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Rating

★★★★☆

4.2

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129 reviews

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2022 Webby award winner and People's Voice winner for best sports podcast! How did Kobe Bryant craft the passion, the determination, and the strength to become a legend? This remarkable series reveals intimate, never-before-heard tapes of Kobe as a teenager, exploring his thoughts, his dreams, and his goals. Philadelphia journalist Mike Sielski tells the story of Kobe Bryant’s early years, weaving together these tapes and speaking with Kobe's high school coaches, his friends, his family, and the figures who knew him in his youth, to paint an enthralling documentary portrait of the making of an icon. Before he was an outsized global basketball celebrity for the Los Angeles Lakers, a 5-time NBA champion, an 18-time All-Star, an Academy Award-winning filmmaker, a children’s-book author, a husband, a father, and sometimes a lightning rod for controversy, Kobe Bryant was a kid from Philadelphia. Cover photo © Eileen Blass – USA TODAY NETWORK

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Check latest episodes from I Am Kobe podcast

The Tapes

2021/11/16

Kobe Bryant: basketball superstar for the Los Angeles Lakers, five-time NBA champion, 18-time All-Star, Academy Award-winning filmmaker, children’s-book author, husband, father, sometimes a lightning rod for controversy and conflict, always a competitor beyond compare, a global icon.

The Bryant Family Legacy

2021/11/16

If you want to get to the heart of the Kobe Bryant story, you have to start with the Joe Bryant story, and that means you have to start with Philadelphia. One of the pieces of Kobe’s story that tends to get glossed over is that his dad also played in the NBA. Joe Bryant spent eight years in the league. But throwing out that fact and then moving on doesn’t capture the full picture of Joe’s career. Because long before Kobe Bryant was a high school legend around Philadelphia, Joe Bryant was a high school legend in Philadelphia. And his legend was every bit as grand as his son’s.

A Young Man in Lower Merion

2021/11/23

Kobe Bryant wasn’t quite flashing The Mamba Mentality yet. He was 13 years old and he was jumping into the middle of the school year at Bala Cynwyd Middle School. Then after a few more months, boom, he was heading to Lower Merion, a public high school in the suburbs just outside Philadelphia, a school where about 10 percent of the students were Black.

Phenom of Philly

2021/11/30

In 1995 high school basketball coach Gregg Downer created a staff of assistants for the purpose of coaching Kobe Bryant. Downer knew what he had in Kobe, and he knew what kind of attention Kobe would draw from opponents, from the media, from everywhere. So he did a really smart, really innovative thing: He brought on four assistants, and each coach would have his own specialized role.

We Need A Hero

2021/12/07

In 1995, when Kobe Bryant was making his rise through the high school basketball ranks, it would have been a miracle for Philadelphia's La Salle University to win an NCAA championship.

The Summer of '95

2021/12/14

In 1995 it was common for pro and college players to work out, scrimmage, and play pickup games together during the NBA offseason. Philadelphia 76ers General Manager John Lucas was so impressed with local high school basketball phenom Kobe Bryant that he asked if Kobe wanted to work out with the Sixers.

The Mind of a Champion

2021/12/21

The most dramatic Kobe Bryant story of his teenage years is the 1995-1996 season of the Lower Merion Aces. It doesn’t have to do with the NBA or Jerry Stackhouse or Kobe’s appreciation for his time in Italy or any of those things. It's about the community in which he grew up, the pressure that a young athlete feels to perform, and the joy that accompanies the achievement of a goal you’ve been chasing for years.

The Taste Of Fame

2021/12/28

Kobe Bryant on April 29, 1996, at Lower Merion High School, in a packed gymnasium, made it official: He wasn’t going to Duke. He wasn’t going to La Salle. He wasn’t going to North Carolina or Arizona or Michigan. He wasn’t going to college at all. He was going straight to the NBA. The Charlotte Hornets took him with the 13th pick in the NBA draft, then traded him to the Los Angeles Lakers. With that announcement, Kobe Bryant launched himself into the stratosphere of stardom, and he would remain there for the rest of his life. But for many weeks before that press conference, he had already been tasting celebrity, getting close to it, seeing what it was like, and sometimes it was hard for him to handle.

