Dear Kobe

An open letter to the greatest basketball player I’ve known

Derek Peterson
2 min readSep 12, 2016
(Walter Looss Jr./The Players Tribune)

Originally published: April 21, 2016

Dear Kobe,

From the moment

You stepped onto the hardwood for LA

And caused Alvin to sing you praise

For 27 points

In your Laker debut game

We knew one thing was true:

We could not possibly love you.

There was hate that spread across the league -

From the wills you broke

& hope you destroyed.

As a seventeen-year-old boy

Driven to be the best

You beat the greatest and pounded your chest.

There was a fire

We had never seen.

And so we watched.

We watched every single battle

Watched you pour out your soul for us.

We asked for your hustle

You gave us your heart

Because it came with so much more.

You played through pain and anguish

Not because you wanted to

But ’cause WE needed it.

You did everything for US

But the love never came

And that motivated you

To transcend our game

We saw an amazing man live out his dream

And you forever changed this game.

But we all knew this day was going to come to pass.

The end of the tunnel is here at last.

Our game will move on somehow

We’ll find someone new to cheer

But in our hearts we can’t bear to say goodbye.

It will be hard.

You will always be revered.

We want YOU to know now

That we have cherished every last moment of your storied career.

The good and the bad.

You have blessed us with greatness

Time and again.

And we all know, no matter what you do next

You’ll always have that spot

Right there at the top

The greatest Laker there was

The guy we loved to hate

Who let us witness

Him make history.

Thanks for the ride.

In honor of one of the greatest players to ever grace the hardwood, this letter draws it’s inspiration from “Dear Basketball” by Kobe Bryant for the Players’ Tribune. “Dear Basketball” was Bryant’s official announcment of his retirement from the NBA. The full letter can be found here.

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