sounds about right if you’ve seen how Kobe is on and off the court. It was as if he never took a minute off, that he was always grinding. However, had he done this every day as a player, would he have lasted 20 years in the league? I’m not so sure.
“It’s all about putting me in the place I need to be in for that game. Some games required more intensity, so I would need to get my character and mind in an animated zone. Other games, I needed calm. In that situation, I wouldn’t listen to music. Sometimes, even, I would sit in total silence.
The key, though, is being aware of how you’re feeling and how you need to be feeling. It all starts with awareness.”
Kobe Bryant, The Mamba Mentality
It begins with listening.
I wouldn’t have put mamba mentality and mindfulness under the same category, but the more I read the book, the bigger the overlap between these two concepts became. It turns out, this aggressive, leave-everything-on-the-court attitude was merely the external manifestation of the mamba mentality. The “black mamba” was simply what Kobe needed to become to fight off slumps and win games.
But on the inside, there’s a much deeper mental play at work. Kobe was always on top of the situation, and this is because he first reads the situation and listens to what the situation requires. Most of the time, ruthlessness was the answer, but not always. The external follows the internal. He listened and acted accordingly.
“I never had a set routine, an ironclad formula that I practiced night after night. I listened to my body and let it inform my warmup, because there are always variables. If I felt the need to shoot extra jumpers, I’d shoot more. If I felt the need to meditate, I’d meditate. If I felt the need to stretch for a longer duration, I’d stretch. And if I felt the need to rest, I’d sleep. I always listened to my body. That’s the best advice I can give: listen to your body, and warm up with purpose.”
Kobe Bryant, The Mamba Mentality
And of course, there’s the body, the one situation we can’t ever escape from. It’s the one true constant, and therefore the one we can’t afford not to listen to.
The quote above came to me at a time of real burnout, the insidious type of burnout that creeps up on you so that when you realize its presence, it’s too late. You’re in bed, feeling too sick to get up but also too restless to fall asleep. That kind of burnout.
Upon reading it, I remember feeling my shoulders drop almost immediately. And then came the sudden urge to take a nap, guilt-free. I did of course. When Kobe tells you to listen to your body, you listen to your body.
And that was the game-changer for me.
But when you’re Kobe, you don’t stop at the body. Listening continues to the other bodies around you — your adversaries and those who came before.
In 1995, Kevin Garnett was the first NBA player to be drafted straight out of high school since the ’70s. In the twenty years prior, there were no rules against going straight from high school to the NBA, but no one was doing it. During KG’s rookie year, he met a young and energetic Kobe right after a game. In his autobiography KG: A TO Z: An Uncensored Encyclopedia of Life, Basketball, and Everything in Between, he writes:
We first met in Philly, the Spectrum, my rookie season. I liked the Spectrum because the lighting was dark and dramatic. I had a decent game, came off the floor, and when I walked into the locker room, there he was, sitting on my stool.
“Whassup, KG,” he said. “I’m Kobe.”
“Whassup,” I shot back. “But why is yo ass in my seat? Get the f–k outta my seat.”
He jumped up right quick, and we had a little chuckle. He was super animated, boisterous as a little boy. He was lit. I could see the spit on his words coming off his voice. He came at me straight ahead. We were teenagers. He was 17. I was 19. I was already in. He was a year away from getting in. He was fixing to do what I’d done—go straight from high school to the draft—so right away we related. Never had met nobody with so many questions. One tumbling out after another.
Kevin Garnett, KG: A TO Z: An Uncensored Encyclopedia of Life, Basketball, and Everything in Between
The year after that, 1996, Kobe was drafted into the league by the Hornets and traded to the Lakers. 24 (24!) years later, both Kobe and KG were inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Kobe was listening to and picking the brains of NBA players even before he entered the league. And once he was in, he just wouldn’t stop.
“I was curious. I wanted to improve, learn, and fill my head with the history of the game. No matter who I was with—a coach, hall of famer, teammate—and no matter the situation—game, practice, vacation—I would fire away with question after question.
A lot of people appreciated my curiosity and passion. They appreciated that I wasn’t just asking to ask, I was genuinely thirsty to hear their answers and glean new info. Some people, meanwhile, were less understanding and gracious. That was fine with me. My approach always was that I’d rather risk embarrassment now than be embarrassed later, when I’ve won zero titles.”
