Kobe Bryant: RIP

[DarkstarWahoo]

I have a Navy friend who wrote this: "My roommate from USNA is an aeronautical engineer and went straight into his masters after graduating, really competitive out of the academy. When he got to Pensacola for flight school he straight up refused to be considered for helicopters because he doesn’t trust/fully understand the stability of keeping those things in the air."

The other thing that I keep thinking is that you can't glide a helicopter to a survivable crash landing when something goes wrong, like you can with a plane. You're just going down. They're dangerous even when flown by experts in good conditions.

[Edouble]

I posted it elsewhere, but I got an interview with Nolan Smith yesterday about an hour after the news broke that we used on the DBR podcast. He and Kobe had a bit of a relationship and Nolan shared a few nice stories.

https://soundcloud.com/dbrpodcast/db...ip-kobe-bryant

Thank you, Jason. I enjoyed the podcast. Really.

I want to disagree with one thing though.

I don't think people, for the most part, forget Kobe's rookie struggles.

For me, and I can speak at least for my friends around my age as well, the (four) airball game against the Jazz is the first really important and memorable chapter of the Kobe story. I would be surprised if the Gen Xers and Boomers who were there to see it happen, forgot.

[chris13]

I thought this article, by Ramona Shelberne, written at the time Kobe retired from the Lakers and featuring extensive interviews with him, gives great insight into Kobe. http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/sto...edirected=true

[scottdude8]

Extremely well done. I'm especially proud that the dark marks in Kobe's history were not entirely overlooked. I know that is an extremely complicated and touchy issue, and I don't want to open Pandora's box by getting into it or my thoughts on it in any detail. That said, I have been disappointed that the general reaction and media coverage has included almost no mention of this part of Kobe's past. No matter your opinions on those events, they are a part of his legacy, and seemingly scrubbing it entirely does history a disservice.

[robed deity]

Extremely well done. I'm especially proud that the dark marks in Kobe's history were not entirely overlooked. I know that is an extremely complicated and touchy issue, and I don't want to open Pandora's box by getting into it or my thoughts on it in any detail. That said, I have been disappointed that the general reaction and media coverage has included almost no mention of this part of Kobe's past. No matter your opinions on those events, they are a part of his legacy, and seemingly scrubbing it entirely does history a disservice.

Good post and this captures my thoughts also.

[jamos14]

Extremely well done. I'm especially proud that the dark marks in Kobe's history were not entirely overlooked. I know that is an extremely complicated and touchy issue, and I don't want to open Pandora's box by getting into it or my thoughts on it in any detail. That said, I have been disappointed that the general reaction and media coverage has included almost no mention of this part of Kobe's past. No matter your opinions on those events, they are a part of his legacy, and seemingly scrubbing it entirely does history a disservice.

I agree, it should be discussed. However, yesterday was not the correct day for it. Multiple families lost a child, sister, or parent. Anybody feeling the need to rub that in faces yesterday was incredibly tactless.

* I am not referencing this article but multiple tweets from yesterday by blue check marks.

[scottdude8]

[Redacted from deleted post]

USA Today had the best article I've read so far.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...cy/4584605002/

Thanks for including this article, I hadn't seen it yet, and agree that it's very much worth a read.

[scottdude8]

In my opinion, he can be still truly be a good guy even with the sexual assault history. One mistake (albeit a huge one that hurt many people) shouldn't tarnish his entire life and character. As JD said in his article, we can hope that he truly repented and grew as a man/father because of this. That's something between him and God now. All we saw is his public life but he certainly seemed a much different man than he was at 25 when the assault occurred.

I think we need to avoid getting too much into the specifics here, our opinions, etc., or else we're going to go down a path that we don't want to as a board. Obviously we're all going to have a wide variety of opinions on such a complex issue. But having these debates on a message board, doing it via anonymous text rather than real conversation, is tempting fate and could lead to the devolution of this conversation rapidly. Let's all (including me!) try to keep that in mind going forward.

[BLPOG]

I have a Navy friend who wrote this: "My roommate from USNA is an aeronautical engineer and went straight into his masters after graduating, really competitive out of the academy. When he got to Pensacola for flight school he straight up refused to be considered for helicopters because he doesn’t trust/fully understand the stability of keeping those things in the air."

