Kings’ Walton opens up about Kobe Bryant and his late-night visit to an LA memorial
Kings coach Luke Walton went for a walk when the team arrived at its hotel in Los Angeles about 2 a.m. Thursday.
Walton heard about the massive Kobe Bryant memorial that was overtaking the LA Live entertainment complex across the street from Staples Center, right outside the team hotel. Something told him to go. He had to see it for himself.
Bryant was someone Walton considered a friend, a teammate and a brother. They spent nine seasons together with the Los Angeles Lakers, winning back-to-back NBA championships in 2009-10.
Walton had to pay his respects. He had to come to grips with Bryant’s unthinkable death. So when the Kings arrived in the middle of the night for Thursday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers, Walton followed his heart into the darkness, into the pain.
He walked out to the site of a makeshift memorial that has quickly become nothing short of a shrine, adorned with purple-and-gold balloons, basketballs, Bryant jerseys and his signature shoes.
“It was emotional,” Walton said. “There were people there at 2 in the morning. It was fenced off, but one of the nice security people let me in. There was a group of people chanting ‘Ko-be! Ko-be!’ You’re looking around and you see how many people he touched.”
Walton walked past the candles and the cards, the flowers, the signs and thousands of handwritten messages that cry out to the city’s fallen hero.
“Thank you Kobe.”
“We love you Kobe.”
“Heroes come and go, but legends live forever.”
Bryant, 41, died along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven others in a helicopter crash Sunday in the hills above Calabasas. Tributes have poured in from around the world for a global icon who inspired a generation of young players across the planet.
Walton has felt this loss deeply, but something happened when he wandered out into the darkness early Thursday morning. Amid the flowers, the cards and the flickering candles, he found a little light.
“It was emotional and a lot of memories came flooding back,” Walton said. “It was powerful and it was nice. It was 2 in the morning and it was quiet besides when the ‘Kobe’ chants happened, and even that felt like a spiritual experience. You’re standing in the middle of all this stuff and out of nowhere you start hearing chants of his name.”
‘Emotional week’
Walton led the Kings to a 124-103 victory over the Clippers on Thursday in the first game played at Staples Center since Bryant’s tragic death. The Clippers honored Bryant’s memory with a powerful video tribute and a 24-second moment of silence before the game.
The Kings will play host to the Lakers on Saturday at Golden 1 Center. The Kings – who lost to the Lakers in the 2000, 2001 and 2002 playoffs, including a memorable seven-game series in the Western Conference Finals – will commemorate their rival in a variety of ways. They will air pregame and in-game video tributes. They will ask for a moment of silence. They will also construct an art installation in the plaza outside the arena where fans can leave messages and flowers.
“It’s going to be an emotional week,” Walton said. “I get that and I’m going to continue to talk to the players about it, but when we step on that court, we need to play hard, we need to play together and we need to give everything we have to try to win as a team.”
Walton’s players can see how hard Bryant’s death has hit their coach.
“We know how he feels,” Kings guard Yogi Ferrell said. “I know how I feel personally and I know how my teammates feel, so I can only imagine how it is for Luke.”
Walton knows he isn’t the only one in the Kings organization who is hurting. Several of his players idolized Bryant, including Bogdan Bogdanovic and Buddy Hield. Bogdanovic wears No. 8 and Hield wears No. 24, both in honor of Bryant. Bogdanovic is from Serbia and Hield hails from the Bahamas, a testament to Bryant’s global impact on the game.
“We talk about it,” Walton said. “It helps to talk, really, and with the players, we’ve kind of had that atmosphere around here all season. It’s something I try to put out there, that we’re going to be a group and if something bothers us, we’re going to address it and talk about it.
“This pushes that to the limit and makes you question everything. When I found out, all I wanted to do was fly home and see my girls. … On the other hand, it’s like, ‘What do you mean you want to go home?’ This is basketball. This is what you love. This is what you do. This is what Kobe loved. You want to pay tribute and bust your tail and do your job. The emotions have been all over the place and it’s going to be that way for a while.”
‘We know he’s hurting’
The Kings learned of Bryant’s death Sunday following practice in Chicago, where they had beaten the Bulls the night before. The next day, Walton showed up to the team’s shootaround in Minnesota with heavy eyelids and grief streaked across his face.
“We all know,” Kings guard Cory Joseph said. “We know they were very close, so we know he’s hurting.”
Joseph said Walton has shared many stories about Bryant with the team, before and after his death.
“We know how much he loves him, how much he loves the family,” Joseph said. “It was hard on everybody. … We’re all sad about it. (Walton) has done an amazing job of taking the lead. Obviously, he was close to him, but also helping other players as well because everybody’s affected by it – the whole world. You don’t have to be a basketball player. Any sport, anybody who was just looking to be inspired, he had a huge effect on the whole world.”
Walton was asked if Bryant’s death was hitting him harder Thursday or if it was therapeutic in some way to be back in Los Angeles.
“Both,” he said. “It definitely hits harder, for sure, which in the long run will be therapeutic. It will help to get through this, but, yeah, it’s hitting pretty hard right now.”
Walton wasn’t the only one who felt that way as he prepared for Thursday’s game against the Clippers. Across the street, at the site of the memorial, thousands shuffled numbly past the cards, candles and flowers, many with tears streaming down their cheeks.
“It hurts because he meant a lot to us,” said Steve Revera, a 42-year-old Los Angeles resident. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Alfred Vergala, 51, explained his sadness while visiting the memorial with his young son.
“We saw Kobe when he was growing up, when he came into the league, and we’re lifelong Lakers fans,” Vergala said. “He’s part of the family.”
Walton feels the same way.
“For all of us that are around my age and the players in the league who grew up watching him, for 20 years, every playoff series, every time you turned on the TV, he was a huge part of what you were watching,” Walton said. “That’s gone now and that hurts.”