What makes the Mamba? 5 little-known stories about Kobe that further his legend

Kobe Bryant has become, more than anything else, an urban legend as his 40th birthday has come and gone by in a flash. There is a wealth of untold, unexplored lore that one can find when you dig deep into the life and times of the Mamba.

His work ethic, his toughness and his will to win are well-documented and known widely amongst basketball fans - so much so that there can't possibly a Mamba story made up so as to be too unbelievable when you hear it the first time around.

Going for a 40-mile desert bike ride all by himself the night before camp began in Las Vegas? Shoot, he could do it in his sleep. Getting shots up with his left hand while recovering from a fractured right wrist? Check. Hitting two free throws on a busted Achilles? Are you kidding me? You could put him on a stretcher and he'd still make those free throws before giving you leave to carry him off the court.

This article is an attempt to glance into some of the lesser-known tales about Kobe. A couple of them will be unpalatable to people who think he never made his teammates better, or wasn't a good mentor and a leader - perhaps it might serve to open their eyes?

#1 His first bow with Jerry West

It's 1996, and the Lakers call in Bryant, fresh off his senior prom, for a pre-draft workout at the Inglewood High gym. In attendance are G.M. Jerry West and two members of L.A.'s media relations staff, John Black and Raymond Ridder.

Bryant is tasked with playing one-on-one against Michael Cooper, the former Lakers guard and one of the premier defenders in NBA history - among the few guards to ever have won the Defensive Player of the Year trophy.

Cooper is 40 years old but still in great shape, wiry and long and stronger than the teenaged Bryant. It starts off with Bryant taking Cooper off the dribble. The elegant, smooth footwork Bryant has always displayed, since then and up until now, was on full display. So was the explosiveness. Bryant got inside with his burst or just hit from the outside.

Bryant did so well, with such a steady hand against the guy Larry Bird once called the best he'd ever faced, that the foremost objective had been quickly achieved, and Cooper knew it.

"There was no fear in him. I think that was what they were looking for. Kobe definitely had it at a young age," he said. "I think everybody saw that. I saw it."

"It was like Cooper was mesmerized by him," says Ridder, now the Golden State Warriors' executive director of media relations. After 10 minutes West stands up. "That's it, I've seen enough," Ridder remembers West saying. "He's better than anyone we've got on the team right now. Let's go."

The Lakers duly traded Vlade Divac to the Charlotte Hornets for their pick, using it to draft Kobe at #13 in the 1996 NBA Draft.

#2 Kobe trash talks Tyson Chandler, then backs it up

Like Kobe, Tyson Chandler is one of the few to excel in the NBA after getting drafted out of high school in 2001. The Bulls selected him with the #2 pick, and he went on to become a defensive centerpiece for several good-to-great NBA teams before winning a championship with the Mavericks in 2011.

Kobe and Chandler also teamed up to win Team USA the 2012 Olympics Gold Medal in London. The two enjoy a healthy, mutual respect, and like Kobe, Tyson Chandler has always been a competitor by word and deed. That is what makes this tale from his days with the New Orleans Hornets so wholesome:

"The thing that makes him so unstoppable is that he never stops coming. This year we were up in New Orleans by like 12 in the 4th quarter with 5-6 minutes left, and we pretty much had the game in control. And (Kobe) was there on the free throw line and he was like 'You know I ain't going to let us lose right?', and I looked back at him and I was like 'What!? Man I ain't letting my team lose!'. And he was like 'Alright but I just know I ain't going to let my team lose.' And I went back at him 'Well I ain't going to let my team lose!'

"Right after that, man... he ran off like 15 straight points on us. And I was looking at the scoreboard going 'Come on, let the time run down', and I'm like he can't beat us single-handedly especially after I was just sitting there talking crap back and forth to him."

"We ended up winning the game, but he almost beat us! He almost beat us by himself. But his drive, looking into his eyes, some guys can say 'Yeah we gonna win the game'. But you look at him looking at you stern in the face telling you 'We winning the game'. He almost made you believe it! He almost made me believe that we about to lose! I love that drive about him. I want to take that next year."

"Byron Scott was telling me, before we played them in LA, and coach was like 'That guy on the other side, he's playing for a ring. He understands what this moment is. He understands that he's going to take our hearts out now. He knows what he's playing for. And all you guys in this locker room you're going to have to match that. He's playing for only one thing, and that's a ring.'

"And going out of the locker room, I was like 'One guy over there, is making this whole locker room focus on him.' And I was like that needs to be me, I need to be like this guy that the whole locker room over there talks about."

#3 Changing the work culture within Team USA

Following the Dream Teams I and II's exploits in '92 and '96 and Vince Carter's dunk over a 7'1" center in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Team USA had slipped once more from their status as the world's best basketball country in the mid-2000s.

