Kobe Bryant’s death left the entire NBA grieving and shaken. Nets coach Kenny Atkinson choked up before his team’s game against the Knicks, and Spencer Dinwiddie teared up after it. But Kyrie Irving got hit as hard as any, leaving the Garden altogether before the Nets’ 110-97 loss.
Sunday was to be Irving’s first game in the Garden since spurning the Knicks for the Nets this summer. But the game was played under a pall after Bryant and daughter Gianna died in a helicopter crash. And it was played without Irving, who bolted the building after the news.
“I was with him. I’ll keep [the scene] private, but they were very close,” Atkinson said of Irving. “Tough, tough, tough, tough times.”
Irving’s bond with Bryant is well-known. Irving was announced as out roughly an hour before tipoff, with the Nets citing “personal reasons.” The reason was as clear as it was tragic, one of the NBA’s all-time greats dying in a helicopter crash en route to Gianna’s basketball game.
“Ky, some of these guys have a different relationship with him where they’re very close friends,” Joe Harris said.
Bryant had been Irving’s idol, with Irving growing up in West Orange (N.J.) poring over YouTube clips of the Laker icon. They became friends, with Irving FaceTiming Bryant from the Cavs’ locker room right after winning the 2016 NBA title.
Irving leaned on Bryant for advice and guidance. He called Bryant to pick his brain upon hearing he might get traded to the Suns. He trained with him this August at the invite-only Mamba Pro Invitational. And Sunday, the news left Irving devastated.
“Obviously our leader, Ky, wasn’t able to play. Our thoughts go out to him as well as to the families, to the Bryant family and the other families on the helicopter, parents, the pilot,” Garrett Temple said. “That was Spencer [Dinwiddie’s] idol. … We saw him just last month, him and his daughter. So it’s tough, man.”
That was Dec. 21, when Bryant and Gianna had sat next to Nets owner Joe Tsai’s wife, Clara, for their win over Atlanta.
Dinwiddie had led the Nets past the Hawks and been let into an on-court conversation between Irving and Bryant. Bryant told Dinwiddie he was an All-Star in his view, praise that had the unabashed Mamba fanboy’s voice quivering and eyes welling on Sunday.
“I was born in ’93. He was drafted in ’96. I grew up in South Central Los Angeles. He was everything to my generation,” said Dinwiddie, who had 23 points and five assists.
“[With] how much he meant to people where I’m from, for him to tell me in his book I’m an All-Star — I’ve talked about the popularity contest before, and you don’t win things like that when you’re me — so for him to say that, I didn’t need to be selected anymore. Because I was an All-Star. It’s the guy.”
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