I love this 2010, GQ article on Kobe Bryant by J. R. Moehringer. I’m not a sports enthusiast and hardly know Kobe but as someone totally allergic to sports (my body reacts badly; sweating, increased heart rate etc *ahem*), I am always tremendously inspired by great athletes. I find their dedication to their craft, their focus, strength and discipline completely inspiring. I enjoyed reading this piece on Mr. Byrant.

RIGHT INDEX FINGER puffy, swollen, crooked, it hurts just to look at. It’s three different shades of purple and five kinds of black. He can’t bend it, can’t wiggle it, can’t even make it twitch. He arrives at this private airport carrying it slightly away from himself, like a wounded bird. How does it feel? “Sore,” he says, frowning.

The game against Dallas is in two hours. He broke the finger last month, playing Minnesota. Right away he knew it was bad. He left the court and headed straight to the X-ray room. Avulsion fracture, they said. Oh man. He’d heard those words before, but never about the index finger. We been through a lot of shit, the head trainer told him, but if you can play with this? That’s some shit. Bryant laughed. Tape it up, he said—let’s go. Then he walked back on the court and, playing mostly left-handed, finished with twenty points.

Passengers and pilots in the airport stare. They don’t bother to pretend they’re not staring. They stare with eyes and mouths wide open, faces frozen, like victims of a Taser or a taxidermist. Even if Kobe Bryant weren’t runway-model handsome, even if he weren’t six feet five, even if he weren’t one of the five or six most famous people on earth, he’d still inspire this kind of dumbfounded gawking, because he’s not dressed like just any air traveler. Diamond earring the size of a filbert. Sunglasses the size of two small skillets. Flowing white Gucci corduroy blazer, extra long. Lastly-as if one more shiny, eye-catching thing were needed-he’s cradling a big box with a pretty beige bow.

Bryant’s ride awaits. He high-steps across the tarmac and ducks under the helicopter propeller, his blazer flying behind him like a cape. There is larger-than-life, and then there is Life, enlarged. Bryant looks like Vitality, out for a stroll. He looks like an ad for a product-any product-called Swagger.

This is how the 31-year-old co-captain of the Lakers, the eleven-time All-Star, the four-time world champion, the most prolific and accomplished scorer currently drawing breath and an NBA paycheck, commutes. He takes a private helicopter from Orange County, where he lives with his wife and two children, to every home game. It’s a nice dash of glitz, a touch of showbiz that goes well with the Hollywood sign in the hazy distance. But sexy as it might seem, Bryant says the helicopter is just another tool for maintaining his body. It’s no different than his weights or his whirlpool tubs or his custom-made Nikes. Given his broken finger, his fragile knees, his sore back and achy feet, not to mention his chronic agita, Bryant can’t sit in a car for two hours. The helicopter, therefore, ensures that he gets to Staples Center feeling fresh, that his body is warm and loose and fluid as mercury when he steps onto the court. If you make $23 million a year with your body, taking a helicopter to work is actually quite practical.

Good thing Bryant took the helicopter two nights ago to the game against Sacramento. After trailing by twenty, the Lakers mounted a furious comeback, and Bryant had enough bounce to lead them. Down two with 4.1 seconds left, Los Angeles ran a play for Bryant to take the last shot. Everyone in the arena knew where the ball was going, but Bryant somehow found himself wide open. He grabbed the wild, hard-to-handle pass from forward Pau Gasol and let fly a high arcing three-pointer that splashed through the net at the buzzer. The crowd exploded, and Bryant threw his arms over his head like Evita. The look on his face was not surprise, not joy, not pride. The look very clearly said: Any questions?

By the time he’d choppered back home, his BlackBerry was blowing up with texts from friends-other ballplayers, movie stars-he’d rather not name. It was Bryant’s third game winner of the young season, so most of the texts said the same thing: Again?

Making game winners with a broken finger would be dazzling enough, but the finger that’s broken on Bryant’s hand happens to be the one he uses to guide the ball. It’s the finger every player uses. Lakers trainer Gary Vitti doesn’t like to put so much as a tiny Band-Aid on an index finger, because that’s the feel finger, the GPS of the jump shot. Bryant’s index finger, however, is so traumatized, Vitti folds it in a metal-foam splint before every game and wraps the splint with thick black tape. (By the way, Vitti adds: Bryant also has arthritis in that knuckle.)

