An interview with legend Kobe Bryant
‘This beautiful game has many life lessons to offer’

It was during my trip to cover the 2016 NBA All-Star Game in Toronto when I got an opportunity to interview legendary basketball player late Kobe Bryant. It was Bryant’s last All-Star Game and in a pre-match conference, especially arranged for the foreign journalists, who were in Toronto on an invitation from the NBA.

For a journalist coming from India, where the NBA and its star players have a huge following despite no one from the country making it big in the NBA arena, it was an unforgettable memory.

He showed his desire to visit India one day and teach the new generation this beautiful sport. “A new generation of players is coming out and it’s good for India to have them. I have never been to India but I want to come and teach the new generation this beautiful sport,” Bryant had said in the interview.

Though the destiny has something different for him and his date with the country remained unfulfilled, he is alive in the memories of every Indian basketball lover.

His post-match (his last All Star Game, February 15, 2016) remarks still fresh in my memories: “When we first came in, it's always the younger generation that comes in and it's just like the elder statesmen says this younger generation has no idea what they're doing. They're going to absolutely kill the game. The game, when we played, was pure and all this kind of stuff. Hey, man, that's always the case. When we came in, we were just young kids that wanted to play, and I was aggressive. It was a newer generation, newer culture, but I think where the game ended up, it ended up in a beautiful place,” Bryant had said on his last All-Star game in post-match media interaction.

Link of my interview --- This beautiful game has many life lessons to offer: Kobe Bryant; published in Hindustan Times  

https://www.hindustantimes.com/other-sports/this-beautiful-game-has-many-life-lessons-to-offer-kobe-bryant/story-LZApxVxGXtq0EwAuw4km3O.html