The other thing that I keep thinking is that you can't glide a helicopter to a survivable crash landing when something goes wrong, like you can with a plane. You're just going down [emphasis added by BLPOG]. They're dangerous even when flown by experts in good conditions.

I am not an expert, but that's a little misleading. I think modern helicopters pretty much all have autorotation capability. It's the analogue to gliding, though I'd imagine it's usually harder to perform an autorotation emergency landing than a gliding emergency landing.

[arnie]

Thanks for including this article, I hadn't seen it yet, and agree that it's very much worth a read.

https://balldurham.com/2020/01/27/duke-basketball-kobe-bryant-odd-stats/

Interesting and heart warming comments from Ryan Kelly’s wife. Didn’t realize Ryan’s connections to Kobe.

[uh_no]

I am not an expert, but that's a little misleading. I think modern helicopters pretty much all have autorotation capability. It's the analogue to gliding, though I'd imagine it's usually harder to perform an autorotation emergency landing than a gliding emergency landing.

further, autorotation is part of the examination to get a license.

https://www.faa.gov/training_testing...-s-8081-20.pdf

[DangerDevil]

I am not an expert, but that's a little misleading. I think modern helicopters pretty much all have autorotation capability. It's the analogue to gliding, though I'd imagine it's usually harder to perform an autorotation emergency landing than a gliding emergency landing.

Yes all helicopters have the ability to autorotate, however in a real emergency an autorotation would be a crapshoot even for the best pilot. Simplistically an autorotation is the helicopter’s answer to “gliding” when there is a loss of engine power. There are certain circumstances where a helicopter wouldn’t have the ability to autorotate, ie something catastrophic happening to the rotor system or the hydraulic system/flight controls seizing. When you autorotate you decrease the lift demand on the rotors and let the air resistance maintain the inertia on the rotor blades in an attempt to flare/cushion the landing/impact. During that flare you also bleed off of your ground speed.

Helicopters biggest enemy is the fact that usually operate so close to the ground and therefore have very little time to react to an emergency. What is worse a helicopter or airplane emergency? It depends, helicopters don’t need a runway to land but they usually have less time/limited distance to figure out where to try to land.

Pure guess on my part but it sounds like weather was the factor in this case. From the ATC recordings already released they were operating in SVFR (Special Visual Flight Rules) conditions, that means the weather conditions were below VFR flight conditions.

From the picture of the crash site and the lack of intact helicopter, it looks like the helicopter was still traveling at a very high rate of speed when it made impact. If they tried to autorotate or make an emergency landing it still could have been catastrophic but there typically would have been a more intact fuselage.

[kAzE]

It's so hard to put into words what Kobe meant to millions of people around the world. It's heartbreaking. What a sad day for the world, to lose a man who had achieved so much and still had so much potential left. RIP Kobe, and thank you for everything you gave us.

[Acymetric]

Pure guess on my part but it sounds like weather was the factor in this case. From the ATC recordings already released they were operating in SVFR (Special Visual Flight Rules) conditions, that means the weather conditions were below VFR flight conditions.

From the picture of the crash site and the lack of intact helicopter, it looks like the helicopter was still traveling at a very high rate of speed when it made impact. If they tried to autorotate or make an emergency landing it still could have been catastrophic but there typically would have been a more intact fuselage.

Yeah, it seems pretty clear that weather was a significant factor. It definitely appears that it wasn't so much "helicopter in distress crash lands" so much as "helicopter that can't see/lost its bearings in the fog runs head on into a hill". I don't think autorotation was in play here. Looking at the videos/photos...that thing was completely demolished.

Circumstances are disconcertingly similar to the death of one of my favorite guitar players/musicians, Stevie Ray Vaughan.

[DangerDevil]

Extremely well done. I'm especially proud that the dark marks in Kobe's history were not entirely overlooked. I know that is an extremely complicated and touchy issue, and I don't want to open Pandora's box by getting into it or my thoughts on it in any detail. That said, I have been disappointed that the general reaction and media coverage has included almost no mention of this part of Kobe's past. No matter your opinions on those events, they are a part of his legacy, and seemingly scrubbing it entirely does history a disservice.

Agreed for the most part.