The Bond That Broke

2022/01/04

2001 was the year that Jeremy Treatman’s relationship with Kobe Bryant changed, because Kobe’s relationship with his family changed. 2001 was the year that Kobe married his wife, Vanessa, which led to a falling out between him and his parents, Joe and Pam. There’s been a lot of speculation about why the Bryant family fractured as it did. From what I gathered in talking to people who knew Kobe well back then, the problem came down to this: Kobe felt like he was ready to move fully into adulthood, to get married, and his parents thought he was too young.

Remembering Greatness

2022/01/11

“Kobe Bryant dead? That can’t be." Kobe Bryant’s death affected those people who knew him when he was a kid differently than it affected anyone else. It's not that Kobe’s Lakers teammates or his friends from the NBA weren’t profoundly saddened by his death but the connection between Kobe and people like Jeremy Treatman and his high school coach Gregg Downer and his classmates and teammates from Lower Merion High School was something else entirely.

Tricks of the Basketball Trade

2022/01/18

Let's drill down on the physical and mental attributes that made Kobe Bryant a great basketball player--the granular stuff that basketball junkies love. We examine each stage of Kobe's life and career through the eyes of someone who knew Kobe well at each stage. We have three coaches with ties to Kobe to break everything down. First, you’ll hear from Ashley Howard, who grew up with Kobe and played against him when they were kids. He had been Jay Wright’s top assistant coach on two national-championship teams at Villanova, and now he’s the head coach at La Salle University.

Legacy

2022/01/25

At the second anniversary of Kobe Bryant's death, we explore how the change in Kobe late in his career might have come about and what this “new Kobe” was like. We hear from Carmelo Anthony, future Hall of Famer, 9th-leading scorer in NBA history. And we hear from two players on Kobe’s hometown team: the Philadelphia 76ers. Mike Sielski spoke with Seth Curry and Tobias Harris about their vantage points on Kobe: what it was like to grow up watching him and what it was like to meet him and play against him. And more importantly, we spoke about why Kobe’s presence and spirit are still felt throughout the NBA.

Podcast reviews

Read I Am Kobe podcast reviews

4.2 out of 5

129 reviews

★★★★☆

Mooseyjoedabigdaddy 2022/01/12

Kobe

This is a very beautiful podcast. I would recommend it to anyone who listens to podcasts. The reason why I gave it four stars is that the tapes ofKobe...

★★★★★

Competitive Erger 2022/02/09

Inside Kobe's push to greatness

All too often, we settle for the sanitized, Cliff Notes version of superstars' stories. In contrast, Mike Sielski goes deep inside the formation of Ko...

★★★☆☆

LakersGirl24Forever 2022/02/02

3 Stars Because Poor Audio on Kobe Audio

Great informative podcast for new & lifelong Lakers / Kobe fans. I already knew of all the information that was said in this but I wanted to hear the ...

★★★★★

GxBraves 2022/02/02

I Am Kobe

Hands down, greatest sports podcast in its genre! I’ve ever heard a lot of podcast this style and this blows them out of the water, on to put the cher...

★★★☆☆

Pammgramm 2022/01/16

Poor sound quality

I was so excited to listen to this and found the poor sound quality of the tape recordings to be a huge distraction and simply couldn’t understand the...

★★★★☆

Ken gut 2022/01/10

Interesting

Why to bunch commercials and music for a podcast

★★★★☆

MattAppleUser5 2021/12/21

A good listen, if you are patient

This is a five-star podcast with excellent storytelling and good production. However, I rated it four stars based on the commercials. I understand tha...

★★★★★

moundvegas 2021/12/28

Buy the book

I pre-ordered the book and can’t wait for it to arrive. Amazing story and amazing podcast! Every week, I can’t wait for the next episode to come out...

★★★★★

marcus 3438 2021/12/22

Great

He’s one of my greatest role models despite the incidents that have occurred within his life only emphasizing that he is human as well, his work ethic...

★☆☆☆☆

sastrauss 2021/12/15

what about her?

not really into glorifying (alleged) rapists, basketball stars or not.

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