The room sat silent. An emotional Rob Pelinka had just finished addressing the Lakers for the first time since Kobe Bryant’s death two days earlier. His anguish was evident. Now, Frank Vogel, emceeing a luncheon designed for members of the organization to collectively grieve, had opened the floor at the team’s El Segundo headquarters to anyone who wanted to share their own stories about Bryant.
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No one spoke. Finally, after about 15 seconds of silence, LeBron James rose from his seat. “I’ll go,” he said.
For more than 10 minutes, Lakers players, staff members and executives, including owner Jeanie Buss, sat rapt as James shared stories from his battles with Bryant as opponents and their time as teammates in two Olympics. The group was gathered in an event suite overlooking the team’s practice court, directly across the gym from where the Lakers championship trophies could be seen in Buss’ office window.
When James redirected his focus to what lies ahead for the grieving franchise, James said he could handle the burden of playing through grief in pursuit of the Lakers’ 17th championship.
“God gave me wide shoulders for a reason,” James said, according to multiple people who were present.
The lunch served as the first formal team gathering since the Lakers learned of Bryant’s death while they were on a flight home from Philadelphia. The Lakers legend was on a helicopter that crashed in a hillside in Calabasas, killing all nine people aboard, including Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna.
When Pelinka, who was Bryant’s longtime agent before he joined the Lakers, addressed the room, he told stories about Bryant and “Gigi” sharing a love for basketball. They were flying to her game Sunday morning, and other victims of the crash included two teammates, three parents and a coach.
Among those who also spoke were senior basketball adviser Kurt Rambis; assistant coaches Lionel Hollins, Phil Handy, Miles Simon and Mike Penberthy, who won a championship with Bryant as a backup point guard for the Lakers in 2001; and Dwight Howard.
Howard, who left the Lakers after one season in 2013 on bad terms with Bryant, returned as a free agent last summer, and their relationship had begun to thaw. In the fall, Bryant told the Los Angeles Times that Howard was “going to have a hell of an impact on the Lakers.” The former adversaries joked around when Bryant attended a game in November, and last week, days before Bryant’s death, Howard had begun to campaign for his former teammate to assist him in next month’s dunk contest.
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Tears were mixed with some laughter, sources said, as the stories about Bryant flowed and the Lakers began the seemingly monumental undertaking of moving forward.
By Tuesday, the league was grinding back into motion. It was the third day of games since the crash, and general managers were working the phones in anticipation of next week’s trade deadline. But in Los Angeles, there has been a sense of basketball paralysis.
How could the Lakers ever get back to basketball when the whole city and a global fanbase were grieving? The NBA postponed the Lakers game against the Clippers on Tuesday, due to an understanding that the Lakers would not be ready to play in the aftermath of the tragedy.
Just days earlier, nothing felt bigger than that matchup. The city’s two teams fighting for supremacy in the Western Conference. There was pressure for the Lakers to avoid falling to 0-3 in the season series. The game mattered.
How long will it be before anything feels that important again?
Time, presumably, will help. The Lakers will not play now until Friday against Portland, giving them five days to process Bryant’s death and steel themselves for a return to the court. The team had a light shootaround-type practice on Tuesday and is scheduled for a full practice on Wednesday morning.
The Lakers will slowly get back to the business of basketball. And in time, that may start to feel like the most significant thing again. At least sometimes.
“It’s never going to feel normal,” one Lakers official said. “It won’t.”
(Top Photo: Mike Stobe / Getty Images)