Splints, pain, swarming defenders, game on the line—no matter what Bryant’s dealing with, his concentration makes a laser beam look like a night-light. Teammate Derek Fisher, who entered the league with Bryant fourteen years ago, says few players have Bryant’s ability to tune out all distractions and dial up pure hi-def focus. “To process all that information rapidly and still make a decision in a fluid manner, not paralyzed by the analytical part of what they need to do—he’s the fastest at it that I’ve seen.”

Contrary to myth, Bryant says his mind isn’t empty at such moments. The zone is not a quiet place. He hears the same chatter everyone else hears, but he doesn’t react. He doesn’t fear. “If you make it, great. If you miss it—what’s there to be afraid of?”

Failure?

“If you’re afraid to fail, then you’re probably going to fail,” he says, laughing. “You know what I mean? Fuck it.”

Right Pinkie

with all its scars and aches, spasms and pulls, stingers and inflammations and hyperextensions, his body is a living record of his journey. From boy to man. From ball hog to team leader. From alleged narcissist to tormented perfectionist to apparent masochist. Every athlete knows pain, but Bryant’s body charts his unique combination of pain, passion, and virtuosic skill. His body explains him. Maybe better than he can.

Everyone tries to explain him. Everyone has a pet theory, and everyone wants to test his theory on Fisher. “Ten million times,” he says, shaking his head. “What’s Kobe really like? Do you like him? How is he really?” He imitates the confident tone of his interrogators: “He seems like-” Whatever follows, Fisher adds, is always, always wrong.

Not that Fisher knows for sure, either. He has nothing but praise for Bryant, but he also lets slip that he’s never been to the man’s house.

Bryant approaches every subject-especially basketball, which he calls his “craft”-by breaking it into parts. Though not a big reader, he enjoys studying all kinds of geniuses, from da Vinci to Daniel Day-Lewis, and his method of study is to separate them into manageable components. “What sets him apart from others is his thirst for knowledge,” says his friend, actress Hilary Swank. “He uses every way, and then some, to learn more about the art of life, getting his mind out of the way.”

So it feels right to do the same with him. Get the mind out of the way. Study the parts. His right pinkie, for example. He dislocated it during the 2007-08 season, trying to intercept a pass. Another avulsion fracture, this one also shredded a radial collateral ligament. Most players would have opted for surgery. Bryant played on. He not only appeared in all eighty-two regular-season games; he was named league MVP, the first time he ever won that honor. He also led the Lakers to the 2008 Finals, where they ran into a hungrier, more complete Boston team. “A buzz saw,” Bryant says. The Lakers lost in six.

Immediately after the Finals, fans assumed Bryant would schedule the long- delayed finger surgery. Again, no. He wanted to be ready for the Beijing Olympics, a lifelong dream. For once he’d be surrounded by the world’s best athletes.

Isn’t he among the world’s best athletes every night?

“This was different,” he says. “These are the best of the best.”

He haunted the Olympic Village, stared at the fastest and the strongest the way people stare at him. For once he didn’t feel alone with his priestly devotion to craft. He felt like a nomad reunited with his long-lost tribe. He felt like an orphan who suddenly discovers he’s a Kennedy. “I felt,” he says, “like Harry Potter going to Hogwarts.”

After helping the United States win gold, Bryant postponed surgery a third time. He didn’t want to miss training camp. As the 2008-09 season got under way, the point was moot, the pinkie mended. Then, swiping at a ball in possession of LeBron James, Bryant dislocated yet another finger-his right ring finger this time. The pain was blinding, like nothing he’d ever experienced.

Over the following weeks, before each game, Vitti would stabilize Bryant’s ring finger by bracing it to one of its neighbors. His hand reduced to a talon, Bryant was forced to develop a new shooting technique. He’d done this before, several times, including 1999, when he broke the fourth metacarpal. (He learned to shoot with a protective glove.) Now he did it again, only better, leading the Lakers back to the Finals. This time they won, besting Orlando in five…

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