Definitely not the majority of the coverage but there has been a fair amount of coverage/reporters/players that acknowledged Kobe’s past mistakes. I didn’t dislike Kobe but wasn’t a fan either (Celtics’ fan), however I acknowledge his place in basketball greatness. What I found the most impressive/sad about the incident were the reporters/players that appear to be friendly with Kobe that weren’t afraid to point out the incident in Colorado or acknowledge his other mistakes or past shortcomings but rather claim that those were part of him and that he had learned from those mistakes and was better for it. His life appeared to be following the same upward trajectory that his pro basketball career did. My takeaway from the accident/Kobe’s life was anyone can make mistakes, we can all learn to get better from our life experiences even if we are great at parts of it, and live life to the fullest because we don’t know what the future holds.

[Steven43]

In my opinion, he can be still truly be a good guy even with the sexual assault history. One mistake (albeit a huge one that hurt many people) shouldn't tarnish his entire life and character. As JD said in his article, we can hope that he truly repented and grew as a man/father because of this. That's something between him and God now. All we saw is his public life but he certainly seemed a much different man than he was at 25 when the assault occurred.

I didn’t realize Kobe was convicted of sexual assault. I had thought the charges were dropped,

[DangerDevil]

I didn’t realize Kobe was convicted of sexual assault. I had thought the charges were dropped,

The criminal case was dismissed but there was a civil suit settled outside of court.

[rocketeli]

The criminal case was dismissed but there was a civil suit settled outside of court.

long story short. She said he raped her, he said it was consensual. A settlement was negotiated where she agreed (most likely in a wink-wink fashion) not to cooperate with the criminal investigation and Kobe paid her a large sum of money and issued an apology stated that while he did truly think it was consensual he acknowledged that she truly thought it was not. Make of it what you will.
I agree, it's there, but people can grow and change, and the deaths of people close to me have thought me how it absurd it is to judge a person by their worst moment. By that criterion we're all going straight to hell.

[dukebluesincebirth]

It's so hard to put into words what Kobe meant to millions of people around the world. It's heartbreaking. What a sad day for the world, to lose a man who had achieved so much and still had so much potential left. RIP Kobe, and thank you for everything you gave us.

+1
I loved him as a player, but had become even more inspired by him after retirement (which is very unique for me in my sports following). I loved basketball growing up (and still do), played organized ball all the way through high school (not college scholarship material), and now have 2 young daughters. I'm not that into any social media platforms, but about a year ago started following Kobe on instagram. All I see is pics of him and his girls, celebrating them for who they are and all of their milestones. Seeing his basketball-related interactions with his daughter always makes me think, I want to do that with MY daughters, that's super cool. I'm 40, Kobe was 41. I guess I started looking up to him as a family man once I had children and was interested in his interactions with his daughters. Kobe's inspiration for me is to pursue excellence at everything you set out to accomplish, go 110% whether it be basketball or fatherhood. Go hard. Every day. He said he always wanted to be remembered as a player who never wasted a day. He said that even though he knew he was talented, he always worked as if he had no talent at all. He practiced bball as if he were the 12th man at the end of the bench, even when he was the best on the planet. The fact that his daughter Gigi seemed to be learning and adopting her father's mentality in pursuit of excellence in basketball was adorable and awesome to me. He recently said that she had pushed him to get the NBA league pass on his phone, and that they sat down to watch NBA games almost every night (he said he hadn't really watched much basketball before she got so interested). They had a budding relationship, and to see them both go so tragically on the way to her game is absolutely heartbreaking. What could've been...This one will stay on my mind for a long while. RIP Mamba.

Side note: for those feeling a need to point out Kobe's possible life mistakes the day (or day after) he and his daughter died, please take a look in the mirror and think about your own life mistakes...think about dying tomorrow, what you would like folks to say about you? Be respectful.

[scottdude8]

Everyone is making extremely cogent, calm, and well-thought points on this subject. It's part of why I love this board; anywhere else this would've gone way off the rails already.

As mentioned previously, I don't want to go in-depth into my opinion on the matter because I'm not sure this is the appropriate setting (I was going to say forum, but that would certainly have been a bad choice of words, haha) to get into such an important, emotional, and nuanced discussion. But (since it seems like the discussion is happening despite my best intentions, so my apologies!), all I'll add is that I think it's very important to consider how the incident in Colorado, and perhaps the coverage/lack-thereof over the past days, affected/is affecting the accuser and might be affecting others who have had similar traumatic experiences.