Lives Cut Short: Kobe Bryant, Basketball Superstar

Lives Cut Short: Kobe Bryant, Basketball Superstar — page 7
Lives Cut Short The Origin of the Black Mamba game A player can have enormous natural talent and highly developed skills but without a clear vision of what needs to be done in the game victory can remain out of reach Professional basketball often requires split-second decisions and aggressive action Some professional athletes are the nicest most easygoing people one will ever meet but when the game clock starts ticking they seem to become someone else This was the approach Bryant soon decided to use toward basketball He even adopted a name for his new more serious alter ego He nicknamed himself the Black Mamba an image that depicted the ferocious attitude he now displayed when he donned Bryant got the idea for his Black Mamba nickname while watching director Quentin Tarantino’s movie Kill Bill An assassin in the film goes by the code name Black Mamba after using this kind of snake to kill another character Bryant immediately noticed the similarities between the traits the snake displayed and the qualities he needed to develop on the basketball court He began researching the black mamba snake species He soon realized that Tarantino had chosen it because of its reputation as one of the fastest and deadliest snakes in the world The black mamba’s bite is so lethal that it can kill a human being with just two drops of venom The snake is agile deadly and offers no apologies for its actions exactly how Bryant wanted to be on the basketball court By becoming the Black Mamba Bryant could use these killer instincts to defeat his opponents in the NBA