Retired NBA superstar and Oscar winner Kobe Bryant is going to spend the rest of his career giving away all the knowledge he worked so hard to gain – like a sort of basketball Socrates, without the taste for hemlock. Bryant has been distilling his Mamba Mentality — the wisdom and the grit — into a fun bt purposeful book series for kids called The Wizenard Series. But the Mamba is doing his best to educate all basketball fans, regardless of age, on the finer points of the game as it’s being played today by the world’s best players.
Here is Bryant praising NBA MVP James Harden for something people generally forget that Harden is so good at: passing. Kobe shows a single play, a fastbreak that ends up with an easy Rockets 3-pointer. Here Harden’s pass-first vision and decision-making is on display rather than his record-breaking scoring prowess. (Harden has averaged 40 points per game over his last 40 games — sick!)
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But Harden doesn’t score on the play Bryant analyzes; he merely makes the scoring happen by looking off Chris Paul on the strong side to his left, letting Clint Capela drag a defender down the lane with his enormous strides, and then firing a pass that Bryant calls a “laser across court.” Harden’s laser passing is something many overlook, but not Bryant and not Harden’s teammates — or else they wouldn’t run the floor like this. Bryant is doing analysis for a ESPN segment called Detail. He’s also in the deodorant, skin care and men’s grooming business with James Harden, who clearly uses the laser more than the razor.
Second season of #DETAIL is finally here! I’m starting off the season analyzing @JHarden13’s dominant performance. You don’t want to miss it. https://t.co/d9fbcS5IAC #GranityStudios pic.twitter.com/RdhdE7mSSZ
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) March 10, 2019
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