Kobe Bryant, The Mamba Mentality
Kobe was a true student of the game. And by that I mean he was a student of those who made the game what it is today. He learned from teammates, opponents, coaches, physical therapists, basically anyone who had some potential to improve his game.
“The game within the game” he would call it.
Beyond the questions, he examined the subtle tendencies of his toughest opponents, and he would learn to use these against them. All the jersey-pulling, the trash-talking, the arm-grabbing, the boxing out, and the overall physicality. Kobe studied them all. He embraced that they were all part of the game, and he enjoyed it. In fact, just to get an upper hand, he read the referee’s handbook to know which spots on the court were referee blind spots he could use to his advantage.
He was obsessed with the details.
The way Kobe studied his opponents was almost primal. Like a natural predator, he paid close and careful attention to his prey’s movements on the court; it’s no coincidence that he was nicknamed the Black Mamba. As a matter of fact, he chose the name himself. In an interview with The Washington Post, he revealed just how it came about:
Then one night at home, Bryant couldn’t sleep. He scrolled through movies around 2 a.m. and hit play on the Quentin Tarantino revenge film “Kill Bill: Vol. 2.” He was hooked from the opening — a fantastical director telling a fantastical story — but a later scene affected Bryant profoundly: A character named Budd is removing cash from a suitcase when, beneath one of the stacks, a mysterious and deadly snake strikes him and he proceeds to suffer an excruciating death. “Budd,” Daryl Hannah’s character says, “I’d like to introduce my friend: the black mamba.”
Bryant says he was almost hypnotized.
“The length, the snake, the bite, the strike, the temperament,” he says, and it wasn’t lost on him that snakes can also shed their skin. “ ‘Let me look this s— up.’ I looked it up — yeah, that’s me. That’s me!’ ”
Taken from a 2018 Interview with Kent Babb of The Washington Post
The bite, the strike, the temperament. Kobe had found his spirit animal and it couldn’t have been more spot on. Looking back at all his iconic in-game moments and all the cerebral interviews off the court, it’s not difficult to imagine the similarities between Kobe and a venomous hunter.
But I wanted to make sure I understood what he felt at that moment, so I googled it myself:
“Black mamba snakes are diurnal snakes that hunt prey actively day or night. When hunting small animals, the Black Mamba snake delivers a single deadly bite and then retreats, waiting for the neurotoxin in its venom to paralyze the prey. When killing a bird, however, the Black Mamba snake will cling to its prey, preventing it from flying away.
Black mamba snakes travel quickly across rough ground or along low tree branches when hunting. Black mamba snakes are able to hold their heads up to one metre above the ground when striking and can hold them 50 centimetres above the ground even when moving. Black mamba snakes have very good eyesight and can strike their prey such as rodents, bats, birds and lizards like lightning, leaving their powerful venom to finish off the kill.”
Taken from animalcorner.org
The Black Mamba’s strategy relies not on volume, but on precision. It’s less about constantly attacking, firing, doing, and more about knowing when to strike, when to cling on, when to run, when to retreat. Knowing is the key. But knowing the right action requires knowing the prey and the environment. The approach is circumstantial, and anything circumstantial demands awareness.
The mamba mentality is focus paired with the awareness of our agency and our potential. Where am I? What is happening now? What is my external environment asking from me? What is my internal environment telling me to do? What is within my control? What is required of me at this moment? Am I capable of responding accordingly? When do I strike? When do I cling on? When do I retreat?
It asks us to seriously consider these questions and to face them with proper intention. Sometimes the answer is to put your head down and grind, but other times, sitting back to enjoy the view is the right call.
In the end, it becomes a matter of energy — sensing it, channeling it, responding to it with our own. The things you listen to, the people you talk to, the thoughts in your head, all of it is energy in the form of information. And we channel this energy by processing the information and acting on them.
The mamba mentality is about taking reality by the horns, knowing it inside and out. By coming to terms with our environment, our opponents, our own selves, we can respond correctly and with confidence in the results we desire. Only in knowing can we do this. It is also in knowing that we are made aware of what results are possible to begin with.
But even knowing starts with not knowing, therefore we are left with no other choice but to listen. That’s where we begin.