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Kobe’s Transition Game

Kobe Bryant has enlisted some Hollywood big men to craft the next chapter of his life after basketball.

The five-time NBA champion ended his career in historic fashion just three months ago—with a 60-point sendoff against the Utah Jazz at Staples Center—but has been contemplating his next act since the early days of his Hall of Fame career.

“I started working at the age 21, 22 years old trying to figure out what that next thing was going to be,” said Bryant, whose estimated net worth of $350 million landed him in a tie for the No. 37 spot on the Business Journal’s annual OC’s Wealthiest list (see separate section with profiles, related stories this page).

“The most important thing is to figure out your passion,” he said. “For me it’s storytelling.”

The insights came during a keynote interview with the former MVP last month at Variety and Sports Illustrated’s inaugural Sports & Entertainment Summit at Vibiana, a special events venue in downtown Los Angeles.

Bryant, 37, talked candidly about his latest business venture, Kobe Inc., the Newport Beach-based publishing house and production studio where he said he has about 20 projects in the pipeline.

One project began to take shape as soon as he announced his plan to retire, with a poem titled “Dr. Basketball.” The poem—published in late November on The Players Tribune, a website founded by recently retired baseball great Derek Jeter to provide athletes their own communications forum—will be the basis for an animated show.

Assist

Bryant will get assists from John Williams and Glen Keane on the project. Williams has won Academy Awards for original scores on “Schindler’s List,” “Jaws,” “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” “Star Wars” and “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Keane, a Disney legend, was a lead character animator for “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Aladdin” and “Pocahontas,” among others.

Bryant said he wanted to team up with Keane and put animation to use in an effort to imbue the story of his love of the game and legacy with a modern take.

“I thought it was interesting to take an athlete’s perspective or a personal story of an athlete and then seeing if he could then transition that into a colorful piece of animation,” he said.

The series, produced by Kobe Studios, Believe Entertainment Group and Sports Illustrated, is scheduled to launch in the fall on SI.com and will include documentaries on the production process.

The process is dear to Bryant, who’s sought out advice from Hollywood elites, such as Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and Jerry Bruckheimer, on his latest venture.

Early Lessons

Some of the early lessons learned played out on the hardwood in Bryant’s 20th and final season in the NBA.

Bryant studied Williams’ process as a musician, which often begins with individual instruments and builds into a rhythmic crescendo. He began to incorporate the composer’s methodology into preparation for basketball games, carrying the outlook into managing the flow on the floor.

“I started looking at things at the smallest level, individually from my teammates to the opposition,” Bryant said. “That gave me a greater control for the entire landscape of the game. And that came from having lunch with John and hearing his process.”

Bryant’s obsession with basketball ended on the night of his last game in April. He said he watched hardly any of the NBA Finals and hasn’t shot hoops in weeks. He said he spends most of his time at Kobe Inc.’s offices on Monrovia Street in Newport Beach.

He’s currently working with an in-house team of writers developing storylines that link sports with some of his favorite genres: the classics, fantasy and mythology.

“It starts with the character,” said Bryant, already sounding more like a screenwriter than the third-highest scorer in league history. “It’s finding those levels of complexity with the character and seeing how they respond to situations.”

It’s a new sort of transition game for Bryant, who sounds as though he’s shifted his drive from the hardcourt to the boardroom.

“Building a championship team in basketball is the same as building a championship team in business,” he said.

The two-time Olympic gold medalist recently renewed a deal with Nike and will continue to be a big pitchman for the apparel maker, particularly in China, where he helped the game gain a foothold.

Next Chapter

Bryant seems content to turn the page from the sport that brought him fame and fortune, settling in behind the camera for the next chapter of his career.

“At some point, it’s going to come to an end, and for a lot of us it comes at a very, very early age,” Bryant said. “Finding a personal form of storytelling helps to inspire, it keeps me focused. It feels right to me—this is what I enjoy doing.”

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