Starting with a 6th-placed finish at the 2002 FIBA World Championship, the USA then had to endure the ignominy of losing twice in the 2004 Olympics in the process of winning the bronze medal.

These woes were compounded at the 2006 FIBA World Cup, where despite fielding a strong roster comprising of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and Joe Johnson, they lost to Greece in the semifinal en route another bronze-winning run.

Former USA Basketball Chairman Jerry Colangelo credits Bryant for playing “a very large part” in revamping the program’s culture after the 2004 squad settled for bronze at the Athens Games.

“His work ethic, approach and how he appreciates the game is infectious,” Team USA forward Kevin Durant said last month in Las Vegas. “He’s someone who loves to play so much. He’s competitive when he steps in between those lines. He wants perfection.”

Bryant logged ridiculous hours in pursuit of that perfection, just weeks after having poured himself into an NBA regular season that ended with a six-game loss to the Boston Celtics in the 2008 NBA Finals. Watching Bryant work left Miami Heat forward Chris Bosh shaking his head, mindful that the future Hall of Famer had just logged extended minutes during that playoff run.

“I thought I was working hard,” Bosh said. “Now I have to get back into the gym.”

After training for three weeks together before heading to Beijing, former U.S. Olympic teammate Carlos Boozer noticed the entire roster had adopted Bryant’s routine.

“We all clung to it,” said Boozer, who later played with Bryant as a member of the Lakers in 2014-15 and recently agreed to a deal to play in China. “It soon became our workout, not just his workout.”

#4 Helping Trevor Ariza with reconstructing his jumpshot

NBA Finals Game 5: Los Angeles Lakers v Orlando Magic

The Lakers acquired Trevor Ariza in a trade from the Orlando Magic in the summer of 2007. A second-round pick after a one-and-done college career with the UCLA Bruins, Ariza had raised eyebrows around the league because of his athleticism and ability to defend several positions effectively.

But he had been a below-average shooter thus far, and the Lakers were short of shooting on their roster. By now firmly the Lakers' franchise player, Kobe set about helping Ariza with his shooting mechanics in an attempt to increase his value to the team. The move paid off huge dividends as Ariza and the Lakers made it to two straight Finals, winning the second in 2009 against Ariza's old employers.

Bryant made nine 3-pointers in the NBA Finals; Ariza made 10. Bryant made 37 3-pointers in the playoffs; Ariza made 40. Twice in the second quarter of Game 5, Bryant drew defenders and kicked the ball over to Ariza, who stepped into perfect-form 3-pointers against the team that traded him. The 16-0 run put together this way took the Lakers to a 10-point lead that they never relinquished, en route Kobe's 4th championship.

Asked about Orlando trading him to the Lakers, Ariza said: "I know they always knew that I could shoot the ball; that wasn't the issue. It was just the confidence."

"Getting that from him? Kind of cool, kind of cool," Ariza said. "Because before I got here, you always hear how he's this certain type of person. And when I got here, you realize he's not what everybody says he is."

"I just got in the gym every day and worked. I used what he told me, used some things that he gave me to do. And I just worked."

#5 The time when Kobe saluted Hakeem after using his moves

Although Bryant built his reputation as one of the league's most explosive scorers primarily from the perimeter, he knew he wouldn't always have the quickness to get to the rim with such ease. As a result, he showed more inclination to try to score easier baskets from the post in the latter half of his career, pretty much the same way Michael Jordan did in his second 3-peat.

Just a week before training camp began in September 2009, the Dream gave Bryant a two-hour step-by-step lesson on everything from head fakes and ball fakes to spin moves and jab steps.

"It was an honor for me to have the opportunity to work with him, and I want to make him proud of what I've learned," Bryant said. "I have wanted to work with him in the past, but the timing was right this year. I got a chance to work with the greatest post player ever. I've always been a student of the game, and he was very patient with me."

What impressed Olajuwon most about Bryant was the fluidity with which the Lakers star duplicated his moves. Bryant's agility and athleticism allowed him to have success within hours where the likes of Dwight Howard have hardly benefited from any of his advice.

Later on, during the 2010 Western Conference Semifinals, as the Lakers met Houston, Bryant was matched up with Shane Battier - an elite defender. Each time he backed down Battier in the post and then deftly spun around him for a layup, Kobe jogged up court staring into the same pocket of fans seated courtside across from the scorer's table.

The man who met his gaze knew exactly the message Bryant was trying to convey.

"He looked at me to confirm, 'I'm using what you taught me,' " Hakeem Olajuwon said. "That was the greatest gift for me. It was wonderful."