All of a sudden, Kobe Bryant is an old man. He's 31. The savvy old vet relying on cunning and skill. He's not the skinny, bald uber-athletic teenager who seduced us and frustrated us by jacking up four crunch time airballs against Utah in the playoffs. Kobe has become a paragon of longevity and (I can hardly believe I'm writing this about a star so polarizing) consistency. In the mold of Magic, Bird, and MJ, he's the only active member of his draft class to play his entire career for one team.
While Kobe has been the rock of the Lakers, the world has changed around him. On November 5, 1996, when Kobe scored his first professional point (on a free throw), all of the following were true:
- The Dow closed at 6081.
- Bill Clinton was in the White House.
- George W Bush was the Governor of Texas.
- A young, little known aspiring politician named Barack Obama was two months shy of being sworn into the State Senate in Illinois.
- A 22 year old White House intern, the President, and a cigar were getting intimately acquainted.
- Google did not exist and would not for nearly two more years.
- Mark Cuban, though he was already a millionaire, was not yet a billionaire. He wouldn't sell Broadcast.com to Yahoo for another 3 years.
- Nobody had heard of social networking or blogging. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was 12.
- Text messaging had just been invented and was sparsely used, primarily by deaf people.
- The first iPod would not be released for another 5 years.
- Steve Jobs himself was just triumphantly returning to Apple in the best prodigal son saga in American corporate history.
- LeBron James was the best 6th grade basketball star in Akron.
- Jeannie Buss had posed nude in Playboy the year before.
- The music charts were dominated by female vocalists (Alanis Morrisette, Celine Dion, Tracy Chapman, Jewel, Joan Osborn, Sheryl Crow, Toni Braxton, and Kobe's prom date Brandy).
- Madonna had not yet discovered Kabbalah.
- ESPN had not yet launched a web page.
- A 28.8 KB dial-up connection was considered fast.
- Airline passengers expected free meals on cross-country flights and didn't pay to check baggage!
- Friends was at the height of its popularity and we had just been
treated to the sight of Rachel dressing up as Princess Leia.
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